Atelier Poem's Architectural Masterpiece

This work was created in line with the philosophy of the Festival des cabanes of Villa Medici in Rome, as a tool for social connection and rediscovery of the historic gardens of the Villa. Ferdinando de' Medici developed the project at the end of the 16th century. La Timidezza delle chiome is a small cultural centre, identified as a place of transition and contamination between the surrounding environment and the life hosted within it. It is suitable for hosting artistic and cultural events, resting, reading and playing. The project is a reflection on the relationship between architecture, man and nature. It seeks to synthesize through form those theoretical, aesthetic and practical values ​​valid in the past as in the contemporary. It is based on the concept of cabane rustique by Laugier in his Essai sur l'architecture (1753). Through the varied activities hosted within it, La Timidezza delle chiome animates the gardens by spreading and preserving the historical and natural heritage.

This work, located at the entrance to the Villa Medici's vegetable labyrinth in Rome, is a compromise between the Vitruvian point of view of the primitive hut and what Le Corbusier called the temple primitif. It is configured as a basic element for reading the fabric and a temporary extension of the Villa itself, taking up its proportions through a simple and harmonious geometry based on the golden section. The fifteen modules that compose it follow one another regularly without touching, creating a mosaic-like structure from above and below. The gaps between the modules establish essential pauses for the understanding of the work, evoking the image of a forest and the phenomenon of the shyness of the foliage. The structure is made of wood, has no foundations, and rests on the ground through anchoring systems, allowing it to be easily assembled and disassembled. The key to understanding the work is the forest metaphor of the clearing used by Heidegger, and the concept of -ma- in Japanese culture. This changing place is able to adapt to different uses, in which to experiment with new relational and spatial configurations.