On The Shoulders of Giants

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T.K. Justin Ng

14/08/2021

Year: 2018

Category: Cultural Architecture

From Antiquity to the Middle Ages to the Renaissance to Mussolini… The richness of Rome resides not in a single period but in its breathtaking sequence of successive incarnations. Each incarnation of Rome carries with it a new urban paradigm that grafts onto the existing city. The negotiations between urban paradigms are part of Rome’s eternal battle between the ideal and the real, the platonic and the circumstantial, the past and the future. Rather than associating ourselves with one paradigm, the Museo del Parco Celio plays with the relationship between periods of histories, clashing and contorting pieces of the past and the present to generate new narratives.

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The new Museo del Parco Celio neighbours great Roman monuments like the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill and the Circus Maximus. Unlike the existing museums at each monument, the new museum will weave together the narratives of different Roman monuments, providing visitors with a more congruous understanding of Roman history.

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The first part of our proposal are three lines drawn towards each monument. A ditch connects the Colosseum to San Gregorio al Celio; a ramp connects the entry gates of the Palatine Hill to a new Tower; an inhabited Wall connects the existing villa on the site to a view over the Circus Maximus.

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The rest of the buildings are underground. Unlike the axis, an icon of point and focus, they are laid out on a grid – no longer concerned with centre but rather with surface. Its interaction with the axis will be expressed through collisions of form and spaces.

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T.K. Justin Ng

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