Vincenzo Latina – Artemis Garden

PROJECT: Vincenzo Latina – Artemis Garden

LOCATION: Siracusa

YEAR: 2003

ARCHITECT / FIRM: Vincenzo Latina with Silvia Sgariglia

BUYER: Municipality of Siracusa

SURFACE: 1.000 sqm

PRICE: € 93.000

DESCRIPTION:
"...the Municipal Administration of Syracuse has entrusted the task of extraordinary maintenance of the area of S. Sebastianello, between the Senatorial Palace and the Town Hall in Via Minerva. The mythological re-enactment of the place, suggested instead the creation of the garden of Artemis ...".

TOTAL CONSERVATION / CONTINUITY: The functional program remains the original one.

DESCRIPTION:
The realization of the garden of Artemis is only the first phase of a global intervention, which also concerns the arrangement of the "free" area on Via Minerva through the construction of a pavilion access to the excavations of the Ionic Temple. According to a process of vivification of historical memory and mythological imagery, the aim was to recover both the potential of a strongly stratified area and some of the original meanings of the places, responding to the suggestions inspired by the strong mythological connotation of the site. This space was thus imagined as an "offering" to Artemis who, in the mythological imagination, is represented as a virgin goddess of fertility, protector of wild beasts, forests, and nymphs.

TOTAL CONSERVATION / CONTINUITY: The investor is the property owner.

DESCRIPTION:
Municipality of Siracusa

- SURFACE present EXTENSION,

PREVALENT CONSERVATION / CONTINUITY: The overall dimensions increase moderately with respect to the pre-existing surface.

- VOLUME present NO VARIATION,

TOTAL CONSERVATION / CONTINUITY: The overall dimensions are equal to the pre-existing volume.

DESCRIPTION:
The works created were imagined as "devices" designed for the natural flora of the site. In fact, after a few months from the end of the works, the spontaneous essences have conquered again their natural space through a natural and cyclical "invasion" of the garden. It is a lush vegetation, among which prevails the Ailanthus Altissima, also called the tree of heaven or paradise.

TOTAL CONSERVATION / CONTINUITY: There are no new spaces.

DESCRIPTION:
The steel crack that gives shape to the fence works directly with nature and on nature, highlighting its centrality: it welcomes inside the indigenous plant species that suddenly come out, and then disappear cyclically in a play of shadows caused by the thick foliage of some shrubs.

TOTAL CONSERVATION / CONTINUITY: The original supporting structure is fully preserved and there are no new structures.

DESCRIPTION:
The interventions carried out are mainly reversible, low-impact and compatible with the archaeological characteristics of the site. In fact, the various differences in level in the area, the remains of past excavation campaigns about to collapse, were contained by sheets of oxidized steel, mounted "dry", which demarcate the differences in level of the garden and are arranged as a regular sequence of separate panels, characterized by steel mesh gratings.

TOTAL CONSERVATION / CONTINUITY: The materials chosen for the new intervention are similar to the pre-existing ones.

DESCRIPTION:
The most exciting moment is in spring when nature-Artemide becomes present, not only as an object of contemplation, but as a living material and material of architecture, to no extent an artifact. Spontaneous essences invade the place: the cold steel plates of the fence and the overlapping perimeter wefts of electrowelded mesh incorporate and frame the flowers of different colors that resurface with great vigor.

TOTAL CONSERVATION / CONTINUITY: The new intervention is in total mimetic continuity with the existing structures.

DESCRIPTION:
What made the area particularly fascinating was its decade-long abandonment, the cause of the great bud of spontaneous essences, which suggested creating an intimate interweaving between the artifice of the intervention and the spontaneous force of nature and the plant essences present.