THE SKY OF F. D. G. M.
Festival di Micro Architettura (Fe.M)
X Septembris MDCCLXXV. Federico, the Duke, is returning from a hunting expedition. Before heading back to the Palazzo di Casteldurante, he allows himself a brief stop near the Barco.
In the garden of the hunting lodge, the Duke catches sight of the latest work he commissioned from his trusted architect, Francesco di Giorgio Martini. The structure is the chosen place for the Duke’s rest—an intimate space for reflecting and connecting with the cosmos. Francesco di Giorgio has designed one of his “naked forms” (as Manfredo Tafuri called them), a pure figure selected from the
catalogue of his fortified architectures.
The mass of Martini’s work seeks a relationship with the imposing scale of the Barco—the rows of trees and the wall in the landscape that seem endless. The dialogue is between the architecture and the intangible dimension of the park, with its natural and artificial elements that appear never to end.
The structure is a triangle open toward the wall in the landscape of the Barco— ideally, the fourth wall of the room. Inside the built space there is nothing; only a tree from the park’s row and a fallen trunk that allows one to sit and rediscover a dialogue with the sky.
The architecture is a fragment of military buildings, the pure form of a triangular tower—an open broken line. Simple wooden trestles support the cork walls. Small loopholes frame portions of the surrounding nature, seeking a dialogue with the openings of the Barco in the background.
As among the battlements of a bastion, the only perceived roof of the space is the blue of the ether. The Duke sits on a bare log inside, contemplates the sky, and breathes the scent of the bark covering the interior floor—the threshold between the park’s grass and the room in the landscape.
The day draws to a close, the horses are refreshed and ready to return to the Palazzo. With one last glance at the celestial vault, the Duke is ready to return to his Casteldurante.
