Recent Design Competition

Our Concept

Our concept is simple, to give the old prison a taste of it own medicine. We are proposing to create a giant cage that will go over the top of the old stone prison, to imprison the prison! Except this time the cage will be a sculpture to house art instead of inmates.

The geometries of the cage will be sculpted in the shapes of the lower cavernous floors to have a chilling resemblance to the jail cells.
In the diagram to the left we are describing this formula or ‘‘ingredients’’ that form the overall concept. The Cage is the sculpture, the sculpture is a historical consequence of the original use.

Design approach

Favignana’s barren and desert-like landscape hides ancient secrets thousands of years old. The prison originally built by the Arabs as a watchtower, was enlarged by the Normans and
then used as a prison by the Bourbon Kings. Today it lies crumbling, a reminder of a violent past.

Our proposal does not intend to whitewash the buildings history, instead creating interventions that recognize the buildings past.
We want to explore the idea of cells for art rather than for prisoners, elaborating on the idea of solitude.