Matrera Castle

After the partial collapse that this medieval tower suffered, it´s projected the consolidation of this landscape icon that lost part of its imposing volume, leaving at risk the stability of the rest popup, removing with it not only part from the architectural element, but also the landscape reference of a landmark very linked with the iconography and culture of the region. This intervention sought to achieve three basic objectives: to structurally consolidate the elements that were at risk; to differentiate the additions from the original structure (avoiding the mimetic reconstructions that the Spanish law prohibits) and to recover the volume, texture and tonality that the tower originally had (some little surfaces still remain). The essence of the project is not intended to be, therefore, an image of the future, but rather a reflection of its own past, its own origin. For the buttresses that guarantee its stability and for the reinforcements/protections of the internal degraded cores that had lost their exterior stonework, the same limestone was re-used which had collapsed. In its exterior face, the flesh was removed and in that the original white covering was retained in its interior face as well as an interesting fresco painting of a boat in tonality ochre. All the edges have been rethought from the details of geometric existing elements to mark its original volume. With brandian reference and in parallel with the practice in intervention of movable heritage, the project tries to approach the work in recognition of the “monumentum” (memory) in its physical consistency and its dual polarity, aesthetic and historical, in order to transmit to the future, and allows reading of the architecturally recessed unit. Likewise the upper casing defines its construction phases enhancing the original battlements shots that were hidden behind their stratigraphic superposition.