"Lampentouza, O Kathedrikos naòs tou Solomonta: Renato Rizzi", La Triennale di Milano, Milano, Italia = "Lampedusa, The Cathedral of Solomon: Renato Rizzi", La Triennale di Milano, Milan, IT

The project formulates the human tragedy in thought and then in architectural space, which brings into play again the whole European cultural tradition by means of three concepts which are fundamental to architecture: the work, the place, people. Three givens which today have been destroyed by the dissolution of form, by de-territorialisation, and de-personalisation. The Cathedral of Solomon is the opposite of the idea we normally have of a church. It is not a grand architectural mass, but a grand hollow. The island of Lampedusa itself becomes architecture. Its interior is emptied and its rocky body opens up to receive the boatloads of refugees arriving from Africa. A gigantic ark of salvation, in lonely awaiting, in the Mediterranean.