Memoria Mirabilis. Over-writing, not over-designing

Archaeology always inspires reconstruction, meaning that it pushes us to a reconstruction”– claims Aldo Rossi – adding that “dealing with a series of archaeological fragments, design is a creative work that uses an extraordinary material, which is memory itself”. Therefore, we should embrace the chance of continuing to write architecture, over-writing the fragments, putting words back into circulation, so that these, while retaining their ancestral scent, continue to live in the present. Thus, urban ruins could – and should – acquire new meanings in our time through contaminating architectural projects. Certainly, there are innumerable different ways to make it happen. The proposals submitted to the "Piscina Mirabilis" competition, in fact, suggest at least three possible designing strategies to properly tackle the theme of the relationship between archaeology and contemporary architecture: “designing-around”, “designing-above” and “designing-through” the ruin. In any case, despite the diverse approaches, memory as a designing material and driving force is the strong bond that keeps different ways of re-reading and re-functioning the ruin together.