(by Silvia Lambertucci)
Italian starchitect Massimiliano
Fuksas has presented his project for an inclining tower to be
built in the Slovenian port town of Capodistria that represents
a symbolic embrace between East and West and offers a new
perspective on Europe and the dream it represents.
Architecture is a discipline involving "stubbornness but also
tenderness" with the aim of leaving a mark, "not to celebrate
oneself but to improve things", said Fuksas at the presentation
in Trieste.
Architectural design always tries to "overcome the state of
affairs", to look ahead by intercepting the signs of a world in
flux, added the 74-year-old Roman architect who divides his time
between the Italian capital, Paris and Shenzen.
The tower is the brainchild of Studio Fuksas and the
Slovenian architect Sandi Pirš in response to a local
competition for the Capo Grande Tower linking the Giusterna
beach to Monte San Marco.
Construction work is due to start in September.
"In the beginning there was the functional problem to be
resolved, namely the need to link the lower part with the lovely
Giusterna beach to the summit of Monte S. Marco, with a
difference in height of 50-55 metres," Fuksas explained.
The architects resolved the problem by envisaging a double
ellipse structure inclined slightly towards the sea and able to
overcome the vertical height difference, with a children's
playground at the base.
With a total height of about 111m, the tower is joined to the
top of the mount and to a large circular building containing
bars, restaurants and cultural spaces, by way of a 100m
glass-covered bridge.
Half way up the tower there will be a lift taking visitors to
the top, and at nighttime the two intertwining spirals will be
illuminated with coloured lights.
The two intertwining ellipses represent the two cultures -
Italian and Slovenian - that coexist in the city of Koper and
throughout the coastline - sort of "Tower of Peace" between East
and West.
"It is the start of a process that will take years, but I
wanted take part in the beginning."
This idea is also present in the project in Jerusalem, where
Fuksas is renewing and restructuring the congress centre along
the lines of The Cloud in Rome's EUR district, with hotels,
offices and a shopping centre, and in Beijing, where his new
museum with a 300m tower will be completed between October and
December.
"The world is changing, Shimon Peres told me once that there
can be no democracy without innovation," Fuksas said.
"Let's try to look to imagine a future where the other is not
only an enemy and where the encounter and understanding between
different peoples and cultures help to overcome conflict".
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