Ellie Sampson - Choreographing Decay
Can architecture embody a re-imagined historical record?
Preserved objects and architectural elements exist within a hierarchy: the past is curated to showcase something with ‘universal significance’. The Torcello Typology Repository responds to the way in which museums have to constantly filter information and the ongoing categorisation of artefacts. By responding to the city’s habit of composing new settlements from an array of salvaged materials, the Repository recreates and intensifies the lagoons destructive processes, and in doing so reveals the resilience or weaknesses of traditional Venetian materials and building methods. Situated next to Torcello Island, within the sparsely populated northern area of the lagoon, this new elevated island is a monument to the slowly sinking, eroding and crumbling landscape which surrounds it.