Rohan Humphrey Y4
Time in Transit The 2025 ‘Caput Mundi’ Jubilee in Rome, along with its tedious preparations, brings forth questions of the city’s urban-cultural competency. Millions of Euros spent on a palimpsest of restoration work to further Rome’s ‘overtourism’, leaves public transport and urban spaces overwhelmed. This project offers a new lens in which to experience Rome’s heritage whilst guiding tourism away from the city centre.
The program involves the relocation of monuments that clutter urban centres, starting with The Temple of Apollo. The ruins are excavated and transported to an intermediary site spawned from a joint venture between UNESCO and the British School at Rome, accommodating research spaces that embrace the monument when it docks. The building hosts BSR scholars as an offsite hub for replicating heritage. A disused ruin of an aqueduct holds up the structure: an approach to disruptive conservation that celebrates the engineering of Rome’s past. With environmental consideration throughout, the monument moves on to end its life on a forgotten periphery of Rome where it can return to nature, revitalise environments and become an emblem for ecological education initiatives.
