Project 1: Architecture for the island between memory and genius loci by Paolo Portoghesi

The first project has been proposed by the architect Paolo Portoghesi.
Find herebelow a short abstract from the author's report of the project; the complete original text (in Italian language) in PDF format can be read clicking on the side picture.
(Files .pdf require the installation of Acrobat Reader that can be downloaded for free HERE )

... The best way to return the island to the town is, in my opinion, to left it alone, as it is, natural as it has become to be after that the design of its "artificialization" has been baffled with the help of time and barbarians. What instead has to be transformed is the surroundings, the ambient in which it found itself after the construction of the "Lungotevere". ...
The project we present has the object to recreate the condition for a dialogue, to heal the wound with a sort of aesthetic surgery, in an urban dimension, bring again the town of the houses on the river, send cars away underground. ...
The two superficial traffic streams, which make dangerous to approach the river and build a psychological barrier between the river and the town could be moved down, even on two superimposed levels, two tunnels along the embankment, lighted and aired by means of big windows. Above ground only the local and pedestrian traffic would remain, while on the river sides, above the embankments, the town could grow again ...
The design of the wings is a "praise of the Roman window", an architectonical celebration of this great popular theme, unjustly forgotten ...
After reconstructing the wings along the river banks, the island would regain its lost secluded environment and it should be enough to cut just a little the embankments and reconstruct the vegetation on the banks to make it recover its original world, to reconstruct the balance between history and nature that constitutes its charm of the identity. ...
On the island just one gaudy addition ... a little temple (that one designed by the young Raffaello for the "Virgo's wedding"), in honor of the "genius loci", in honor of Tiberino, of Fauno, of Aesculapius and also in memory of the martyrs ... all that have been, in different times, subjects of veneration of this place.

1. Perspective of the river	2. Preliminary study	3. General bird's eye perspective
4. Preliminary studies	5. Elevations of the left bank of Lungotevere	6. General elevations of Lungotevere: left and right bank