Piscina Mirabilis is a Roman reservoir built by Emperor Augustus in the 1st century AD, in order to feed with drinking water the headquarter of his western Mediterranean war fleet. It was dug out a tuff hill, and it is based on a regular grid of pillars and arcs, with vaulted ceilings.

Participants of this competition are asked to reuse this space as a Contemporary Art Museum. Is it possible to bring life back inside one of the most important reservoirs of the ancient world?

The answer to this question is in the hands of the architects, the engineers and the students who participated to this competition.

Here’s to the winner projects and the mentions.

Competition Trailer

Competition publication

The mission outcomes have been collected into a dedicated publication.

Reuse Italy’s Dossier n. 2 – Reuse the Roman Ruin is a collection of the first 50 projects, together with articles and analyses to frame the cultural event into the history of that heritage and look towards possible futures.

A preview of the publication is available on the books page.

2nd

Alessandro de Cadilhac, Lorenzo Gaveglio

1st

Simone Baccaglini, Marco Agosti

3rd

Maura Pinto, Piervito Pirulli

Awards ceremony and Exhibition

Competition's Jury

Call for papers "Life within ruins"

Life within Ruins. Essays on architecture restoration and reuse proposals for Piscina Mirabilis” is an incoming book, including essays on the topic of Architecture Restoration from worldwide researchers and the projects on the reuse of Piscina Mirabilis, to be published on 2021 with ISBN. The editorial board currently welcomes abstracts from University researchers, PhD candidates, professors and any other independent scholar affiliated to an institution or a cultural organization.

A gift from MAXON!

MAXON offered a 90 DAYS subscription to CINEMA 4D (instead of the normal 15 days), to those who participated to our contest! And they could also fully access to CINEVERSITY tutorials for 90 days!

Archipelago, a call from KooZA/rch

What is the museum today? As a point of departure for the ‘Piscina Mirabilis’ competition, KooZA/rch invited the participants to reflect upon the role of this cultural institution in our contemporary society.

KooZA/rch prepared for the participants of the contest a Pinterest board super full of cool references and ideas: take a look at it!

Partners

Supporters