The austere, evocative installation designed by Vincenzo Latina specifically for Marmomac 2018.
A mythological vision, emphasised by the highly refined assembly of the project image inside a 1700s painting, underlies the inspiration for the Tower at the entrance to Hades emerges in this work by Vicenzo Latina for the Architecture for Water exhibition scheduled in The Italian Stone Theatre during Marmomac 2018. The pool of water – the element characterising the concept of this year’s event dedicated to excellence in Italian natural stone – is interpreted by the architect from Siracusa as a deep and dark lake: hence the reference to an imaginary, mysterious and mythological entrance to the Underworld at the edge of this lake, highlighted by the evocative stone tower acting as an entrance gate.
The cladding of the tower largely involves grey granite slabs (Silver Cloud) alternating with thin strips of black granite (Zimbabwe Absolute Black). The faces of the cladding lining were processed with several techniques, from the roughest at the base to the smoothest at the top: an effect that emphasizes of the tower’s idealised floating on the water and the black bed of the pool. The large blocks of grey granite are fragmented at the base and then recomposed on the top of the tower, thereby ensuring a harmonised framework for the central passageway. While this installation seeks to take visitors on a mythological journey into the afterlife, with the sequence of thin bands of Zebra Grey stone alternating with a fine grain black quartz – the elements in the composition for Just created for the Carpets of Stone exhibition in 2015 – Vincenzo Latina sought a pleasing moment of suspension along the sequence of imaginary stone carpets, the result of projects by the international designers invited to collaborate with a number of companies in the sector. Lastly, it should also be recalled that Latina was among the winners of the International Stone Architecture Award in 2003 for the new interior courtyard for the Bottari block in Siracusa and that, more recently, he took a highly prestigious second prize awarded by the International Competition for the coverage of the Arena Amphitheatre in 2017.
