Roof on Verona's arena

Verona

2016

Design competition

A hollow “wall “of four meters wide, metal alloy, elliptical is on top of the Arena, as if reconstructing the third missing link of the amphitheater. Structural supports hold the wire rope wall raised above the Arena, as if it were floating on it without ever touching it. This feature allows you to clear and clearly highlight, through the portion of the shade and with a real detachment, the distance between what is old and what is new; emphasizing, perimetrically, the distance in time, material and formal of the two parts. To highlight this concept, it was thought to coat, in the external part, the metallic wall with a ventilated wall consists of planks of local natural stone; in continuity with the stone of the underlying Arena arches. This coating wall arises, for all its length, at a distance of about a meter compared to the jagged edge of the top of the Arena. It follows that the lower edge of the stone wall follows a non-uniform pattern, which follows the unevenness of the surface of the stone of the Arena. Conceptually the cable wall contains within it all the necessary technology (composed of steel cables, covers, hydraulic and mechanical systems, plant engineering, etc.) to close with an elastic membrane, the entire space above the stage and the audience. This type of mechanism allows a rapid phase of full opening and closing of the cover, ensuring the characteristics of versatility and reversibility provided by the notice. Furthermore the metal ring, being located along the inner perimeter of the Arena does not hinder the wing space that remains behind without being lapped. From the inside, the presence of the new element does not interrupt the current visual perception; indeed, when the cover is open, the metal wall becomes a separating strip between the tiers of stone and the blue sky, which returns to be the real "roof" on the Verona Arena.