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SKYLIGHT-TOWER

type: architecture/visualization
year: 2015
location: Isola del Giglio, IT
collaboration: Simon Treml

A reinterpretation of the lighthouse - at the site of the disaster of the ship »Costa Concordia« in 2012.

The meaning of the lighthouse has changed significantly over centuries and, due to technical innovations such as GPS, the building type in its conventional sense got obsolete. Which inevitably leads to the question which connotation is allocated to the signal of luminescence today.
For us it is clear that this emotionally charged location, which claimed 32 human lives, has to be a site of remembrance. On the one hand a quiet place of devotion, on the other hand a shining signal to the victims of January the 13th, 2013.
While the tower silhouette with its geometric shape becomes a permanent sculpture in the landscape, it will be illuminated in all its glory for a few hours on January the 13th - the memorial day. The special »memorial skylights« are distributed to the people all over the island.
The public commemorating the victims while wandering with their lanterns to the tower, lighting them at the »eternal flame« and letting them ascend into the tower. Gradually the tower shines brighter and brighter until it is ablaze with light. It becomes the center and the altar of the commemorative ceremony which ends at 21:30, the time of the disaster. As the final act of ceremony the roof of the tower opens and the lanterns fly into the sky.