The area of Vitruvius’ Basilica cannot be treated as an ordinary urban intervention. Here, archaeology, everyday life, ownership, memory and the city’s future enter the same field of decision.
The competition should therefore be international, interdisciplinary and open to more than architects. Archaeologists, landscape architects, museologists, artists and specialists in communication and digital technologies can contribute to a vision that does not necessarily involve constructing a new object.
The question before the answer
Free the entire area? Preserve some buildings? Make the Basilica perceptible without rebuilding it? These are scenarios to test, not conclusions to conceal within a competition brief.
The competition’s quality will depend on the quality of its brief, the research materials provided and the jury’s ability to assess cultural, urban and social proposals together.