Invisibility of the visible talks about simple phenomena regulating our environment and life, beyond ordinary vision. The invisible is therefore the thread of the narrative, the place from which the story was born; it takes shape through perception and intuition. A world drawn in dots, in transparency, revealing an invisible hidden in the neutrality and anonymity of everyday life, hidden in the simplicity of things.
«I’m talking about a world where at the same time you can see everything without seeing it, because everything emerges and hides and shows and dims» (Italo Calvino, The road to San Giovanni, 1991).
The project aims to express the spirit of the Aven river through the valorization of the intrinsic characte- ristics of the site. Those elemtary elements are manifest components that embodied the territory and determine its character : water stone and wood.
These, besides being objective entities, also have an intangible configuration loaded with symbolic values that can be traced, for example, in the ancient cult of nature proper to the Celtic populations. Water, stone and wood are therefore materials of a collective consciousness, shaped by the action of man and his stories. They are the narrative structure of Pont Aven that can be found in its mills, old wash-houses and traditional architecture.
By breaking down the limits that separate it from its context and introducing the natural components within the project, the Belle Angèle is transformed from a static sequence into a new chapter of the narrative in which nature and construction are the expression of the same language. Unlike the artistic heritage created by the School of Pont Aven that over the years has transformed the natural lands- cape into an object of contemplation, the project sees nature as a resource, a dynamic reality that becomes the protagonist of the narrative. In this sense, the landscape becomes a fabric of concrete relationships that involves men and the environment, and not a mere fragment of nature. This interac- tion contributes to the genetic development of animal and plant species and promotes the increase of biodiversity.
A landscape that bears witness to the remains of an industrial past that preserves traces of a way of production surpassed by the advance of history. A fluid and constantly moving landscape in which nature reappears in its spaces.
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Architects : Atelier POEM (@atelierpoem) Alice Cecchini – Roman Joliy
Collaborators on the project : Mathieu Nouhen
Name : Invisibility of the visible
Type : Urban regenaration, landscape and architecture design. Status : Unbuilt – Competition
Location : Rue de la Belle Angèle, Pont Aven, Bretagne, France. Date : 2021
Competitions : Europan 16 Award : Runner Up – awarded project
