2019-

The black continent has always fascinated me, so full of different cultures almost always generalized by the word "Africa".

Gripped by the burden that Western culture has inflicted on this land, added to my strong humanitarian bosom unearthed for a couple of years, I decided to participate in this competition that saw as theme a pavilion of Peace,in Senegal, for the commemoration of the victims who died during the African wars.

Prize: go to Senegal to build your project with your own hands. Wonderful! Already I imagined all sweaty with my hands in clay.

Although the pavilion had to be small, it was full of pitfalls!

The landscape was a succession of illogical dwellings, the usable materials had to be poor, able to be found in nature, maybe even recycled, and there had to be the possibility of collecting rainwater in order to allow the inhabitants to use it.

The Venetian imprinting, based on the philosophy of poetic concepts, was immediately felt.

The connection between water->purification and war->victims came almost natural.

The idea that I thought was brilliant was to represent the victims with seashells fixed in the ground. The moment the abundant rain had come and it would have gathered in this basin with the shells, it would have covered them.

The shells covered by water would symbolize the purification of the victims.
I found it a concept so strong and touching that it seemed to me winning; it is evident then that the commission made of architects from all over the world, had not had the same sensitivity taught in Venice.

The small and tender pavilion was a challenge!

I went crazy to calculate the right slope to make sure that the water was collected properly, I also went crazy to place all the bamboo canes inclined to create this front game, to let light into all areas and, depending on the position of the sun, give the pavilion mystical connotations thanks to the different shadings.
The coup de grace gave me the calculation of the price of the building.
Impossible to calculate the tons of clay necessary to build curved walls.
Perhaps it was precisely for the approximation of a price maybe not too truthful that the jury of Architects starred have decided to discard my project.

Not bad, because every time I look at him I feel proud.

I continue to support the decision to create an obligatory path among the images of the victims of wars to raise awareness before entering the room of contemplation (and collection of water) and I keep wondering how I managed to deliver on time, the night before he left for Thailand.

Here too the idea had a labyrinthine connotation, which made me start to think that it is my mind itself that is a labyrinth, insidious and changeable.

I may have other opportunities to get my hands dirty with clay, but now was not the time.