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Office for Usable Thinking
Beyond Parallelism
Competition 2023
Authors: Francesco Nardacci, Alessandro Minotti
Festival des Architectures Vives - FAV
Images: Francesco Nardacci

Sacredness is something unapproachable and untouchable, a pure feeling of a space or object. The architecture we soon imagined is a reinterpretation of an Italian renaissance masterpiece, the fresco “The creation of Adam” by Michelangelo which forms part of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. A representation that symbolizes a multitude of meanings: The creation of humans and their power, the strenght, the beauty and the Free will. With Beyond Parallelism we want to give freedom to users to discover the space and to capture the meaning of the architecture that through an abstraction process of the fresco wants to create a sacred scene to give a purpose to the forgotten courtyard. Free will is the key metaphor in Michelangelo’s fresco. God’s finger is outstretched, it’s there, but the decision to look for it depends on man, if he wants he will extend his finger, he will touch it, but if he doesn’t want to, he can spend his whole life without looking for it. Adam’s retracted finger represents free will. The metaphor is reproposed with the design of two towers, we identify the straight one with God, the sacred, while the inclined one with Adam, the human being. inclined tower which seeks the contact with the straight one, but they never touch. The tower is intentionally inclined and rotated by 23.27 degrees like the inclination of the earth’s axis to highlight the detachment between the sacred world, the straight tower, and the terrestrial world, the inclined tower. They are both positioned on a natural element, a Sand ground which recalls the importance of mother nature, the earth and birth, giving to space a metaphysical atmosphere with a sense of timelessness. Visitors can enter inside the two towers, in the straight one they will perceive a zenithal light, a divine symbol, while in the inclined one they will have a sensation of instability caused by the inclination, a symbol of terrestrial imperfection. The structure consists of a 70x70x400cm of metal carpentry covered by MDF painted panels. In fact, the towers will both have holes where visitors can insert their arms trying to reach each others hands. It is a playful architecture that relates with free will of interpretation, plays with light and dark spaces, generating a symbolic gateway to the sacred. In conclusion we want to represent the sacred as something beyond, separated from the human world, which cannot be approached without fear, and yet attracts The dynamic scene of the project is represented by an humans towards itself.