San Quirico d'Orcia
The first testimonies of the pilgrimage roads that crossed Italy on the pilgrimage route from England to Rome are from 900 AD and are found in the diaries of Siegfried, archbishop of Canterbury, who reports crossing the region of Siena towards the south through the Orcia Valley. It became common in the time since then to build along the road small prayer chapels, which also served as landmarks for the routes themselves. To the original medieval constructive simplicity of this Pieve della Madonna di Riguardo, a Jesuit plaster altar typical of the Contro reforma in its splendor of shapes and figures was added in the 1600s, disruptive and iconic in representing the Roman Catholic spirit of the time, and strongly contrasting with the small and humble scale of the room. The pale blue clay stucco was chosen to cover the original stone walls, counterbalancing the white altar, while together rendering a luminous and urban religious atmosphere to the otherwise muted earth tones of the chapel itself.
The concept for its renovation is to explore the minimum degree of necessary and possible reconstruction which will allow maintaining the effects of natural light that deterioration and abandonment had activated on the interiors.
photo Florencia Costa
