The Wine-Dark Sea

Europan 9 Competition, 2007
(with Daniel Schuetz and Yael Erel; associate team member: Dana Strasser)

“...And flashing-eyed Athena sent them a favorable wind, a strong-blowing West Wind that sang over the wine-dark sea...”
(Odyssey Book II)

This project is located on the deserted grounds of the ancient city of Siracusa. It is an architectural essay on the historical, mythological, and phenomenological dimension of the landscape of Sicily.  Traces of events in time are transformed into contemporary programs for a Mediterranean landscape garden.

Rather than proposing a master plan that covers the area of the entire site, the project identifies several nucleuses of future developments. Each individual program has a distinct relationship with the seashore and the limestone rock. They all react to the topographical conditions of the site, which are transformed into architectures that offer amusement, repose, education, and all kinds of experiences related to the the city of Archimedes, and the Homeric times: a bath, a music stage, an orchard, a refuge, an observatory, etc. The individual sites are connected by paths that follow ancient and modern and by imaginary traces: The railway track, the footprint of the Dionysian wall, and the mythical seashore.

These architectures are progressive interpretations of the city’s collective and individual memories that allow for a radical construction of the city’s future. Philosophical sustainablility is a prerequisite for a sustainable development in general.

“Not even the summit of mount Etna, from where you can see the mosts gorgeous islands, three seas, and the coasts of Italy swimming in light beneath your feet, has inspired my feelings more intensely than the golden evening silence over the endless death field of Syracuse. The sensations of nature are not as closely related to the human spirit as those of history; they don’t have a memory. Siracusa is a city embedded in history and washed by myth.”
(Ferdinand Gregorovius)

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.