Johnston Marklee

Grand Traiano Art Complex Museum . Grottaferrata

photos: Johnston Marklee . utopiad

Defined by a new alphabet of building blocks, The Grand Traiano Art Complex creates a mask of disparate elements that unite into a coherent urban environment. Unlike such precedents as Tschumi’s Parc La Villette, where pavilions index an inscribed grid, the site will include the headquarters for DEPART Foundation, artists-in-residence studios, and exhibition pavilions within a matrix of mixed-use programs and parkscape, weaving together new and existing site and building features. As islands within an archipelago, the art spaces that constellate the Grand Traiano Art Complex both diversify the breadth of the DEPART Foundation’s collection and exhibitions and define a new kind of urban theater with stages for art, landscape and outdoor recreation.