Journal

Versione Italiana

The memorial is in a plain lying between two green mountains. In fact, Rab is one of the most densely wooded parts of the Adriatic, with its laurels, cypresses, poplars, pines, ancient agaves, prickly pears, rosemary bushes and more than three hundred natural springs. The timeless landscape drops down towards the sea, occasionally interrupted by well-conserved, solid, ancient dry-stone walls amid olive groves and holm-oaks, creating a truly bucolic Mediterranean vision.
A wall of white Istria stone runs along the slight slope of the plain to encompass the monument in a continuous line.
Edvard Ravnikar’s design features the wall as a local landmark mediating the relationship between the past and the landscape.
Outside, beyond the boundary designed by the architect, the natural and ancient manmade environment appears unchanged, with the ancient walls perpetuating the archaic image of the sacred area complete with altar, and the enclosure for the livestock. Inside, the sought-after image is one of architectural ruins: in recalling the fascination and beauty of Mediterranean archaeological sites, this work successfully conceals its contemporary nature. The idea of the archaeological dig, of the ruins of a city unearthed, is revealed in the use of the low wall in a perspective sequence. Architectural devices recall the constructional elements: the cornerstones and framework of an antiquity evoked to reinforce our perception of constructions as boundaries between interior and exterior, between time brought to a halt (represented by the memorial) and the seasons that come and go in the surrounding countryside.
A quadrilateral vestibule introduces an overall view of the monument, like the temple cella, surrounded by a continuous, thick stone wall. The Istria stone paving is contained within large squares: quadrangular paved walkways stand out against a background of random fragments: stunted columns, memorial stones and altars rise up from the paving, arranged according to the perspective axes; these are designed relics, architectural ex-voto offered in sacrifice to historical memory and to the project.
Edvard Ravnikar’s maestro, Josef Plecnick, taught him the importance of that historical continuity intrinsic to monumentality. Despite the fact that in freeing himself from the language of his maestro, he subsequently worked with Le Corbusier, his work remains rooted in the classical ideal, as is clear when he says: “we like to forget that there are no other rules in architecture other than the classical ones, even when we want to be revolutionaries”. ¹
The path is paved in Istria stone arranged in a herringbone pattern around a centre channel that follows the slope of the ground, and is interrupted by the occasional small flight of steps. Segment sof white rock lie on the grass at the sides; one stone for each of the deceased. The stones emerge horizontally with the increase in the slope: firstly kerbstones, then terraces, and finally prismatic blocks. Laid side by side in the ground, they trace the design of suffering and of compassion. Beyond the tombs, on one side, the luminous paving of the ossuary, set up against the introverted arcosolium, the only space completely unrelated to the horizon.
The path ends where it meets up with the enclosure: the walk terminates at this obstacle, but the theoretical path continues in a straight line towards the sea, that is, towards the origins of the classical myth.
From Central Europe to the Mediterranean.

Alessandro Vicari

Notes
* The re-edited essay has been taken out from the volume by Alfonso Acocella, Stone architecture. Ancient and modern constructive skills, Milano, Skira-Lucense, 2006, pp. 624.
¹ This quote is taken from the essay by Isotta Cortesi: “Edvard Ravnikar. Memorial di Kampor, isola di Rab”, Area no. 56, 2001, pp. 6-17.