Castle Exhibition Space

Castle Exhibition Space 

Amelia Tavella

Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini

ARCHITECTS
Amelia Tavella

LEAD TEAM
Amelia Tavella

PHOTOGRAPHS
Thibaut Dini

AREA
1700 M²

YEAR
2023

LOCATION
France

CATEGORY
Hospitality Architecture, Museums & Exhibit, Adaptive Reuse

Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini

Text description provided by architect.

Corsican architect Amelia Tavella has recently brought a secret, slumbering castle back to life in her southern homeland, nestled within a Provencal vineyard.

Within the castle's 1,600m2 central body, the architect has created a unique and mysterious exhibition space, surrounded by a dozen exclusive suites in the two wings of the castle.

Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini

The museum space, like the suites, steeped in Amelia Tavella's Mediterranean spirit, is «a path under the alcoves.» «Here, mineral, organic matter pulses. Cut, red, veined, this material resembles flesh. It is naked, chiseled, hollowed out, raw.

This skin is offered to the hand that caresses it. It could be alive and beating before our eyes. It could move and embrace us. Walls and floors do not clash; they gaze at each other, extend, and speak of the work of men.

Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini

Terracotta bricks, stone with split finishes, the solitary wanderer walks in a jewel box, observing, and in turn, will be observed.

The power of spaces exists. It carries and protects those who understand the poetry of architecture when it is built in the name of memory. And if the cut stone recalled that of the menhirs dedicated to the sky?

Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini

And if the vaults and the arrangement of the rooms constituted the geography of a sacred place where we once used to pray? And if the labyrinth of walls were that of a resurrected mythology?»

This place expresses Amelia Tavella's architectural gesture, tied to the sensuality of noble, natural materials and respect for the past.

Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini

She describes herself as a symbolic archaeologist, exploring the tracks, signs, and traces of a previous history to build with full fidelity.

Nature is always invited, both as an element of the décor and a witness to the origins; it honors the buildings that stand within it and vice versa.

Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini

The architect has chosen gentleness and poetry for her gesture, never forgetting that buildings are first and foremost meant for those who will live in them.

Here, architecture is not a solitary practice; it is dedicated to others, to the collective, embedded in an unchanged territory.

«When I build, I do not undo. There is no betrayal. I proceed by inclusion. Nature invades my projects.

Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini

It is neither an obstacle nor a constraint; it is my guest whom I celebrate. The Mediterranean is my matrix. I come from there, from this unique place.

A child of the maquis and the sands, I learned the complexity of my architectural profession here.

Sea, rock, beach—my femininity has embraced the femininity of this sea, working delicately, drawing inspiration from the sediments, soft, original matter.

Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini

My Mediterranean island taught me light, color, constantly reminding me that there is no valid creation without ethics and that history is the cradle of the present.

It is an echo, then a fusion. I use the materials of my south to make it reborn from itself each time.

One single word encompasses and gives momentum to my architect's wish: ethics. Thus, my artistic approach is built, connected to my roots, to the origin.»

Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini

A room as romantic as this was needed to welcome, for an evening, the drawings of writer Nina Bouraoui, Variations, her vast, deconstructed hearts, veined, composed of fine, intertwined lines reflecting the obsessions, repetitions, defeats, and victories of romantic feelings.


Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini


Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini


Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini
Castle Exhibition Space
© Thibaut Dini


Castle Exhibition Space
Detail Plan
Castle Exhibition Space
Detail Elevation 1
Castle Exhibition Space
Detail Elevation 2
Castle Exhibition Space
Detail Section A
Castle Exhibition Space
Detail Section A
Castle Exhibition Space
Detail Section B
Castle Exhibition Space
Detail Information