Finalist

The Cyclopes are back!
Being misunderstood by many, the Cyclopes represent nevertheless the essence of Sicily’s landscapes. Simply because, they too have been born by the earth, the fire and the sea! The Cyclopes have come to Syracuse – that has fallen apart into the Greek Ortigia and its rural and industrious suburb – to rehabilitate the city and reset its Sicilian history in motion towards a prosperous future. For after its history of petrol what will Syracuse’s future be like: an outdoor museum and disadvantaged suburb? The rehabilitation of the former railroad is an interconnection, to which our Cyclopes dock on. The project enables joining together, setting limits, and building up future city districts thanks to new spaces of public realm, oriented towards the coastal landscape. It is the unique occasion to place the city’s marginalized districts into the very heart of Syracuse’s identity by embracing them with this project that will furthermore activate an interlacing of the spread out urban tissue on the scale of the city. Thus the ancient “primitives” Polyphem, Acamas and Steropes resettle on the coast and take form in three buildings of  “events” that incarnate the Cyclopes innate qualities: agro-biology, energy for creation and spectacles as well as energies originating from the sky: sun, water and  wind. By their nature and their ambitions, the Cyclopes and the “cyclopean” sites represent new spaces open for public, for interaction and sharing, susceptible of generating an economic and social valorization of the city, as well as further development of tourism. Thereby they engage Syracuse in a future based upon its very own resources. By awakening the myth, the Cyclopes invite us to reflect upon a new spectacular as well as sustainable landscape; attractive as well as anchored in its territory, poetic and concrete ….