Architecture + Landscape Architecture in Rome/ University of Washington Final Studio Review

“How do you design a museum dedicated to a subject that is constantly in flux? – a living, flowing, dynamic system? This is the challenge of the “Museo del Tevere,” a new foundation proposed for the site of a former Papal Arsenal on the banks of the Tiber river, just beyond the city walls at Porta Portese. For two decades there has been discussion of creating such a museum, but so far little progress has been made. Perhaps this is because the museum is difficult to define, lacking precedent. Or perhaps it is because the Tiber has become a forgotten river, flowing silently (most of the time) through Rome. Formerly the commercial life- blood of trade, the source of water, sanitation and power for grain mills, it is now bounded by high embank- ments and pathways for high speed automotive traffic. It has been reduced to a picturesque foreground for tourist photographs, a semi-developed bicycle path, a home for the homeless, a shadow of its former self. Or is it? Your challenge is to re-interpret the river, its place in the city, and its future by making proposals for a museum that seeks to serve as a lens to re-focus attention on the Tiber.”