Amelia Tavella and Rudy Ricciotti have won the bid for the Henri Tomasi Conservatory of Music, Dance and Performing Arts. Selected by the city of Ajaccio, the designers proposed an integrated building into the Corsican slope.
Scheduled for delivery in 2022, the simple-looking building “offers a peaceful haven to the local residents”. As a driver of social development in the future eco-district of Finosello, the landmark building will also house a 200-seat auditorium and the Municipal School of Music. Imagined as a centerpiece of the area, the monument creates “a steep granite cliff reminiscent of the island’s ancient walls while harmoniously blending into its surroundings”.
With a shared obsession for beauty and aesthetics, Amelia Tavella and Rudy Ricciotti’s collaborative work generated a project that emphasizes the aesthetic quality of the surrounding landscape and resolves the challenges that this type of topography engenders. Buried, to clear the view, the project is, nevertheless, bathed with natural light. Moreover, the architects have proposed to immortalize one of Henri Tomasi’s musical works into the brise soleil granite facades, blending the different aspects of the edifice, and creating a structure “where architecture meets a multi-faceted work that is inextricably linked to Corsica”. The facades representing a musical score, “juxtaposes silence and sound, darkness and light […] The rhythm, the pauses and the pitches are conveyed by the voids and the dual waviness of these high monoliths”.
Rudy Ricciotti, famous architect and engineer, is the recipient of France’s Grand Prix National d’Architecture in 2006 and the Médaille d'Or de l’Académie d’Architecture. As a pioneer for the use of Concrete, his most renowned projects include the Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (MUCEM) in Marseilles, the Musée Jean Cocteau in Menton and the Musée Mémorial du Camps de Rivesaltes.
Amelia Tavella, born in Ajaccio, Corsica, was named in 2018 the “rising star of French architecture” by the “Choiseul Ville de Demain” ranking amongst the top 100 young leaders shaping the city of the future”. Her architecture signature characterized by sensuality and love of noble materials evoke the memory of the places. Her projects include the Centre Administratif et Culturel in Porticcio, Edmond Simeoni School and Cultural Centre in Lumio, the Pifano media center in Porto-Vecchio, and the urban landscaping of the Citadel in Ajaccio.
- Project: The creation of the Henri Tomasi Conservatory of Music, Dance and Performing Arts in Ajaccio (Corsica).
- Architects: Rudy Ricciotti & Amelia Tavella
- Scenography: Scénarchie
- Structural engineering consultant: Lamoureux & Ricciotti
- Building services engineering consultant: Garcia Ingénierie
- Acoustics engineering consultant: Thermibel
- Quantity surveyor: Beaumeco
- Lighting engineers: LM5P
- Project owner: Ville d’Ajaccio - Ametarra SPL
- Surface area: 3 200 m2
- Schedule: Studies and Design 2019-2020, Construction 2021, Delivery 2022
