Author:

Keywords:

Renovation, Tensile, Lalibela, Churches

Abstract:

AP was amongst the eight firms chosen to participate in the international competition in 1999 for a temporary shelter for five twelfth century churches in Lalibela, Ethiopia. Working with Franck Franjou, the project was conceived as a semi-translucent ‘cloud’ floating above the sacred site in such a way as to preserve the continuity between the monument and the landscape out of which it was carved. A variety of factors generated and determined by the consecrated area were mapped. These contextual parameters came to define the active form of the shelters, through an elimination process. This form comprises different but complementary secondary landscape, the structure appearing to belong to the sky as well as the all-encompassing earth.