Caracalla · Natatio · 2024
Eterna
Eterna
Bellezza.
Scroll
A temporary intervention inside the Natatio of the Baths of Caracalla. A light, dynamic structure built to host a photographic dialogue between Piranesi and Gabriele Basilico — two centuries of Rome, in black and white, observed from the same point of view.
The intervention is set within the natatio — the great open-air pool of the Baths of Caracalla, built between 212 and 217 AD. Eighteen centuries later, its towering brick walls still define the void where the structure now lands: a contemporary insert that does not compete with the ruin, but uses it as the second wall of the exhibition.
Fig. 01 — Daylight view · the structure between the walls
Fig. 02 — Interior path · scaffold and red carpet
The architecture is a light, demountable steel grid — a tubular scaffold lined with white panels that act as exhibition walls. The frame supports two levels of viewing and a continuous bordeaux carpet that cuts diagonally through the volume, guiding visitors from one end to the other.
Nothing touches the ruin. The intervention floats inside it.
By night · luminous cubes activate the ruin
At night the structure inverts: large illuminated cubes punctuate the volume, turning the exhibit into a constellation of light that re-inhabits the ancient void. The ruin becomes the backdrop of its own contemporary echo.
By day · structure read as scaffold
By day the structure is a thin geometric mark on the brick — a transparent scaffold that disappears against the monumental scale of the walls. Visitors read both at once: ruin and intervention, side by side.
The monumental engravings of Piranesi captured the grandeur and atmosphere of ancient Rome, fixing its proportions and ruins into a visual canon that still defines how the city is imagined.
Basilico photographed the same monuments through a contemporary sensibility — black-and-white views that read the ruin inside the urban fabric of today, with discipline and quiet respect.
"Two centuries apart, the same eye returns to the same wall."Eterna Bellezza — project note, 2024