The prize-winning projects
LESSINIA ARCHITECTURE
Various Local Councils in the northern mountain zone of the Province of VeronaMotivation of the Jury:
This exceptional collective work, inspired by centuries of good building practices in popular Lessinia architecture, is a unique and extraordinary example of the total use of stone local over a large territory.
Description:
The rural architecture and anthropised landscape of Lessinia, the large mountain territory to the north of Verona, is the result of skilled and creative use of a local stone material - Prun Stone or Lessinia Stone - characterised by a very particular geological structure.
It is a slab-like sedimentary limestone (two versions: “Veneta red flaked” and “ammonitic red”) formed by the overlapping of thin rock strata easily split and cut into slabs of impressive dimensions for a huge variety of applications. This "natural-split" stone was worked by the anonymous stone carvers and humble bulders who designed the architecture and landscape of huge areas in the Veronese mountain territory; they used this material in the form of slabs and ashlars in all aspects of agricultural and residential constructions, from masonry to roofs, flooring, stairs and the cornices of doors and windows. Extensive use throughout the territory - from piling of vineyards to partition walls of properties - has seen this material give rise to gigantic collective works of Land Art unequalled in any other European mountain area.
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Within the huge scope of such vernacular production in Lessinia, particular recognition was assigned to a very singular construction:
The "Modesto" stable and ice house
Roverè Veronese, Verona, ItalyThis is a small rural building with an ice house annex, built between the end of the 1800s and the early 1900s, named after its "architect" - farmer Modesto Paggi (1843-1928). The stable, installed by overlapping enormous slabs of "knife-laid" stone, exploits the idea of wooden constructions to bond the monolithic stone materials together. Integration with the site and the surrounding landscape makes this building a poetic and memorable architectural work.
Stone materials used:
slabs of Lessinia Stone and ammonitic red
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