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Roman Villa La Olmeda

The project consists in the protection of a 4th Century Villa. In this intervention archaeology is confronted to modernity, and the building is confronted to nature. The magnificent mosaics, hidden for centuries under a rural landscape, are the aim of this Museum and so is the integration of new architecture in the landscape. The metal perforated facade provides homogenous lighting to the interior that is covered by a light laminar roof organized in four vaults with a modular rhomboidal structure exposed in the inside as a coffered ceiling. A raised wooden floor joins all the archaeological zones and gets narrow and expands with a disposition for an open display. The space of the rooms is built up with a translucent perimeter of metal mesh as a frame for the mosaics that do not interfere with the wide metallic roof that covers the area. These concepts wish to make visitors aware of the unitary character that these fragments of the past had, favouring the views of the mosaics in differentiated ambits and showing the villa’s original layout.