The Divine Comedy

Inspired by Dante’s, Divine Comedy, my project seeks to architecturalise the journey through Inferno, to Purgatorio and Paradsio beyond. Beginning in the seas of Camerota, Italy, Dante enters into a cavern that symbolises the raw brutality of humanity, as experienced in Canto I, Inferno. He must make the long and arduous journey upwards, his pathway illuminated only by the light he receives from above. Upon exiting the deep subterrain, he enters Purgatory – a deep pit with a spiralling walkway that he must ascend. Water and light trickle in from above, leading him to a final meeting space where Beatrice awaits to lead him on to Paradise.

 

Through this narrative, my project sought to explore how a person might experience the permanence of space as a passing moment – as if grand architecture were created to be only a fleeting moment. It seeks to put into question the fragility of the tangible and in doing so, place greater importance on the experience created by architecture.