Monument to the Fallen

The restoration of the Monument to the Fallen turned into the opportunity to build the ceremony square the village of Cavallasca was not provided with. The monument consists of a bronze bas-relief of the twenties of the past century representing St Michael. The sculpture has been relocated in the cemetery entrance square that has been converted into a memory park.

Planning the square and the park, we tried to combine the commemorative instance with the recreational one, so we designed a framework to save the metaphysical value of the monument and not to degrade it to simple furniture. That is why the bas-relief is not hung on an opaque frame as to be expected, but it poises in mid-air thanks to a transparent support. Our purpose was to dematerialize the sculpture and to make it into an epiphany or a supernatural apparition. The bas-relief rises above the soil to exceed the height of a man, so that one has to look up if he wants to see it. The event is marked by a virtual volume drawn by a pure tubular framework. Only the corners acquire consistency out of the whole volume, as if it were a simple graphic work. In the same way as the archangel, the volume representing the supernatural dimension levitates, hung on four supports whose shape and position clearly show their strangeness. The difference in spatial value is re-marked by the projection of the volume that engraves the stone as if a hollow opened up in the ground. The one-step gap is filled by the pathway coming from the panoramic bench. The path passes through the square, being marked by the difference in material and colour, and reaches the framework becoming a real passage between the inside and the outside, spanning the hollow like a bridge between different dimensions. And finally here is the contact, on one hand the angelic presence, on the other the plaque dedicated to the Fallen.