“The youth, when nature and art attract him, thinks that with vigorous effort,
he can soon penetrate into the innermost sanctuary;
the man, after long wanderings, finds himself still in the outer court.
Such an observation has suggested our title, it is only on the step, in the gateway, the entrance, the vestibule,
the space between the sacred and the common, that we may ordinarily tarry with our friends.” - J W Goethe, “Introduction to the Propylaea”

A ruin describes that structural form which existed at the entry of the Parthenon, the Propylaea. It is an entry gate that marks a threshold. An element of fearsome simplicity; characterised by concentrated intent; an intent lessened by nothing. It is nonetheless not the temple which it guards, merely its echo as forever, now, representing the echo of a pure intent in all built work. Propylaea here forms a raw line of concrete that emerges as an organic form from the sediment of sandstone below it. It is of the carved-rock-landscape; of the scar from which it is spawned yet it belies this rawness with its subtle plan. The design begins at the plan. And the plan begins in the living room. Louis Kahn’s idea about the ordering of space in parts that are ‘servant’ and ‘served’ is represented in this plan. 

We were the architects of the building to the north of the site and it is clear in that building that pressures from the developer of that land diminished the potency of the core plan of that earlier development. The opportunity arose to re-develop the property to the south. In so doing, this act corrects that earlier promised plan; an image of which may be imprinted accurately near its originally intended site; an echo of the Propylaea. 

All units face north and have more than two orientations; shafts composed like the sandstone below it; ordered vertically. Light and shadow are played against each other; formed out of a singular material of concrete. Few other materials are needed; reliant now on weathering with certainty and by virtue of each wall’s position. The building is an immediate ruin, ready for resistance, raw in its substance and pure in its plan. It is an echo of what a plan should be and a purer echo of an earlier building’s original intent; still remaining at the threshold of opportunities for a better plan; a better way of living.

Project Design Team
Angelo Candalepas - Director
Colin Wilkinson
John Wilkin