Castle Exhibition Space / Amelia Tavella

Architects: Amelia Tavella
Area: 1700 m²
Year: 2023
Photographs: Thibaut Dini
Lead Team: Amelia Tavella
Country: France

Castle Exhibition Space, a cultural and hospitality project designed by Amelia Tavella in Provence, Southern France, has transformed the central body of a dormant château into a 1,600 m² exhibition space, framed by exclusive suites in its wings. Completed without a specified date, the intervention revives the memory of place through Tavella’s Mediterranean architectural language, integrating terracotta bricks and split-finish stone to form a tactile, immersive environment. The design expresses a poetic continuity between past and present, suggesting a sacred spatial logic through vaults, alcoves, and labyrinthine paths. Tavella’s process, rooted in symbolic archaeology, preserves existing traces while embracing nature as both context and material. Her architectural approach, guided by ethics and memory, positions architecture as a collective, living gesture. Within this setting, the castle hosted Variations, an exhibition of Nina Bouraoui’s romantic ink drawings, marking the space as a site for intimate artistic encounters.

Castle exhibition space / amelia tavella

Corsican architect Amelia Tavella has recently restored a long-dormant castle in her native southern region, situated within a vineyard in Provence. Within the castle’s 1,600 m² central volume, she has designed a distinctive and enigmatic exhibition space, which is framed by a dozen exclusive suites distributed across the two lateral wings of the castle.

The museum space, like the suites, is imbued with Amelia Tavella’s Mediterranean sensibility and conceived as “a path under the alcoves.” Within this setting, mineral and organic materials seem to pulse with life. Cut, red, and veined, the surfaces resemble flesh—naked, chiseled, hollowed, and raw—offering themselves to the touch. They appear almost alive, as if they could beat, move, or envelop the visitor. The walls and floors do not oppose each other; instead, they face one another, extend, and convey the craftsmanship of human hands. Terracotta bricks and stone with split finishes define the space, where a solitary visitor walks through a jewel box—both observing and being observed. The architect suggests that spaces hold power; they support and shelter those who recognise the poetic potential of architecture rooted in memory. She invites reflection through a series of questions: could the cut stone echo the menhirs once dedicated to the sky? Could the vaults and spatial arrangements form a sacred geography once used for prayer? Could the maze-like walls embody a mythology brought back to life?

This project conveys Amelia Tavella’s architectural approach, rooted in the sensuality of noble, natural materials and a profound respect for the past. She defines herself as a symbolic archaeologist, working through the signs, traces, and remnants of earlier histories to construct with complete fidelity. Nature is consistently present—both as part of the composition and as a witness to the site’s origins—honouring the built form and, in return, being honoured by it. Her design is shaped by gentleness and poetic intent, grounded in the understanding that architecture must primarily serve those who inhabit it. In this context, architecture is not an isolated act; it is directed toward others, shaped for the collective, and anchored within an unaltered landscape.

Amelia Tavella states that her architectural process does not involve erasure, but rather inclusion: “When I build, I do not undo. There is no betrayal. I proceed by inclusion.” She describes nature as a constant presence in her work—not as an obstacle or limitation, but as a celebrated guest. The Mediterranean is central to her identity, referred to as her “matrix.” Originating from this specific region, she describes herself as a child of the maquis and the sands, where she first grasped the complexity of her profession. Sea, rock, and beach have informed her sensitivity, with her femininity responding to that of the Mediterranean, shaping her practice through soft, sedimentary inspiration. Her native island taught her to understand light and colour, while reinforcing that authentic creation is inseparable from ethics, and that history remains the foundation of the present. For Tavella, history resonates and ultimately fuses with the act of building. She works with materials from the South to bring it back to life again and again. Her entire architectural intent, she explains, is driven by a single principle: ethics. This defines an approach firmly anchored in her origins and in continuity with the past.

A space with such romantic resonance was required to host, for one evening, the drawings of writer Nina Bouraoui. Her series, Variations, features expansive, deconstructed hearts—veined and composed of delicate, interwoven lines—that reflect the obsessions, repetitions, defeats, and triumphs inherent in romantic emotion.