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Fig. 2.
Aquileia, coverage on
the Chromatius room,
south-west view.
For the southern chamber of the baptistery (Lanckoronski’s Süd
Halle), the problem of the relationship between archaeological conservation
and urban context - tackled by means of a studied use of
contemporary architecture - was undoubtedly made more challenging
by the powerful presence of the nearby Basilica.
The new construction provides protection to the site as well as guaranteeing
its conservation and the possibility of public access to these
important fourth-century mosaics, following an approach already
employed for the Market-Garden Domus in Brescia which launched
a novel way of bringing together the disciplines architecture and archaeology.
Without wishing to be over-intrusive or tied to ephemeral
fashions, the idiom and methodological approach used are unambiguously
contemporary: discretely so on the outside, thanks to an
essential parallelepiped made using traditional materials (bricks and
split stone), largely recovered from the clearance of the surrounding
area; more clearly inside, through the use of more powerful materials
(metal with powder-based coatings), uniformly employed for walls
and ceiling so as to reduce the geometric perception of space and
encourage the focusing of attention on the mosaics in situ.
Access is through the baptistery, by means of the eleventh-century
Maxentian door, walled up in the 1800s but of which the original
door-jambs were visible; visitors may look out over the mosaics from
a large raised platform in iron and split stone that dominates the
chamber.
On the western wall the beautiful “peacock” mosaic from the
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