Mamula. Revival through landscape

Montenegro that we see today is a product of countless cultures combined as a result of a multitude of conquering and visiting influences. The water and wealth of the country were the two things that appealed most to 14th century Venetians. This caused Venice to sped to Montenegro’s shoreline, dominating the coasts of today’s country until well into the 18th century when Napoleon arrived on the scene. It was the Ottomans who took over inland from Slavic sovereignty over the majority part of Montenegro and from the 15th century onwards; it was taken over by the Balkans. Montenegro declared war on the Turks in the 19th century and achieve independence from the Ottoman Empire, increasing radically its territory to include the today’s capital Podgorica, city of Niksic, Žabljak, areas around Lake Skadar and the port of Bar. What we are most interested in is the period of the 19th century and the rise of the Austro-Hungarian Forts in Montenegro. The Venetians had conquered the country’s coast, including the strategically important Bay of Kotor (Cattaro), during the Napoleonic Wars. The Austrians became the beneficiaries after the fall of Venice, and had occupied the majority of the Dalmatian coast. The strength of Kotor (Cattaro) was recognized by the Austrians, which followed their decision to develop this area as their main naval base in the southern Adriatic. On this basis, the Austrians fortified the hills around Kotor (Cattaro) against land attack, and the entrance to the bay from naval attack. To prevent from land attack, the Austrians built a series of forts on several hills to defend the naval forts. In the mid 19th century, these forts were constructed by the direction of the army General Lazar Mamula, one of them in particular would be later used by the Italians as a prison during WWII. This is the Fort Mamula, which became our specific area of interest and the location point of our project. The fort has been abandoned ever since the end of WWII and our aim was to find a solution for the revival of these fortresses. The strategy is based on three main concepts or ‘rings’: the concept of transformation through landscape and nature, through culture and through history. We have derived the ‘ring theory’ through analysis of the territory and the circular form and volume of our monumental fort Mamula. These three rings overlap and function together with each other in order to create a system or a machine designed to revitalize the abandoned edifices. One of the main devices on the island is simply a mirror which creates contradiction between The effect that we aim to achieve by placing this mirror Knowing that Fort Mamula is protected by law and considered as a cultural monument, we concluded that this project should be based on the re-designing and preserving of the existing. One of the many references that have been used is the work of Carlo Scarpa for Castelvecchio. The approach we decided to use is the revival of ancient splendor through a personal novelty. This is done by maintaining the existing structures, facades and interiors and introducing new elements of important significance to express the culture, history and nature all of which create and maintain the special identity of the place. One of our objectives and approaches is, as was for Carlo Scarpa, to interpret history in a personal way. Considering that the country of Montenegro is unique in its own way, with a very small area of 13.812 square meters, having a short distance from the coastline to the mountains, we strive to express all of this exceptionality on one single island, with an important location, being at the very entrance to the Bay of Kotor (Cattaro). All of the elements, natural including architectural, have been selected and designed with particular care, and each and every one of them has a special meaning of its own. If through this strategy we revive one fort, we might as well apply it to the remaining 113 forts of Montenegro.