Italy Unveils Renders For Restoration Of Colosseum’s Arena Floor To Its Glory
Image via Ahmed Almakhzanji / Unsplash (CC0)
Late last year, the Italian government announced its intention to renovate the floor of the Colosseum in Rome, and was looking for bids from engineers to fulfil the vision.
The previous floor had been removed by archaeologists to get a better view of the labyrinth of rooms and corridors that lay below the arena, but was never fully replaced.
Now, Italy’s Culture Minister Dario Franceschini has unveiled the winning design. Milan Ingegneria, an engineering consulting firm, devised the winning proposal for the 32,300-square-foot Colosseum floor. The project will cost an estimated €15 million (US$18 million), as reported by the New York Times.
“You will be able to walk on it and go to the center of the Colosseum, seeing it in the same way as visitors used to up to the end of the 19th century,” Franceschini told Reuters.
The winning design features a lattice of wooden slats that rotate to allow natural light to reveal the chambers below, and will be created using sustainable Accoya wood. “The new structure will be completely reversible,” Massimiliano Milan, CEO of Milan Ingegneria, told CNN.
“In 30, 50, or 100 years it will be possible to restore the monument as it is now,” he explained.
The renovations are expected to be completed by 2023, and the space could be used to hold events, including reenactments of gladiator battles of old.
[via Artnet News and Reuters, cover image via Ahmed Almakhzanji / Unsplash (CC0)]
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