Two steel pergolas silhouetted against the sierras, two colours of gravel and a red aggregate path: that is all you see, and that was the idea. Archaeological monitoring of a motorway scheme turned up a Roman villa on the very hill the new alignment was due to cross. The provincial culture authority refused to authorise its destruction, so the remains were extracted, moved 2,340 metres south and re-erected on an artificial mound built to the topography of the original hill. Our commission was the final phase, the one that decides whether all that effort is ever seen: an outdoor museum design for an archaeological site in Antequera (Málaga).
The commission: the villa had already been moved when we arrived
Worth saying up front: we did not move it. By the time we drew up the project, the artificial mound, its drainage and the re-erection of the remains had already been carried out by the relevant parties. Before any of that, the site and its setting were recorded with a 3D laser scan, the same scanning technology used in underwater archaeology, applied here on dry land. That model is what allowed a new mound to be built with the topography of the original hill, and the remains to be set back on it, in large part stone by stone.
The case file explains why the move was an obligation rather than a design idea. The culture authority (Delegación Provincial de Cultura) issued protection measures, gave a favourable report and authorised the extraction, transport, relocation and re-erection of the remains, without prejudice to the town council’s planning powers. The site is listed as no. 256 in the heritage catalogue of Antequera’s local plan (PGOU).
We came in for the final phase, as part of a team with archaeologists, historians and specialists in graphic design and communication. Two premises, neither of them aesthetic: respect for the surviving remains, and public outreach. Everything decided afterwards follows from those.
Outdoor museum design for an archaeological site, without resting on it
The relocation area covers 3,373.55 m². We worked on 2,141.00 m² of it: 1,109.15 m² of archaeological remains and 1,031.85 m² of paths. The route is a double perimeter loop, tangent to both areas, with cross circulation, and it never treads on the remains. The paths are 13/40 mm screened natural red aggregate, laid in a 10 cm layer over ground compacted to 90% Proctor. Ordinary civil-works material: simple, permeable and removable with a shovel.
The villa had two halves: the pars rustica, where olive oil was produced, and the pars urbana, where people lived. We could have explained that with another sign. We preferred to explain it with the ground: the voids between the remains were filled with gravel in two colours, white and grey, so that the two zones can be told apart without reading a word. The panels, the lecterns in weathering steel and the marker at the entrance bearing the villa’s name carry the written information.
Only two spots are covered, the two that cannot stand up to the weather: the oil storage vat in the production zone and the hypocaust in the residential one. That is 138.41 m² of canopy over 2,141 m² of works; everything else stays open to the sky. Both pergolas are polygonal on plan, with columns of varying height generating triangular enveloping planes. Abstract shapes, with nothing that mimics Roman forms, designed to read against the sierras that surround the mound. S275 steel, 175.5 mm circular columns, IPE beams and isolated HA-25 concrete pad footings: the geotechnical survey returned an allowable bearing pressure of 0.1 N/mm², which is very low, and the foundations were sized for that ground.
Construction: a column that landed on a Roman floor
On site, something turned up that no drawing had foreseen: one of the columns of the hypocaust pergola clashed with an archaeological floor. Nudging it a few centimetres would not do, so the geometry of both canopies was changed: the hypocaust canopy grew from 67 to 86 m², and the vat canopy shrank from 85 to 53 m² and went from six sides to five. That meant recalculating foundations and structure to the final geometry, with IPE-220 and IPE-180 main beams, IPE-120 edge beams and IPE-100 purlins.
Not everything was built as designed, and it is only fair to say so. By decision of the client, the weathering steel of the pergolas and benches was replaced by steel painted to imitate weathering steel; the pressure-treated timber fence by a white expo-type fence in stepped sections; the handrail by precast concrete kerbs; and the cut slopes with timber-sleeper steps were never built. The practical completion certificate (certificado final de obra) was signed on 6 April 2013.
The result
Before starting, we looked for precedents and found no case in Spain of an entire Roman villa being moved. The nearest cases we could find were the Temple of Debod in Madrid and the Corominas site in Estepona. Neither poses quite the same problem.
The villa was opened to visitors in 2013, on a mound that had not existed before, 2,340 metres from where it originally stood. What you see is two steel pergolas, two colours of gravel and a red aggregate path. Here, the architecture’s value lay in how little it showed. If you have a heritage project or an archaeological site in Málaga on your hands, contact our architecture studio in Málaga and we will look at it together.
Gallery
Project data
- Typology: Heritage · outdoor museum design for a relocated archaeological site
- Site chronology: 5th century AD (Late Roman Empire / Late Antiquity)
- Use: Cultural (visitable archaeological site)
- Location: Cortijo Robledo, Antequera (Málaga, Spain)
- Design year: 2010-2011
- Construction year: 2013
- Status: Completed
- Built area: 138.41 m² of canopy (two steel pergolas)
- Plot area: 3,373.55 m² relocation area, with 2,141.00 m² within the scope of works
- Units: 2 steel protective canopies
- Programme: Lightweight protective canopies, accessible interpretive route, interpretive panels (pars urbana and pars rustica), site plan and documentary axonometric
- Strategy: Reversibility, low impact and minimal contact with the archaeological stratigraphy
- Client: Public administration (national road works), with a private archaeology firm commissioning the project
- Main contractor: Sacyr Vallehermoso, S.A.
- Architecture: Klic Arquitectos · Málaga
- Site management (dirección de obra): Juan Goñi Uriarte and Ruth Buján Varela · Klic Arquitectos
- Construction supervision (dirección de ejecución): Antonio Ramírez Escalona, building engineer (arquitecto técnico)
- Structure: Jorge Barrios Corpa
- Graphic design and communication: Doctor Watson Comunicación
- Photography: Juan Diego Jiménez
- Approval stamp (visado): Málaga College of Architects (COA Málaga), 20 February 2012 (file 2012/000442/001)
- Klic services: Basic design and construction project, and site management
- Team: Juan Goñi Uriarte, Ruth Buján Varela, Alejandro Castillo, Myung Il Cano and Sun Il Cano
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