Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute Sculpture

Last crawled date: 1 year, 11 months ago

Posted on behalf of Dominic Coles Saffirio by his guardian.

This model is an abstracted version of the pinnacle of Venetian architecture, "Basilica di Santa Maria Della Salute" or known in English as "Basilica of Saint Mary of Health" that was built to commemorate the survival of the Venetian Republic after the devastating 1630 plague outbreak and it was designed by Baldassare Longhena in the Archdiocese of Venice. 390 years later, Italy is at the merciless hands of a global pandemic, in which its society has been completely affected. So to emulate this I modelled the Venetian Church to represent Italy's vibrant culture and history, and then I cut elements of the design out like to cross-section of the dome to show how Italy has been cut open by this pandemic, revealing the fragile and complex interior. The interior decoration of the dome was inspired by Brutalist architecture as well as the "Novecento" movement to commemorate 100 years since its conceptualisation. These architectural styles were chosen specifically because these were both architectural styles used for reconstruction after the First and Second World War, signifying the complex reconstruction efforts needed to bring Italy's society back to normality. Furthermore, the abstracted areas are "reconstructed" by the red scaffolding of the original design to signify how Italy will recover from this pandemic, and emerge stronger than ever.

This model can be used two ways in which, the whole design can be 3D printed in ideally a grey filament, and have the red scaffolding painted over. Or this design can be used as a maquette to then to create a silicone mould for a concrete model to emphasise the interior Brutalist architecture. Please be aware that some of the more delicate suspended areas may need temporary supports when printing.

Included images show the fully rendered model, the model being 3D printed, orthographic view, photos of the abstracted details as well as artistic photos of the architectural details.

This was designed in Fusion360 and also constitutes as my Y11 GCSE Art final piece.

All models and photographs are intellectual property of Dominic Coles Saffirio

Berkhamsted Senior School