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The Art of Drinking: Il Carapace

There seem to be few things as polarizing as contemporary art, especially contemporary art inserted into unlikely places. Case in point: the new Tenuta Castelbuono winery building near Bevagna. This massive work, called “Il Carapace”, by contemporary Italian artist Arnaldo Pomodoro, was completed after six years of work in 2012 and straddles the fence between sculpture and architecture.

I’m going to immediately stick my neck out to say that I like “Il Carapace”. Or, to be even more polemic, I love it. Saturated with symbolism, this copper dome-shaped structure is modelled on a giant tortoise shell—representing “stability and longevity”—and the low, rounded shape blends seamlessly into the surrounding landscape of rolling vineyard-covered hills, an echo of the “union of earth and sky”.

Being from Chicago, I am no newcomer to Pomodoro; a number of his works are displayed in the city, including the campuses of both the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. I am also no newcomer to livable sculpture…from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House to Gehry’s Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago has a proud tradition of revolutionary buildings which blur the line between art and architecture. But contemporary architecture in a modern city is expected; contemporary architecture juxtaposed against the backdrop of this region so steeped in the Middle Ages that one would hardly blink an eye if Saint Francis himself were to come around the corner is riskier.   

It was a risk well-taken, as Il Carapace has been met with much praise. Commissioned by the Lunelli family–which primarily produces spumante in Trento under the Ferrari label—to mark their foray into Umbria’s Sagrantino country, the winery building has been getting more press than the wines produced there. It’s easy to see why, as the tasting room inside Il Carapace’s dome is spectacularly distracting, with its soaring rib-like arches and plate-glass walls framing the dreamy vineyards outside, as is the cantina, with its spiral shape and disconsonant sky-blue walls, giving you a moment of vertigo as you try to remember if you’re above or below ground.

Photo courtesy of Umbriabeecoming

Both times I visited Il Carapace were for special events; lit up in the evening by flickering torches and soft lights and animated by live music and the clinking of hundreds of glasses, Pomodoro’s work becomes both more dramatic and more intimate—though hard to photograph.

Tenuta Castelbuono offers tours and tastings; for more information, visit their website. Pomodoro was so successful in blending his “living sculpture” into the scenery that it’s not easy to spot the winery from afar. Keep watch for the red, dart-shaped structure that stands at the entrance, towering above the hills like the shaft of an immense arrow shot into the earth, both a complement and an antithesis to the harmony of Il Carapace itself.

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