Senigallia Public Library: Massimo and Gabriella Carmassi

An in-depth analysis of a single project by Massimo and Gabriella Carmassi, the renovation of an early 19th century marketplace and slaughterhouse, located in the Marche region of Italy, to create the Senigallia Public Library. This project is an outstanding example of how the fabric of historic buildings can be used to make spectacular modern architecture. Rather than restore the buildings to some idealized original state and adapt them to a new purpose, the architects integrated existing pieces of the structures with new construction. The result is described by Richard Ingersoll in his informative introductory essay as live-in archeology. Anyone who follows architecture, and architecture students in particular, will be interested to see how this project was achieved.