Description of the project by W+G Architects
In the early seventeenth century the Spanish Jesuit Pedro Paez became the personal advisor of the Ethiopian emperor Susenyos and converts to Catholicism. As a result, the Jesuits started an ambitious plan of building foundation and around Lake Tana missions: churches, residences, schools, palaces, cisterns and gardens. Dänqaz is one of the seven Jesuit deposits currently known, where the emperor's palace built between 1625 and 1628. Susenyos In the eastern part of the preserved remains of the palace has come down to us virtually intact a large covered cistern arches and partially buried. Three hundred meters south of the palace the Jesuits built the most important Catholic church in Ethiopia which will range Cathedral.
The interaction between current inhabitants living around this site with these cultural assets and the surrounding territory was our starting point for the development of landscape intervention. This enhancement was among other objectives the appropriation of this cultural landscape by current residents sensitizing them about the importance of these residues for the History of Ethiopia, its identity and its future economic development through the promotion of cultural tourism.
Our analysis of the territory led us to strengthen the values of these existing properties in their interaction with the productive agricultural use that the inhabitants of the area had given fields arranged around the palace and the cathedral. To do this, it puts in value the existing fabric of roads and permeable boundaries between fields of crops and access from the neighboring village located at a lower level. This road network was enhanced to improve access to the Cathedral and the Palace and create points of perception of the surrounding landscape and the interaction of these goods in it. Thus the landscape intervention and power not only allows sensory, spatial experience of this unique place, but also makes it compatible with daily agricultural activity of the local population, a key element for survival.
Our intervention in the palace and the cathedral is primarily to emphasize the spaces that allow the perception of the buildings at different scales to facilitate the readability of pictorial details of the murals that are still preserved, the decorative elements carved in stone, of the spatial qualities of these buildings and their strategic implementation on the hill overlooking the valley Dänqaz. The new elements designed to protect these assets are mild and establish a subtle dialogue with the strong presence of the restored buildings. The rest of the procedure is based on a general consolidation of factories heritage and its decorative elements. The key to the whole of this intervention has been done readable from a contemporary architectural perspective the history of intercultural dialogue between the Portuguese and Spanish missionaries and the Ethiopian monarchy at the beginning of the seventeenth century that will lead to the foundation of the new imperial capital Gondar north of lake Tana by emperor Fasilides, son of Susenyos.
