Red thread of the project is the story of Antoinette Tzikos de Sàint-Lege who is the “mind” which created the Brissago Islands. Through minimal interventions, the aim of the project is to arouse the curiosity of visitors and invite them to discover the significant moments of this landscape which are linked to the story of the lady who created it. The intervention consists in a succession of “Rooms” that remind three fundamental events of the lady’s life on the island.
Room 1: “...all has to be done”
In the first room we want to recall the image the lady had of the place the first time she got there. So we made the visitors look, from a passage between two rock walls, the other Island, still wild and untouched.
Room 2: “...with a little patience and some good will, plants will grow even in the sand”
In the second room we want the visitors to experience the “soil” as a living material, and observe the “roots” of the islands while descending in a cut in the ground. The lady planted almost all the species we can found in the Botanical Garden today. She succeded in growing plants in a place almost inhospitable, collecting them from all parts of the world.
Room 3: “...this is what i call my hermitage”
Finally we want to represent the lady’s work as something difficult to achieve but breathtaking. Therefore we created a labirinth made of green walls which the visitors have to pass, door after door, to reach an open area with a magnificent view over the lake.
This three sentences taken from her memories will be inscripted in the rooms, respectively on the rocks, on the paving, an on the handrail of the viewing platform.
