Lyndsey Seddon

(re)configured crater

Solfatara, a dormant volcanic crater embedded in a suburban town west of Napoli, exhibits a perverse juxtaposition of mundane and volatile circumstance … and embodies the nonchalant Neapolitan attitude to precarious situations.

A deadbeat campsite in the crater flanks an underwhelming touristic attraction of ‘volcanic phenomena’. Makeshift objects for scientific monitoring litter the bleak crater-scape and an ancient Roman sauna lies neglected behind a ‘keep out’ sign.

Extraordinary chemical/biological processes and a vast underlying geothermal map are denied in a dreary surface condition of underperforming steam fumaroles and fenced off bubbling mud pools.

This project aims to reconfigure the crater’s existing programme, to reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary. A line drawn across the geo-thermal map of the crater becomes the axis for its above-ground articulation.

Solfatara’s famous fumaroles disappoint because the extraordinary exodus of steam is invisible to the eye … but the immense volume of steam emission can be revealed by its presence in condensation. Capturing the fumarole emissions in an architectural funnel and condensing them below a refrigerated canopy results in an exquisite cube of rain, and a chain of related phenomenal and sensual orchestrations … a room of mud, a corridor of steam, a mineral garden, a reconfigured campsite.