A majestic copper-clad dome to resemble a turtle’s shell. We are in front of the Carapace, a majestic work of art in Bevagna, Umbria, the first habitable sculpture in the world and one of the most beautiful wineries on an international level, Tenuta Castelbuono .
Alessandra Piubello
An artistic masterpiece of surprising symbolic charge and iconic strength that is completely integrated into the environment, in a harmonious dialogue with the surrounding green hills.
«The landscape reminded me of the Montefeltro where I was born, as Piero della Francesca has told it in many paintings. My intervention therefore did not have to disturb the sweetness of the hills where the vineyards extend, on the contrary it had to integrate perfectly with the environment. I had the idea of a shape reminiscent of the turtle, a symbol of stability and longevity which, with its carapace, represents the union between earth and sky ». The quote is from Arnaldo Pomodoro, one of the most important sculptors on the world scene.
In the mid-2000s the Lunelli family, already owner of the Ferrari Cellars in Trento, asked him to design the headquarters of the Castelbuono Estate, thirty hectares purchased in 2001 between the Perugian municipalities of Bevagna and Montefalco, in Umbria, for the production of the most important local indigenous grape, Sagrantino.
In 2005 a challenge arose on the boundaries between sculpture and architecture. The Carapace of the Castelbuono Estate, in fact, is the first habitable sculpture in the world. Not a simple ornamental and self-referential aesthetic object, but a functional structure in all respects. An operational building, inside which the complete cycle of transformation of the grapes into wine and the subsequent phase of refinement in the bottle take place.
The construction took six years and the work of a real Renaissance workshop guided by the sensitivity of Arnaldo Pomodoro , and for the more technical aspects by the professionalism of the architect Giorgio Pedrotti.
The emotions here never end: the Carapace takes your breath away for its beauty and grandeur. One is enchanted in front of this artistic work. To the eye it looks like a hemisphere covered with copper and engraved with deep cracks, reminiscent of the furrows of the earth. The turtle seems to emerge from the center of the earth showing its outer shell, designed according to the unmistakable stylistic features of Arnaldo Pomodoro’s expressive language. The elliptical dome consists of a large central arch and two series of six lateral half arches which, just as if they were the legs of the turtle, keep it raised from the ground.
What cannot be seen from the outside is the underground belly of the animal: two thousand eight hundred square meters of which six hundred are useful, where the areas for the vinification, aging and storage of wines are located. A completely underground space that enjoys ideal light and temperature conditions for the winemaking process.
The moment you enter and walk within this uniqueness, you touch the wonderful. Going down the stairs and seeing the barrel cellar in the belly of the immense turtle is a magical moment. The enthusiasm of beauty infects with its vibrations.
If you think you can’t find Tenuta Castelbuono, lost as it is in the hills, just follow another sculpture, placed a few meters from the Carapace. A red dart stuck in the ground, which has the task of signaling the work even from a distance. It measures a good eighteen meters in height and, precisely because of its size and color, it took a long time to obtain the authorizations from the bodies responsible for safeguarding the landscape.
A red arrow, clearly visible in the distance, to highlight the beauty of this work of art that must absolutely be visited.
This article is published in Chinese on 19Youbao , the first Italian wine magazine in China. Browse the latest issue here.