6 December 2012
The Control Tower of the tourist port of Marina di Ragusa is a project completed in 2011 by Maria Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo, who was awarded the 2012 Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement at the 4th Premio Medaglia d’Oro all’Architettura Italiana. Designed as a line of demarcation between land and water, a sort of “lighthouse” for arriving boats, the tower is located at the far end of the west wharf, near the mouth of the harbor. The building consists of three volumes set one on top of the other: one at ground level that houses the offices and communicates with the public through a large opening on the southern side; an intermediate volume, slung from the one above, that houses the custodian’s quarters, and the upper, transparent volume, used for control of traffic in the port and with walls made entirely of glass, which also functions as a beacon at night to indicate the direction of the harbor mouth. A reinforced-concrete pillar that contains the core of services and plant, runs vertically through the structure and improves its stability. In a word: a masterpiece.
