Gijs Van Vaerenbergh, "Inverse Ruin", Siris © Roberto Conte
In the heart of Policoro, within the Herakleia Archaeological Park in Southern Italy, the Belgian architecture duo Gijs Van Vaerenbergh has unveiled Inverse Ruin, a site-specific installation that reinterprets the lost Archaic Temple through a powerful architectural gesture.
The work is part of the SIRIS project—an initiative of the Italian Ministry of Culture—curated by STUDIO STUDIO STUDIO, the interdisciplinary platform founded by Edoardo Tresoldi, with artistic direction by Antonio Oriente.
A temple that defies time and gravity
Built where the original temple once stood—now reduced to its stone foundations—Inverse Ruin stages a visual and spatial paradox: the upper fragments of the vanished structure are suspended in midair, supported by a twelve-meter-high metal lattice. Portions of the pediment, moldings, and cornices are reassembled in elevation, creating an abstract, levitating silhouette of the ancient building.Gijs Van Vaerenbergh, "Inverse Ruin", Siris © Roberto Conte
The intervention is conceived not as a reconstruction, but as a conceptual provocation—a void filled with fragmented form and meaning. Materials such as steel and mortar are left deliberately exposed, emphasizing the dialectic between presence and absence, illusion and matter. Through this suspended composition, the temple is no longer a ruin but a ghostlike inhabitant of the landscape.
Gijs Van Vaerenbergh, "Inverse Ruin", Siris © Roberto Conte
A poetic and reversible vision
As Artistic Director Antonio Oriente explains: "Inverting the material presence was a smart way to preserve the visual reading of the archaeological evidence while ensuring full reversibility." The result is a site that respects the past without replicating it, offering visitors an experience that is both introspective and immersive.
Between memory, landscape, and imagination
Inverted Ruin is one of three installations forming the SIRIS program, alongside Chora by Selva Aparicio, a sculptural path in the Sacred Grove of Demeter, and Arbosonica by Max Magaldi with Claudia Fabris and Daniela Pes, a sound installation activated via geolocation. Together, they propose a new model of ecomuseum where heritage is not just preserved but reactivated through contemporary artistic languages.
A new landmark in the Lucanian landscape
Gijs Van Vaerenbergh, "Inverse Ruin", Siris © Roberto Conte
With Inverted Ruin, Gijs Van Vaerenbergh reframes the classical temple not as an object of nostalgia, but as a reflective structure, a contemporary landmark that questions permanence and invites interpretation. Suspended between earth and sky, matter and imagination, it becomes a living architecture of memory.
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