In the ruins of the imposing slaughterhouse built by Gioacchino Ersoch in 1889-91 in the Testaccio district in Rome, the Carmassi studios have been working on restoring the main building, commonly known as the "Pelanda dei suini" (the pig-skinner).
In the ruins of the imposing slaughterhouse built by Gioacchino Ersoch in 1889-91 in the Testaccio district in Rome, the Carmassi studios have been working since 2001 on restoring the main building, commonly known as the “Pelanda dei suini” (the pig-skinner), and some of the buildings around it, including a tanning hall and a cistern building. The complex is a typical example of industrial archaeology, which still boasts almost all the equipment it used in the past: the metal rails the slaughtered animals were hooked onto, the slabs the carcasses were skinned on, the cast iron vats the leather was treated in, the boilers, and the water cisterns. Initially ear-marked to become a “centre for cultural and youth productions”, the site has now come under the umbrella of MACRO, the Rome contemporary art museum and will be used for exhibition purposes. Following faithfully in the footsteps of past projects, the architects working on the slaughterhouse have opted to preserve the buildings in their original state as far as possible, cleaning them and renovating the brick walls and marble facings, the external render in imitation stone and stucco cornices. A similar approach was used for the structural elements of the buildings, integrating where necessary the tools which had been lost over the years to evoke the original atmosphere of the place. This volume illustrates the way the buildings were before renovation work started and examines various proposals that were put forward, clearly showing how the current solutions were gradually brought into focus.