The Arena de Verona is an ancient amphitheatre built by Romans around the 30 aC. Nowadays it has an international architectural value and it’s the most important icon of the city. Moreover the Summer festival prompts the Arena one the most renowned theatre in the operatic and contemporary music circuit.

Due to the climate factors, the arena is deteriorating, mainly by rain effect, and needs a new roof  to protect it and to achieve a good preservation.

Our proposal  pretends to reduce the intervention over the Arena to the tiniest  architectural expression. The boundary of the design must be well defined  and relationship between ancient and new architecture should be clear and easy to understand.

Historically Amphitheatre used to have a “Velarium”. A structure made of wooden beams placed on the top of Cavea which provided sun protection to the spectators. Fabrics were extended or removed by rotes and had drawings decoration.

The project is  based on the idea of recovering the Velarium to the Arena but with contemporary materials.  The proposal replaces the wooden structure for precast steel columns and beams, uses stainless steel wires  instead of ropes and achieves waterproofing covering with membranes instead of fabrics. All the elements are composed according the roman rules and proportions of the monument .

The new structures is lightly separated of the monument, avoiding any contact. The order and precision makes a harmonious relationship between two architecture which are separate by time.