Strength and Softness: Amelia Tavella on Nature, Artistry, and Memory in the Mediterranean

By Kate Mazade

Born on the island of Corsica, Amelia Tavella creates sanctuaries of majesty and delight that connect people back to the land from which they came. Amelia opened her eponymous studio in 2007 in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France and was named “a rising start of French architecture” by the Choiseul Institute in 2018. She studied at the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris from 1995 to 2001, received her DESA diploma of architecture in 2005, and holds an Environmental Approach to Urban Planning certification from the Marseille School of Architecture. Amelia has received numerous awards ranging from the 2016 Young Woman Architect Award from the Prix Femme Architecte, to the 2017 Pierre Cardin Prize from the Académie des Beaux-Arts, to the 2021 Chevalier in the National Order of Merit from the Grande Chancellerie de la Légion d’Honneur.

She uses the noble materials of stone, wood, and copper to evoke the memory of a place—particularly in the restoration of the Convent Saint-François, a 1480s historical monument embedded in the Corsican foothills. Amelia spoke with Kate Mazade about her love for nature, craftswoman approach to design, and the passion to be free.

Special thanks to Mayrna Lukasheva for serving as the translator during this interview.

KM: What first sparked your interest in architecture?

AT: My strong link with nature was the starting point of my interest in architecture. From childhood, I felt so imbued with nature on my island that I integrated its beauty and its light as "instruments" that could later be used to build.

I used to ride a horse across the Corsican territory, which is quite a wild terrain. I had a metaphysical experience of the beauty of nature, and my visions for form and space came from this experience. This experience of nature is forever in me, and I cannot let go of it.

Nature imposes an incredible order on us. Everything is in harmony—colors, variations, seasons, delicacy and savagery. Nature is truth, respect, morals, humility; she is stronger than us, but also so fragile when we rob her. Nature is a heritage and a wealth that must be admired and preserved. We are her children. I have a sensual, carnal, maternal bond with Corsican nature: I come from her.

I have a passion for the very old. Building, drawing, inventing are old mechanisms for me. I believe I was born to become an architect. It is more than a passion for me—it is who I am. I believe that my job participates in my identity, in the structure of my mind, in the kind of woman that I am.

“The ruins are marks, vestiges, imprints. They tell the foundations. I chose to keep the ruins and replace the phantom part, in copper work.” Amelia Tavella on Convent Saint-François, Sainte-Lucie de Tallano, Corsica.

How did your interest in old buildings and restoration work develop?

I discovered and developed my ability to synthesize a multitude of constraints—sometimes in completely foreign fields, but all vital for the project. Architecture requires you to have both scientific and artistic qualities. I proceed like an archaeologist. I immerse myself in traces, clues, and witnesses of the past, to build from the history of the place, from its memory.

It is both philosophical and ecological. Returning to my birthplace and restoring these ruins and abandoned buildings gives them a second chance at life. It is quite strong feeling for me because, actually, I don't live in Corsica, but I work there in person all the time. It's like returning to my family, returning to nature.

You don't live in Corsica?

No. I have two daughters, and we live the south of France. Twice a week, I fly to Corsica to see the projects and come back in the same day. This gives me the opportunity to have distance—I'm not closed on the island with the projects, so I can see the project in detail with a different perspective.

“I always aspire to respect the place, to think about those who will live inside my buildings. Architecture cannot depart from nature or from men and women. A building cannot exist “alone,” it is intended for others, inscribed in a territory.”

— Amelia Tavella

When did you start your firm, Amelia Tavella Architectes?

I had my first daughter in 2006, and one year later I started my own agency. And then I had my second daughter. The agency is like my other child.

We first started working on competitions with both public and private budgets, and now we have seven people. Now, I know by intuition how to draw a project quite quickly—through hard work, competition, and practice. I have learned to trust my vision when it arises.

What lead you to start your own practice?

This is the only way to be free.

The architecture world here is quite sexist, so one of the biggest challenges is just to demonstrate that a woman can be in charge of a project and can lead an agency. We have to be competitive with men because, frankly saying, the atmosphere is quite aggressive. There are many men in the field, but not a lot of women who lead agencies. Often women only work in association with male architects.

The work of an architect is like an artist—if I was a writer, I would not write a book with four hands. You have to be all alone with your thoughts, reflections, and experiences, and only then you can keep with the others.

Even if I consider this profession to come from meditation, it is the work of the team. It is a constant exchange to develop the ideas.

*Convent Saint-François, Sainte-Lucie de Tallano, Corsica.*

What are you currently working on?

Although we are only seven people, we have a lot of projects.

We have just started construction on a large project—the Henri Tomasi Conservatory of Music and Dance with Rudy Ricciotti, a French architect. Both the rehabilitation of the Convent Saint-François and the Casa Santa Teresa have been completed. We have other projects including the Chateau du Seuil, which is a conversion of a hotel and museum, and the several schools across France.

We are trying to work with different scales and with local craftspeople to have an artistic approach to details and form. Every project is quite special and important to design—whether it is urban planning or small interior design.

In terms of interior design, we are working with the Corsican Sotheby's flagship to design objects like a wooden table. It became a piece of art because it is not only furniture, but part of the interior. It became the sculpture.

*Sculptural interior piece designed for the Sotheby’s flagship in Corsica.*

And we have several urban planning projects like the urban landscaping of the Citadelle Miollis in Ajaccio and the Genoese city of Ajaccio, which is the ancient part of the city in the old port. The approach is to go to the place and talk with local people. Although I am Corsican, every part of Corsica is different. I am trying—écouter le battement du coeur—to understand how their hearts are beating, how they breathe the air of this special place.

It gives us a way to design the space because it is not only for the tourists who will come and enjoy the city. It is also for the people who stay there and go out and take coffee on the terrace and observe tourists. So it is a double challenge.

That is beautiful. Does that idea inform the mission of your practice and how you work?

I always aspire to respect the place, to think about those who will live inside my buildings. Architecture cannot depart from nature or from men and women. A building cannot exist "alone," it is intended for others, inscribed in a territory.

I carry all of my projects in my heart like my children. Like a craftsman, I see my profession as a gesture, and the accuracy of each gesture is more vital over the course of the project. The road is long, and the fight is tough. I am still young for an architect, but I already have the feeling of shaping a work, of having begun to write it.

My greatest joy would be to have an architectural signature that is recognized by its softness and strength.

“It is up to us to mobilize, to invest ourselves with audacity. We must fight for freedom in everything it covers: women’s freedom, freedom to create, freedom.”

— Amelia Tavella

Oh how lovely. I think both softness and strength are very apparent in your work. Would you like to talk about some of your biggest highlights and challenges of your career?

For highlights, it is the confidence and recognition from communities. It is being able to build—or should I say re-build—in Corsica, on my island, on sites with built or landscaped heritage of just crazy beauty.

One of the biggest challenges is to search for such amazing places as the Convent Saint-François and to give them rebirth, to work with historical streets and give them another perspective—not contemporary architecture, but a contemporary view, daring to combine copper and stone—while respecting the history of the place. It is challenging to restore convents, to resuscitate the past without ever betraying it, to take care of sacred buildings at the center of nature's mad merry-go-round.

My architecture is inspired by Corsican nature, the Maquis. I take back its beauty, its color, its texture, its density, and pay tribute to him. I do not separate anything. Nature and my buildings stand on the same line, and respond to each other. It is an echo and then a fusion. I use the materials from my island to bring it back to life on its own.

*École A Strega, Santa-Maria Siché, 2018.*

Who in the architecture field do you admire?

Oscar Niemeyer—for his view of the town and how he designs street because he considers architecture as with female forms with the curves.

Among women, Anna Heringer, who has done a lot of work in Africa and Asia that “explores architecture as a medium to strengthen cultural and individual confidence.” Her work is really remarkable for its sustainability. And Charlotte Perriand, who was the foundation of Le Corbusier's success. It took so long for her work to be recognized, but now we question ourselves if he would have been so successful without her.

Do you have any advice for women starting their careers in architecture?

Architecture is just the way of real life. The only thing that provokes the desire to be an architect is your passion. You have to have to be passionate all the time because there are a lot of constraints in this in this field—even more if you're a woman.

Passion drives us to adapt, especially as women, because misogyny still has a bright future ahead of it. We still have to prove ourselves, but we are here—we are very present. Feminine architecture is unfolding, and it will end up counting more, I am sure. It is up to us to mobilize, to invest ourselves with audacity.

We must fight for freedom in everything it covers: women's freedom, freedom to create, freedom.