For thousands of years the settlers and inhabitants of Matera in Italy’s Basilicata region mined the hill at whose bottom the astonishing city is set, scraping the toba rock to build their poor dwellings. Little by little the Sassi (stones) – remains perhaps of other, older troglodyte settlements – gave shape to Matera, which really is an intricate labyrinth of superposed houses where the roof terracces become streets, and where it is hard to distinguish between what is man-made and what is nature. Mostly abandoned in the 1950s and 1960s, the Sassi di Matera have now been preserved to a large extent thanks to their becoming a World Heritage Site in the year 1993, a proclamation followed by the construction of an ethnographic museum and now this small hotel.

Situated at the foot of the hill, the building appropriates twelve caves to transform them into as many rooms. On the outside the intervention is barely discernible: the limestone walls have been restored with the exquisite care demanded by the relevant ordinances. Inside, the precarious minimalism of the old constructions becomes a more contemporary minimalism through the atmosphere created by the contrast between the whitewashed vaults on one hand, and the dark flooring that is the backdrop for austere and functional furniture pieces.