If stones could talk, those of the Citadel of Bastia could be chroniclers of the city, given that the Corsican commune arose in the wing of this Genoese bastiglia atop a promontory and eventually took its name. Witnesses of thriving trade in periods of peace, but also of brutal sieges in times of war, these ramparts have become an indisputable emblem and a setting for tourist snapshots, which explains why huge efforts have been made in the past years to give them a polish, make them comfortably accessible, and open them up to unbeatable views of the Old Port and the Tyrrhenian Sea (see Arquitectura Viva 233).

A project was conceived for the purpose of easing the connection between the high part of the premises and the promenade along the water’s edge, as well as creating a new civic space and restoring the 19th-century Romieu Garden – a first landscaping operation to recondition the fortification. Stairs, ramps, viewing platforms, an elevator, and a grandstand are set between walls, cliffs, and vegetation, sharing an austere language that makes use of concrete mixed with chips extracted from the area, and delicately cast on the site in order to obtain a texture that unifies the new routes in the age-old maritime front.