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The Dark Side of Italy Country Beginning with A10 #46, Eurovision presents an overview guest editor is the first to tackle it. Eurovision can of the current state of architecture in a specific European therefore also take a critical stand against the prevailing The dark side of Italy country. In this issue, the focus is Italy. Each country’s national architectural climate. Parallel to the 2012 LUIGI PRESTINENZA PUGLISI, GUEST EDITOR guest editor will use eight categories – Global, Future, Venice Biennale (see also the Tour Guide on page 60), Urban, and so forth – to formulate a perspective. A special Eurovision reveals the underlying themes in a country feature, ‘The dark side of…’, asks the difficult questions: where good architects are forced to flee their own What is the condition of Italian architecture today? There arrived in Sellinunte from a wide range of countries; what is actually going wrong in a country? Our Italian national borders. are two possible answers to this question. The first is: from France to Spain, from the Netherlands to the United poor, or better yet, terrible. Italy is in the midst of a serious States, from China to Korea. economic crisis. We are one of the PIGS, the four European In this issue of A10 we are obviously unable to speak countries that, at present, are in the worst situation: about all of them. The choice was made to limit the inves- Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. A poor economy in turn tigation to the work of five offices we believe to be par- creates a stagnant building industry. And Italian archi- ticularly interesting. This issue also reveals the existence tects, already too numerous for the few possibilities avail- of two legacies – those of Renzo Piano and Massimiliano able during the good times, are slipping further and fur- Fuksas – demonstrated in a selection of architectural ther into a state of depression. The second answer is: good, practices whose partners either trained in one of these or better yet, very good. In the sense that never before two offices, or whose work is clearly influenced by that have there been so many talented architectural offices in of Piano and Fuksas. Italy, producing such high quality work. In my opinion, this is the result of three factors. The first ITALIAN ASSOCIATION OF ARCHITECTURE AND CRITICISM (AIAC) Italy is a nation in which young people face great difficulties in is that the reactionary culture pedalled in Italian faculties emerging and in which the importance of friendships and family of architecture is now in a state of crisis. No matter how relations is accorded more value than talent. The Associazione Italiana di Architettura e Critica (AIAC) was created in January 2010 hard university professors seek to inculcate within their MORENO MAGGI with the objective of questioning this condition. This objective is students the idea that Vittorio Gregotti, Paolo Portoghesi, pursued through the organization of debates, workshops, courses, competitions, exhibitions, research, publications and events. Giorgio Grassi, Mario Botta and Franco Purini are great Two of these events have met with extraordinary success: the architects, these same students understand that this is Fondazione Renzo Piano Award and the organization of meetings in Venice and Selinunte, Sicily (Architects Meet at the Fuori foolishness, and that good architecture is to be sought else- Biennale and Architects Meet in Selinunte). where, for example, in the production of those who have The Fondazione Renzo Piano Foundation Award, a biannual award organized by the AIAC in partnership with the Renzo Piano shunned the Italian academic world for so many years: Foundation, is presented to a work of architecture by an Italian Renzo Piano and Massimiliano Fuksas. architect under the age of 40. The past year the prize was awarded to the Domus Technica Immergas Advanced Education Centre by The second positive factor is that a growing number of Iotti + Pavarini. Ex aequo second place awards were presented students, thanks to the Erasmus Programme, have learned to to the Digital Water Pavilion in Saragossa by Carlo Ratti and the Abu Hindi School in East Jerusalem by ARCò. The second edition think European. The third positive factor is that, upon return- of the prize, to be launched in November 2012, will be extended ing to Italy, many young Erasmus participants understand to Italian offices that have moved their operations abroad. MORENO MAGGI The meetings in Venice, also biannual, bring together the best that there is no longer any space inside national borders. The international under-35 architects, selected via the Backstage phenomenon of emigration has by now reached a dimension Architecture channel (www.backstage-architecture.org). This year’s meeting will take place on 27 August at the Palazzo Widmann, in Italy that requires an update of the map of Italian architects. concomitance with the 13th International Architectural Exhibition The Associazione Italiana di Architectura e Critica at the Venice Biennale. The event will be used to present the 56 architects under the age of 35, selected from the same number (Italian Association of Architecture and Criticism) docu- of countries around the globe, and to launch an e-book illustrating mented this condition in an exhibition organized in their work. The meetings in Selinunte take place once a year. Among other MORENO MAGGI Sellinunte between 29 March and 1 April 2012. Curated by themes, the April 2012 event investigated the work of under-40 Diego Barbarelli, it presented approximately 50 suitcases, Sicilian architects, the work of Italian architects residing abroad (including the exhibition of suitcases described above) and all sent in by Italian architectural offices. Each contained works of architecture for international cooperation realized in a portfolio of work and objects that spoke of the motiva - developing countries. tions behind the choice to emigrate. In short, 50 suitcases Info www.architetturaecritica.it 4 Below is a list of 70 Italian architectural practices that have moved their offices to other European countries. barbini arquitectos [PT]. can- natà & fernandes ar qui- tectos [PT]. cor arqui tectos [PT]. correia / ragazzi MORENO MAGGI arqui tectos [PT]. nbaa [PT]. pa ratelier [PT]. stefano riva architetto [PT]. ter nullo melo architects [PT]. es tu dio barozzi veiga [ES]. clau dia bonollo / atelier meta mo rphic [ES]. cristobal + monaco Guest edited arqui tectos [ES]. eco sistema urbano [ES]. embt [ES]. etb by a leading [ES]. exter nalreference [ES]. fondarius architecture [ES]. fusina6 / enrica national organi zation mosciaro [ES]. fwg architecture [ES - FR - CH]. gravalosdimonte arquitectos [ES]. in one of the lola [ES]. mab marotta basile arquitectura [ES]. myra arquitectos [ES]. nabito architects and European partners [ES]. pisaa [ES]. teresa sapey estudio de arquitectura [ES]. solinas serra arquitec countries. Within a tos [ES]. trovato moya arquitectos [ES]. 37.2 atelier de microarchitecture [FR]. enzo range of eight amantea architectes [FR]. awp [FR - CH]. b+c architectes [FR]. paolo cascone / codesign pre-selected lab [FR]. atelier cattani architectes [FR]. silvio d'ascia architecte [FR]. atelier filippini [FR]. fresh themes each country architectures [FR]. ga architecture [FR]. lan architecture [FR]. microcities [FR]. ugo nocera strives to architecte [FR]. op.4 architecture [FR]. rev architecture design urbanism [FR]. ste fano give deeper sbarbati architecte [FR]. atelier tarabusi [FR]. dos architects [UK]. ecologicstu dio insight into MORENO MAGGI the current [UK]. guarnieri architects [UK]. mai studio [UK]. noi architects [UK]. state of claudio silvestrin architects [UK]. marco vanucci / open ar chi tectural system [UK]. menabò architecture [NL]. francesco affairs: MORENO MAGGI moncada [NL]. nauta architec ture & research [NL]. xcoop [NL]. Urban bfm architekten [D]. botti zanafredi archi tecture [D]. francesco di gregorio Green & karin matz [D]. kuhen malvezzi [D]. lin architects [D Connecting Social - F]. celoria architects [CH]. alleswirdgut architektur Offbeat [A]. silvia boday [A]. feld72 [A]. Global frediani+gasserarchitettura [A]. nicoletta Future The dark piersantelli [A]. share architects side of... [A]. sofa architekten [A]. stadtlabor [A]. weke nd in a morning [A] MORENO MAGGI DIEGO BARBARELLI 38 A10 # 47 Eurovision: Italy Eurovision: Italy A10 # 47 39 Society should be the product The dark side of Italy becomes evident in these Eurovision pages: old-fashioned professors, hermetic networks, no opportunities for young architects and extremely lengthy construction periods all explain why a ‘young’ architect in Italy is usually around 50. But the Italians can also boast of a long tradition of good taste, beautiful buildings and first-rate patrons. Luca Zevi and Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi further explore this contradiction while talking about the content of the Italian Pavilion for this year’s Biennale in Venice. ITALY — TEXT: INDIRA VAN ‘T KLOOSTER, PHOTOGRAPHY: STUDIO MORENO MAGGI / LORENZO GALLITTO Indira van ‘t Klooster: You both seem to feel anger at every- IvtK: Are you looking for an new kind of Archigram or Meta- thing the Italians can’t seem to get right, but concurrently morphosis, with big structures, big changes, large scale? through all these judgemental statements are also indi- LZ: No, no, no. This is not about megapolisation. I’m thinking of cations of confidence in Italian architecture. Luca Zevi, as a much smaller scale! curator of the Italian Pavilion, how do you feel about the IvtK: What’s a good example now? Italian situation? LZ: Mario Cucinella produced an ecological house of 100 m2 Luca Zevi: We are at the end of a period of almost 30 years in for 100,000 euros. That’s really important. He is one of the few which money dominated Italian life. But now that the money is architects that deals with new ways of organizing housing. gone, and the belief that we will ever get out of this crisis with LPP: Think of Corviale in Rome. It was an experiment from it, we need a renewal of the economy. Architects and clients 1984 on other ways of living.
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