Architecture

Venice Architecture Biennale. Italian Pavilion

On the occasion of the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, The Italian Pavilion will propose the exhibition “ARCIPELAGO ITALIA. Projects for the future of the country’s interior territories”, curated by the architect Mario Cucinella. The exhibition will focus on urban space that runs along the Italian ridge, “from the Alpine Arch, along the Apennines, up to the Mediterranean”.

Sketch of the exhibition © Mario Cucinella
Sketch of the exhibition © Mario Cucinella

For this challenge, Mario Cucinella invited 5 architecture offices to work on five strategic areas for the revitalization of Italy’s interior territories, through the development of experimental projects that can become a tool for discussion and also an aid to local communities. The architects developed their projects in the following complex sites : the town of Barbagia with the Ottana plain, in the central region of Sardinia; Valle del Belice with a focus on Gibellina, in western Sicily; Matera in its relationship with the Valle del Basento in southern Italy; the Crater and Camerino in the area of Central Italy hit by the 2016 earthquake and the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines with particular attention to the Casentinesi Forest Park.

Participation in Gibellina Nuova, Trapani, 14/01/2018: Mario Cucinella and the team at work in the Consagra Theater © staff Mario Cucinella
Participation in Gibellina Nuova, Trapani, 14/01/2018: Mario Cucinella and the team at work in the Consagra Theater © staff Mario Cucinella
Belice: The spatiality of the uncompleted Teatro di Consagra in Gibellina Nuova © Davide Curatola Soprana / Urban Reports
Belice: The spatiality of the uncompleted Teatro di Consagra in Gibellina Nuova © Davide Curatola Soprana / Urban Reports

We have chosen five architectural firms constituting a collective that is working on five revival projects. Projects of hybrid buildings that can in some way solve the problems of depopulation and the reduction of services in those territories.

Collina Materana: Ferrandina Scalo station, no one waiting for the train © Alessandro Guida / Urban Reports
Collina Materana: Ferrandina Scalo station, no one waiting for the train © Alessandro Guida / Urban Reports

Every architecture office has collaborated with an interdisciplinary collective composed by urban planners, experts in participatory planning, photographers, representatives of local universities and other consultants, asking them to work on the development of experimental projects that can become a tool for discussion and also an aid to local communities.
The Pavilion has been conceived as a path guiding the visitor through the exhibition, starting from the story of places, and then presenting the five projects resulting of the multi-disciplinary and inclusive design process coordinated by Mario Cucinella and his staff.

Belice: The fissure of Burri in old Gibellina Vecchia © Davide Curatola Soprana / Urban Reports
Belice: The fissure of Burri in old Gibellina Vecchia © Davide Curatola Soprana / Urban Reports
Model detail, Sala dell’Arcipelago © Staff Mario Cucinella
Model detail, Sala dell’Arcipelago © Staff Mario Cucinell

 

Texts from exhibition’s press release and Mario Cucinella.

“ARCIPELAGO ITALIA. Projects for the future of the country’s interior territories”, From May 26th till November 25th.
Italian Pavilion – Tese delle Vergini (Arsenale), 30122, Venice.
Curator: Mario Cucinella

 

See also