On 27 February 1960 Adriano Olivetti died. With the disappearance of the businessman-guide, the construction cycle of its industrial and social project terminated and a period of great uncertainty opened up: the company, financially fragile, underwent a forced change of ownership and strategy.
Architecture, the space of human being, was for Adriano Olivetti an irreplaceable tool for the creation of communities. Ivrea and the Canavese territory were the main fields of action of an industrial policy characterised by strong social responsibility.
Eight weekly sessions, presented by international academics reflecting on some of the protagonists of the European and Latin American Modern Movement who trained or carried out part of their professional careers between the two continents.
"Rome and the Legacy of Louis I. Kahn", by Marco Falsetti and Elisabetta Barizza, will be presented as part of the review ‘Books at MAXXI’, in the Sala Scarpa.
Imprint of the Future. Destiny of Piranesi's City. Exhibition and research by Sergei Tchoban. Photo by Stefano Cirianni
The Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome and the Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin present an exhibition by the architect and draughtsman Sergei Tchoban. A native of St Petersburg who has organically absorbed the harmony of this city’s proportionality and similitude, Sergei Tchoban has always striven to understand the laws which govern the development of cities like St Petersburg and the great prototypes in whose image it was created. Is it possible to preserve these cities’ outstanding quality? And is it possible to pursue this quality today, at the current stage of development of architecture? These are the central questions posed in the present exhibition, which marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 – 1778). One of the greatest artists of his time, Piranesi succeeded in capturing the development of the European city as a phenomenon which, despite many layers and internal contradictions, is nevertheless harmonious.
Curated by the Politecnico di Torino (Michele Bonino and Francesca Governa, with the collaboration of Francesco Carota, Maria Paola Repellino and Angelo Sampieri) and by Prospekt Photographers (Samuele Pellecchia, Francesco Merlini) with Tsinghua University in Beijing, the exhibition is the result of years of research and offers the public a new and broad perspective that traces a line of continuity between past, present and future, connecting the culture of traditional China with the impressive transformations of contemporary Chinese cities.
IEREK organizes the 2nd international conference on Utopian and Sacred Architecture Studies to be hosted in one of the most spiritual cities, the city of Naples. Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban areas in the world which makes it a prime example that contains real-life models of sacred architecture, spiritual buildings and sites such as Pompeii, Amalfi Coast, Ravello, etc. To optimize the benefits of going through such an experience, visits to these cities will be designed alongside the conference's main activities.
