Italy in 2012, with a faceless "technical" government struggling with the economic crisis, is trying to overcome the crisis of ideas and recalls its strengths, among which: active small enterprises and private initiative, economical production, special attention to aesthetics, landscape and ecology - that is, content still talking about a lot of the Made in Italy label.
In the premises of the pavilion of Italy in the Arsenal, the viewer is greeted by a forest of 5,000 ferns, due to the humidity and darkness necessary for its survival, reminiscent of a prehistoric jungle. Among the greenery are screens showing one - views of Italian nature, the other - thematic interviews. This is followed by a "meaningful" hall dedicated to architecture itself. The exposition there is divided into sections called "Four seasons", which, apparently, unites the classic tradition (which is also, in fact, Made in Italy of the past centuries) with an ecological component and a hint of waiting for the beginning of a "new cycle".
The pavilion was curated by Luke Dzevi, the son of the great critic Bruno Dzevi, who opened Italian modernism to the world in the post-war years. In his opinion, the first of the "Four Seasons" of architecture under the label "Made in Italy" determined the activities of Adriano Olivetti in the middle of the 20th century. This merchant attracted leading designers to the production of office equipment, which went down in the history of not only technology, but also art: the typewriters Lettera 22 by Marcello Nizzoli (1950) or Praxis 48 by Ettore Sottsas (1963) are present in the collection of many museums, including New York MoMA. However, in addition to the implementation of functionalist, but also almost Vitruvian ideas about combining utility with beauty in the goods of his factory in the northern Italian region of Val d'Aosta, Olivetti was engaged in large-scale construction there since the second half of the 1930s.
He erected residential quarters and sanatoriums for workers according to projects of modernist architects - future architectural "stars" Made in Italy of the 1950s-1960s Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini, BBPR, sponsored the first regional master plan in Italy, and in the post-war years he founded and headed techno -socialist movement "Movimento Comunità", designed to become a kind of third force between the "right" Christian Democrats and the "left", then represented by the Communist Party. The organization was active until the death of its ideologist in 1958. This whole story is presented in the pavilion's exposition by materials from the Olivetti archive (layouts, master plans, magazines, books and, of course, typewriters) and is the most developed and easily readable part of it.
The "second season" presents us with the heyday of small-scale production in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, when the modern pattern of the Italian landscape took shape. It was during these years that industrial production began to move from the big cities to the Italian hills and plains, complementing the landscapes still recognizable from the Renaissance paintings with industrial complexes of compact and elegant proportions: furniture factories in Veneto, sewing workshops in Lombardy, tomato canning factories in Emilia, pasta enterprises throughout the Peninsula.
But only in the "Third Season" - from the 1990s to the present day - small factories reflecting the "innate sense of form" began to acquire the names of leading architects, and trade brands - the "architectural" connotation. One of the first was the Benetton clothing brand, the factories for which were designed by Tadao Ando, Tobia Scarpa (son of Carlo Scarpa) and his partner and wife Afra Scarpa. The heyday of "high" architecture of industrial enterprises came at the turn of the century, when Mario Cucinella worked for the lamp manufacturer iGuzzini (2002), ABDR for the Martinelli furniture factory (2003), Guido Canali for Prada (1999 - 2001), PiùArch (known to us by the St. Petersburg complex Quattro Corti) for Dolce & Gabbana (2001), and Renzo Piano for Ferrari (1998) to name but a few.
Wine-making and other agricultural farms, which by their very purpose are closely related to nature and tradition, are especially highlighted. The antiquity of the craft does not hold back experiments with architectural form, on the contrary, the most daring solutions are surprisingly organically built in and even emphasize the beauty of the landscape. A lot of the exposition and works of recent years, including the headquarters of Lavazza (2010) Chino Zucchi and his own production center Salewa (2011), as well as the building of Jean Nouvel - again for Ferrari (2009). All objects are presented with digital slideshows and are accompanied by interviews with authors, which, alas, can hardly be heard.
Season Four announces the hot topic of Nourishing the Planet. It is dedicated to the future, including the very near - foreshadowing the Milan Expo 2015 on the same topic. The section illustrates the video installation Italian Landstories by Monica Maggioni and Dario Curatolo, based on research by Mauro Agnoletti, and tells how a landscape can be not only a natural resource, but also a historical and cultural identification of a place. The main "message" of the section is the possibility of overcoming the contradiction between nature and man through the "restoration" of the landscape, damaged by industrial activity, and the organization of ecological production. In addition to the theme - Oscar Santili's Watt Pedalati project at the exit from the pavilion: "doubly" eco-friendly bicycles, which are not only a fuel-free mode of transport, but also generate electricity: by turning their pedals, you can recharge your mobile phone.
The theme is developed by the installation Recycled Italy in the adjacent to the Italian pavilion in the garden of Delle Vergini by one of the brightest masters of Arte Povera Michelangelo Pistoletto. The maestro sees the reason for today's difficult situation in the blind pursuit of financial gain. The twentieth century, the master is sure, was the Middle Ages, and a new Renaissance will follow …
I would like to sincerely wish Italy a new Renaissance, especially since its discreet and elegant pavilion allows us to hope for its imminent offensive. But, no matter how pleasant it is to be optimists, the example of the Olivetti company is very eloquent, which launched compact personal computers back in the 1960s (!), And was sold in the 1990s due to the unprofitability of production. Although the OliPad, created last year, surpasses its counterparts not only aesthetically, but also technically - who knows about this? But I would very much like to see a real New Year after the "Fourth Season", so that wonderful Italian undertakings go beyond architectural studios, city walls, borders of estates and cross the Alps not only as an exclusive export in search of a solvent buyer.
Italian Pavilion at the XIII Architecture Biennale in Venice
Curator: Luka Dzevi
Pavilion design: Mario Burrascano, Maria Luisa Palumbo, Giampiero Sanguigny.
