Triennale di Milano: The Architecture of the World - Infrastructure, Mobility, New Landscapes

Four of my High Line photographs (including the one shown on the website) are currently on view in an exhibition at the Triennale di Milano in Milan Italy.  The architectural and photography exhibition focusing on urban architecture and mobility, part of the much larger design triennial, runs through February 10, 2013.  In English, the statement on the website reads (roughly translated by google translate):

The architecture of the World
Infrastructure, mobility, new landscapes

The show's title refers explicitly to those works that, like roads, railways, airports, contributes most to shape the world and allow it to function, and their relationship with functions and routines that change and an increasingly endangered.

The exhibition consists of four sections of which, the historical one, will be an element of continuity of the path and the other three, in turn, will exhibit works and projects related to what is produced outside of our country, in what was implemented or is in the course of work in Italy and, finally, what begins to appear as a geographical global scale at which the new major infrastructure relate.

The historical section, which will cover the twentieth century, will present works known as the designs of Le Corbusier for Algiers or Chandigarh, those of Saarinen for the station of Helsinki or Poelzig Klingerberg for the dam, but also cases that, even today, can be an example for the ability to create public space and environmental value, such as the Moscow metro, the arrangement of the river in Ljubljana Plecnik or the architectural design of Rino Tami for the environmental integration of the motorway to the south. A special section will, then, the great Italian engineering as it has become known in Italy and abroad, in the 50s and 70s.

The section devoted to recent works produced outside of our country's objective is to present an updated catalog of works, divided into themes, some of which may serve as a model for those who like Italy must recover a delay in in recent years.

The section on the national scene will give an account of how, even with discontinuities and contradictions, it is work in progress or has just been made, highlighting, in particular, some situations in which the relationship between infrastructure, architecture, art, landscape, city, took on a special role in developing interesting and unusual results as evidenced by the cases of Reggio Emilia, Naples, Perugia, Venice and the works undertaken by the Group Italian State Railways.

Drastically changes the scale of the scenario in the last section of the exhibition in which the object of attention are colossal works in defense of sand or wind energy for water supply or to a movement "global." Operations already well under way in Africa, China or South America, Bering or Panama and that their earlier in the twentieth century, in historical operations such as those foreshadowed by 'Atlantropa Herman Sorgel, which involved the lowering of the Mediterranean for agriculture and energy, or operations undertaken in Stalin's Russia or in America the New Deal.

Within the path will also be possible to meet specific insights as the video presentation of 45 reports about different cities of the world, by young architects and researchers who live and work or have lived and studied outside of our country while being Italian training and tell, from their point of view, the main operations in progress. in infrastructure in major cities of the world. Or as the space dedicated to the permeability of the infrastructure or the new map showing their spread to a global scale.

Finally, if the general theme addressed in this exhibition is infrastructure, the real question that you want to bring to the attention of the visitors as careful planning, based on architectural quality, the multi-functionality, environmental compatibility, can be attributed these increasingly important players in the global scenario, an added value that no longer has only to do with the features that led to its origin, but with improved aesthetic, environmental, social territories or cities with which they come in contact.

So, if you're in Milan, go check it out...and if you do, send me some installation photos!