The Italian National Institute For Writings And Drawings (Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica) and The Department for Architecture and Contemporary Art of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage (Direzione Generale per l’Architettura e l’Arte Contemporanea), in cooperation with the Cosanti Foundation (Scottsdale, Arizona), The Roman Association of Professional Architects (Ordine degli Architetti Pianificatori Paesaggisti e Conservatori di Roma e Provincia), and several other institutions (Univerisita’ degli Studi Roma Tre, Soprintendenza per i beni architettonici artistici e per il paesaggio di Salerno, Ministero per gli Affari Esteri, Comune di Vietri sul Mare, Provincia di Salerno) are organizing an anthological retrospective on the production of Italian-American architect PAOLO SOLERI, which will be hosted in prestigious venues in Rome (Palazzo Fontana di Trevi, Maxxi, Casa dell’Architettura).
An exhibition on Paolo Soleri will interest researchers, architects, and the general public, as indicated not only by the immediate response of involved institutions, but also by the extensive public attention to the initiatives, conventions, and workshops promoted during Soleri’s recent visits to Italy. Among other events related to Soleri in 2005 are the realization of a massive concrete and bronze sculpture in Vietri sul Mare (Salerno Province) and the declaration of the Solimene Ceramic Factory, the only work ever completed in Italy (1952-54), as a cultural landmark.
Venues:
The section of the exhibition
that will be hosted by The Palace of the Trevi Fountain (Palazzo Fontana
di Trevi) in conjunction with The Italian National Institute For Writings
And Drawings (Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica), will give particular
attention to Soleri’s
exceptional free-hand drawings (sketches, views, visions, and figurations).
These graphic works give background to the genesis of Soleri’s
architectural and urban formulations.This exhibition will express the
function and importance that drawing has represented in Soleri’s
speculative process and concurrently demonstrate the autonomous artistic
value of such works. The breadth of the graphic collection is incredible:
ten 400 page sketchbook volumes (1960 to 2000), with a total of 4000
pages; 150 scrolls, up to fifty-five meters long, of projects such as
Mesa City, Two Suns Arcology, Space for Peace, and Bridges and Dams;
and 400 drawings on loose sheets of various sizes made between 1950 and
2000. The quality and fecund originality of the ideas and the proposed
solutions will allow the public to glimpse a personality characterized
by “universal interests,” in the renaissance meaning of the
term.
The section of the exhibition that will be hosted by MAXXI, the Department for Architecture and Contemporary Art’s National Museum for the 21st Century, will illustrate the progressive elaboration of the concept of arcology (architecture + ecology), from the original conceptual and graphic ideas defined in Soleri’s book, Arcology: The City in the Image of Man, to the later Two Suns Arcology series and the Space for Peace project, including the fantastic and utopist manifests of Soleri’s ideas in space arcology projects. A didactic section will also explain the construction techniques used by Soleri at Cosanti and Arcosanti.
The section of the exhibition in the Casa dell’Architettura, the main location of the Roman Association of Professional Architects and the former Roman Aquarium, will house Soleri’s graphic production and models (several arcologies, bridges, and vertical cities) from the Eighties to present and will also organize an urban planning workshop for university students. The nucleus of this part of the exhibition will be the documentation of Arcosanti, the self-funded urban laboratory that seeks to translate the arcological model into reality. Drawings, designs, as well as photographic and multi-media material from initial construction in the Seventies to the most recent Arcosanti 5000 model, will be included.
CATALOG
The catalog will consist of essays from members of the scientific committee
and topical experts. It will also include writings related to particular
themes of the exhibition, such as Soleri’s graphic production (typology
and techniques), the restoration of Solimene Ceramic Factory, construction
techniques, and theoretical production.
