exhibition
07 December 2022 > 15 January 2023

MAXXI Alcantara / Studio VisitSpace PopularSearch History

extra MAXXI
curated by Domitilla Dardi

#spacepopular #searchhistory

Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg explore the work of Aldo Rossi, starting with the ‘urban fact’ and the ‘analogous city’ to realise a contemporary virtual city.

For five years, the Studio Visit programme has been inviting contemporary designers to offer a personal interpretation of the work of one of the masters represented in the MAXXI Architettura Collection. For the latest edition, reflecting on the recent proliferation of so-called metaverse platforms that aim to recreate existing real-estate market models by selling virtual land, Space Popular proposes instead a civic approach to virtual urbanism.

In The Architecture of the City, Rossi embraces the subjective experience over time, presenting the city as a sequence of spatial experiences that, while unique to each one of us, remains ‘permanent, universal and a necessary fact’. According to Space Popular, this notion is more akin to the experience of moving across virtual environments than what any of the so-calledmetaverse platforms have proposed so far.

Search History presents the experience of moving across virtual environments in the Immersive Internet (which is the only, ever-shifting, unmappable, metaverse) through a tribute to Rossi. In continuous movement, the Alcantara sheets immerse us in a soft and shifting architecture whose flowing movement constantly composes new landscapes, looking beyond the physical limit of the material and providing a glimpse at new perspectives. Alcantara supports this reading by crossing boundaries, lending itself to daring cuts, unique prints and rich textures.

for Search History
Space Popular Fredrik Hellberg and Lara Lesmes Modeling and Research Assistant Deborah Wong Soundscape San Jerónimo (María Mieres and Nacho Iglesias)