- Poster of the exhibition “ARCHITETTURA INVISIBILE / INVISIBLE ARCHITECTURE” curated by Rita Elvira Adamo. (Graphic design: Matteo Blandford).

The search for a control of the environment at every design scale, the desire for redefining the future of society through technology, the development of new ideas for inhabiting the planet: the unbiased architectural experimentations that took place in Japan and Italy in the 1960s and 1970s are at the core of the “Architettura Invisibile / INVISIBLE ARCHITECTURE” exhibition, that will open at Museo Carlo Bilotti -  Aranciera di Villa Borghese, in Rome, Italy, on January 19, 2017 until March 26, 2017. Organized by Fondazione Italia Giappone, supported by the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale, by the Consiglio Nazionale degli Architetti Pianificatori Paesaggisti e Conservatori and by the Istituto di Cultura Giapponese - Japan Foundation, the exhibition is part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of relations between Japan and Italy.

“This exhibition is part of a long-term program of comparison between architecture in Italy and Japan. Architecture, as a social art par excellence, has its birth in architect’s imagination before giving a shape and personality to our cities. “ARCHITETTURA INVISIBILE / INVISIBLE ARCHITECTURE” sets this educational and creative process out, that connects the two edges of Eurasia showing surprising parallels and similarities”, Ambassador Umberto Vattani, President of Fondazione Italia Giappone, said.

“Cross-culture is a fundamental challenge in the process of globalization of companies. On behalf of Alcantara, a more and more global brand, I’m very gratified by being partner of this initiative and contributing to strengthen relations between two cultures that are geographically far away and that I hope will be closer and closer thanks to cultural contamination and business activities.”
Andrea Boragno, Deputy President of Fondazione Italia Giappone, President and CEO of Alcantara Spa explained.

The event arises from an exploration of the historical role, in the course of the 1960s and 1970s, of Japanese architecture avant-gardes that convened in the Metabolist movement and in the Italian Radical Architecture.

Curated by Rita Elvira Adamo, young scholar who conceived it starting from a comparative research she started at London Metropolitan University, with the collaboration of two Italian scholars,  Cristiano Lippa and Federico Scaroni, from the University of Tokyo, the exhibition highlights the similarities and disparities between the two experiences.

“INVISIBLE ARCHITECTURE” is the the architecture that already is around us today; an architecture foreseen by the avant-gards, and that is “invisible” since immersed into a metropolis of commodities, made out of products, information, offers, services, where absolute foundations don’t exist anymore but only a flow of energies stemming from innovation, within an unlimited and unconstrained market. INVISIBLE ARCHITECTURE is the architecture in the age of globalization.” Andrea Branzi

A wide range of prominent authors, who starting from their innovative experimentations affirmed themselves as protagonists of contemporary architectural research, are part of the exhibition: Arata Isozaki, Archizoom (Andrea Branzi, Gilberto Corretti, Paolo Deganello, Massimo Morozzi, Dario and Lucia Bartolini), Kiyonori Kikutake, Kisho Kurokawa, Fumihiko Maki, Otaka Masato, Superstudio (Adolfo Natalini, Cristiano Toraldo Di Francia, Roberto Magris, Alessandro Magris, Gian Piero Frassinelli and Alessandro Poli), Kenzo Tange, UFO (Lapo Binazzi, Carlo Bachi, Patrizia Cammeo, Riccardo Foresi, Titti Maschietto, Sandro Gioli). Their works, that will also be described by means of the publications that contributed to the definition of the reciprocal influences between the researches led in the two countries, will be introduced by a survey of the cultural, artistic, social, political conditions that triggered the rise of these phenomena.

The central part of the exhibition, that celebrates famous projects together with less renowned, but just as significant, works, is structured according to three themes through which the visitor may understand affinities and differences between the researches: Environment, Technology, Inhabitation. The final segment of the ehibition, symbolized by a large inflatable element specifically designed by Analogique and that will be placed on the terrace of the museum, will accommodate design experiences developed in the last years in Japan and Italy that interpret, some 50 years later, the same themes -Environment, Technology, Inhabitation- investigated by the Metabolist and Radical avant-gardes. Works by 2A+P/A, AlphavilleArchitects, DAP Studio, Sou Fujimoto, Jun Igarashi, IAN+, Yamazaki Kentaro, Yuko Nagayama, O + H Architects, OFL Architecture, Orizzontale, Studio Wok, Tipi Studio are featured in this last segment of the exhibition.

On the occasion of the exhibition’s preview and during the opening days a series of events, meetings, encounters with protagonists will take place, whose schedule will be announced on the official website1.

The press book may be downloaded at this link.2

  • 1. http://www.architetturainvisibile.it
  • 2. https://goo.gl/hIabAH