Special Event
Manifesto per Milano. Void as Public Opportunity
Dynamic balance of the city to be, 2008
Mould 250. 1,80 m x 2,60 m x 7,00 m (h; w; l)
Gianpietro Carlesso & Metrogramma 2008
On the eve of the presentation of the Plan for the Government of the Territory of the city of Milan, the stage and the research theme proposed by Aaron Betsky for the 11th International Architecture Exhibition become the venue and the set for an experimental installation that raises questions, studies and rethinks the collective urban space in the city of Milan.
The Councilor for the Development of the Territory for the City of Milan, Carlo Masseroli, with sculptor Gianpietro Carlesso and the Metrogramma architectural firm, have chosen La Biennale di Venezia as the first international showcase to give visibility to the contents of the design in the Plan for the Government of the Territory, the primary tool that will guide the urban transformation of the city of Milan in the near future.
An urban revolution that has been inflamed by the conquest of Expo 2015, and will project Milan into the great arena of European and international urban transformations. But unlike so many other cities in the world that are investing in architectural symbols and individual icons, in this Plan Milan proposes to present the renaissance of the urban space as the defining characteristic of its own identity. Milan as the anti-Dubai.
What should public spaces be in our day? How can history remain vital in the body of the city? How can transformations determine their own identity and how can they be compatible with the historical identity of the city they belong to? How can the isolation of the suburbs be fought? How and with what plans and what projects can the city reverse the tendency of its parts to be mutually exclusive? How is it possible to advance the notion of true modernity?
These and other questions constitute the ‘fil rouge’ of the research study conducted by Milan to build a new city planning tool that will determine the future development of the city of Milan: the Plan for the Government of the Territory.
A Plan founded on a continuous network of open spaces: infrastructure, environment and services. An axis of collective spaces around which an infinite palimpsest of urban scenarios may be built, where design and standards converge to create an innovative form of city planning that combines the power of ideas with flexibility over time.
The void becomes the protagonist, the urban stage of the city.
From a poetic reflection on the void, which acquires substance and form thanks to the art of sculpture, comes “Manifesto per Milano. Void as public opportunity”.
The sculpture therefore becomes the paradox; the ideal metaphor to recount, above all, the conceptual reversal of voids and solids. The void is represented by the maximum physical presence. It is the manifestation of the architecture of space. A void is achieved through the process of “subtraction”, of “excavation”, of “recomposition”, of “overlay”. This will be true for Milan; this is how it is in the art of sculpture.
