Architecture of the World

The exhibition that opened at Milan's Triennale last 8 October is a truly ambitious project. Curated by Alberto Ferlenga with Marco Biraghi, Benno Albrecht, Giulio Barazzetta, Giacomo Polin, and Massimo Ferrari, Architecture of the world presents an overview of a topic — infrastructure — that has recently come to the fore in new ways. To clarify the terms being used, we must ask ourselves just what we mean when we talk about infrastructure. The exhibition is an open admission of the topic's complexity, which never hurts, especially in fields like this, where often — and inevitably — it is difficult to dominate the grey area distinguishing the technical fascination of large works from their acknowledged or presumed engineering muscle.

And so the Triennale's ground floor becomes a self-contained exhibition space with separate pavilions, like a miniature trade fair. Each pavilion has its own theme and visual language. Dutifully, the curators open the exhibition with history. The two introductory critical essays by Ferlenga and Biraghi — entitled respectively A still useful history and From the point of view of architecture — are almost choral. The colossal 20th century masters — from Otto Wagner to Le Corbusier, from Hans Poelzig to Eliel Saarinen, Sant'Elia, Bonatz, and Lurçat — find their rightful places here, along with the necessary in-depth spots on some not-so-well-known authors inextricably tied to their regions. Thus Andrea Iorio explores Plecnik's Ljubljana and Serena Maffioletti describes Rino Tami's Ticino.

The show then makes the leap into the present day, where the infrastructural dimension is refined — with a soft, absolutely architectural, aesthetic. The exhibition design by Claudio Conter and Filippo Orsini is low-tech but convincing. Large concrete tables and rebars resembling trusses host photographic descriptions of works organized according to their poetic "species," so to speak. Room is made for micro-scale pedestrian bridges, for the philosophy of slow paths and road edges, as well as for the "hard" dimension of subways, cable cars, stations and ports. Unfortunately, what could have been a sure-fire eye for reuse is relegated to a mere photographic hint.

The dynamics regarding infrastructure currently under construction in forty-five of the world's cities are represented on an interesting wall containing the same number of video reports by young, Italian-trained architects and researchers. Making the best of the Triennale's ground floor ring layout, the exhibition continues with extensive explorations of the Italian situation. The history of twentieth century Italian infrastructure unfolds along the long right wall of the semicircular circulation path, told through the work of the nation's most important architects — alongside civil engineers — between the 50s and 80s. So the episode of Italian highways and large projects by Musumeci, Nervi, Quaroni, and Morandi counterpoint magnificent drawings and visions by Albini, Scarpa, Mollino, De Carlo, Dardi, Canella, Samonà, Sottsass, Purini, Rossi, and Venezia, among others. The exhibition also includes a certain local pride with works by other figures — especially from Milan — like Giuseppe De Finetti, Piero Portaluppi and Silvano Zorzi.

After a small focus on the portrayal of infrastructure in Italian cinema, the left wall is divided into a series of themed pavilions devoted to mobility and infrastructure projects under way in Italy today. The horizon is broad. With a wealth of large models, design drawings, videos and photos, the topics range from energy production to road works as instruments for regional development — from the new metro lines in Naples and Rome to the large stations in Bologna and Naples-Afragola, and from a thorough exploration of Calatrava's project for the 129th kilometer of the A1 motorway near Reggio Emilia to the MOSE project for Venice. A final investigation — again in a local key — is devoted to the Lombardy Region's Pedemontana highway, to the Milan accesses to the Expo 2015 site and to an analysis of the perceptive permeability of the A4 Milan-Venice highway. The whole tour features suspended panels bearing the exhibition's (many) important keywords.

Finally, with yet another perception disconnect, the show's last section moves back to the hyper-global scale. Large-screen videos illustrate gargantuan works — inspired by some earlier twentieth century precedents — in defense of the sands and winds of Africa, China, South America. A small (maybe too small) video section then opens a brief exploration of data flows and methods for representing urban movements. But it is an attempt — all too late — to define as avant-garde an issue that has been at the heart of the debate for years: the concept of infrastructure in the era of information networks. It really is no longer the case to pose this issue in the form of a question; it should have been placed forcefully at the centre of the discussion as an established fact on the same level as the other themes presented in the show.

The exhibition's problem is just this: a clear desire to comprehensively represent a potentially (and currently) infinite question is barely concealed behind opposing statements. Of course, multiplicity is a benefit, where possible interpretations could become even more piercing. But the proliferation of rhizomes that compels the creation of continuous lists of issues could speed out of control and leave the visitor little more than the awareness of the fact that something must unite the Moses footbridge in Halsteren by RO & AD architecten, the Kilometro Rosso in Bergamo by Jean Nouvel and the Pedemontana highway, but no one knows quite what it is. Perhaps it is just a word — so generic as to have lost all meaning.

Of course, the exhibition seeks to provide an interpretation of what is on display. This is made quite clear in the dense catalogue, in the words of Ferlenga, Biraghi and Albrecht who confer delicate and complex environmental value upon all the works concerning the mobility of people and things that effectively constitute the "Architecture of the world." But it is widely accepted that infrastructure (in the broadest possible sense) and landscape (in the broadest possible sense) are deeply intertwined. Or perhaps it is not, in which case it should be communicated more incisively — without diluting it in a mix and alternation of scales that confuse the layman and frustrate the specialist. Still, despite its limitations, Architecture of the world was a necessary exhibition. It is a true pleasure to visit and it would be a pity to miss it. Rossella Ferorelli (@R_Ferorelli )

Through 10 February 2013
Architecture of the World
Triennale di Milano
Viale Alemagna 6, Milan