The reasoning behind the object

Invited to reinterpret the space of the Fondazione Volume!, Italian architect and designer Michele De Lucchi takes the opportunity to uncover traces left by the long history of a space that formerly harboured a glassworks.

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Stretching along the Lungotevere Farnesina, in the Roman district of Trastevere, the Fondazione Volume! exhibition space invites diverse artists at different times to develop site-specific works. Volume! is not an art gallery, but a contemporary art space: plain, bare surroundings far removed from their past life and intentionally lacking a project.

This is the setting for Italian architect and designer Michele De Lucchi's installation Colonne portanti, or supporting columns, curated by Emilia Giorgi. De Lucchi was asked to come up with his own interpretation of the space, inhabit it and take the opportunity to uncover traces left by its long history, the indelible memories vigilantly preserved by the thick stone walls of this space, which formerly harboured a glasswork workshop. The architect and designer saw what had been a neighbourhood workshop as a place to unearth signs of time. He discovered small spaces, niches and holes, dug new ones when necessary, and inserted columns into them. Every one of these small locations becomes a world in itself, a space to be explored, worthy of a specific response. De Lucchi constructed wooden columns for each of these niches with his own hands.

The small columns may escape visitors' perception because, set in very diverse places, they are not immediately apparent: they never occupy the empty room itself, but instead hide in the thickness of the walls. The first thing perceived upon entering the gallery is the overwhelming force of emptiness. "Niches and columns create a space, miniature architecture that is pure and whole, and does not need size to convey its vigour and richness," points out De Lucchi.

Every column is directly related in size, proportion and position to the hollowed out space into which it is inserted, so much so that it is impossible to imagine the two — space and column — separated from each other. This is perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the whole installation. These small objects transform the space, seemingly equal at first glance. However, De Lucchi points out in the catalogue that he made these columns: "[…] as objects, like Morandi's bottles that, despite all being the same, ones we see every day, appear different each time."

Top: Michele de Lucchi next to his <em>Colonne portanti</em> installation. Above: Michele de Lucchi, <em>Colonne portanti</em>, installation view at Fondazione Volume!, Rome, 2012. Courtesy of Fondazione Volume! — Top: Michele de Lucchi next to his *Colonne portanti* installation. Above: Michele de Lucchi, *Colonne portanti*, installation view at Fondazione Volume!, Rome, 2012. Courtesy of Fondazione Volume!

Some columns are slanting, distorted and imprecise, revealing they are handmade. Each comprises many small pieces of walnut wood, assembled to form single layers. The different diametres of the stacked discs, some more and some less noticeably, define the entasis of the columns — which is crucial to De Lucchi as "it differentiates them from a commonplace cylinder or pillar, conferring that uniqueness that is so crucial in times such as ours."

Michele de Lucchi, <em>Colonne portanti</em>, installation view at Fondazione Volume!, Rome, 2012. Courtesy of Fondazione Volume! — Michele de Lucchi, *Colonne portanti*, installation view at Fondazione Volume!, Rome, 2012. Courtesy of Fondazione Volume!

The small, sculpture-like pieces were made in De Lucchi's "Chiosco" at Angera, the much-loved hiding place to which he retreats for private meditations, away from his career as an architect and industrial designer. Matteo Costanzo