For this year’s Statale exhibition, Human Spaces has called on architects and designers to interpret the concept of “human space”, especially in terms of urban mobility, circular economy and environmental sustainability. As suggested by Oscar Niemeyer, according to whom “life is more important than architecture”, the exhibition showcased architecture bowed to human needs.

The most acclaimed – and photographed – installation was undoubtedly “Help the Planet, Help the Humans” by Maria Cristina Finucci into the main courtyard: two tons of plastic caps forming the word ‘help’ as a warning against the pervasive ocean pollution. Then “Human Proportions’ by Massimo Iosa Ghini, produced in collaboration with Knauf Italia, Corradi and Manni Group, is a trapezoidal pavilion that triggered a spatial experience of accentuated perspective: at the bottom, next to a puppet, whoever leans out of the window seems incredibly bigger to the viewer.

“Passaggio in blu” by Parisotto + Formenton Architetti is a double entrance blue tunnel that offered a peaceful space lulled by the sound of the sea: seagulls’ screeches, waves lapping and a scent of saltiness, too. Next to the multi-sensory installation by Ico Migliore and M + S lab for Whirlpool that reflected on “perfect time”, Raffaello Galiotto presented “Regeneration”, a modular wall composed of large square rings that are stacked and twisted creating an enclosure in recycled plastic.

From the arches of the upper loggia, two Norway spruce trunks emerged, uprooted by a flood in the Forest of Panaveggio in Val di Fiemme, famous for supplying the wood used for Stradivarius violins. To support them, a monumental wooden trestle designed by PIUARCH and Nemo Monti.

The courtyard of ‘700 was furrowed, instead, by the wooden skeleton of a Sanlorenzo SX112 yacht that paid homage to the work of master shipwrights and was designed by Lissoni Associati. More secluded is the installation, an example of perfect integration between ancient and modern, by the Brazilian Estudio Campana: seven towers five meters high, covered in grass, that rise to the center of the cloister reproducing the reversed volumes of the colonnade. A similar intervention by Dorota Koziara, Mariusz Miekos and Karim Rashid for the Polish company Krosno Glass, "Sacred Geometry" shows columns that are covered with reflective cones.