Atlas Of Utopias

In 1972, the Italian art critic Germano Celant described Superstudio and the Florentine scene as "radical architecture". The term was soon extended to other European and American artists and architects who, like their Italian counterparts, opened up architecture to conceptual and artistic practices. Sometimes far removed from any constructive purpose, their projects on every scale sought to shake the certainties of classical modernity and reform the way we think about cities and housing.

 

Bringing together more than 25 major artists and architects from the second half of the 20th century, the exhibition opens with urban visions - from Constant's New Babylon to Rem Koolhaas's New York Délire - that take a particularly critical look at the modern city. It then moves on to architectural projects that attempt to redefine both the physical and psychic relationships between man and architectural space. In the centre, the white cube houses three iconic projects of radical Italian design by Ettore Sottsass Jr: Superbox, Archizoom, Letti di Sogno and Riccardo Dalisi, Trône. Radicality appears in the guise of ritual (Sottsass Jr.) or dream and fantasy (Archizoom).

 

Far from being a hymn to progress, the exhibition tries, with tenderness, to show the nostalgia for imbalance that inhabits these attempts to go beyond reality. So Bye Bye Utopia, welcome to wandering.