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EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS
BUILDINGS
 
2006 - 2014
Bosco Verticale
Stefano Boeri Architetti
Italy [Italia] Milan [Milano]
Stefano Boeri. Sii albero, Ulassai (Italy, Sardinia), Stazione dell'Arte, Museo di arte contemporanea, 20 june / 19 september 2021Stefano Boeri, Sii albero, Ulassai, Stazione dell'Arte, Museo di arte contemporanea
1964 - 1970
Concattedrale Gran Madre di Dio
GioPonti  
Italy [Italia] Taranto
Gio Ponti e la Concattedrale Taranto, 1970-2020, Il sogno di una città, il sogno dei suoi cittadini e il sogno di Guglielmo e di Giovanni
Gio Ponti e la Concattedrale Taranto 1970-2020. Il sogno di una città, il sogno dei suoi cittadini e il sogno di Guglielmo e di Giovanni, Taranto (Italy), MUDI Museo Diocesano, 16 june / 26 september 2021
1965 - 1999
Arcosanti
Soleri Paolo  
United States Arcosanti
Soleritown. Visioni di un'utopia concreta, Genova (Italy), Castello D'Albertis, 26 june / 17 october 2021
1956 - 1971
Cosanti
Soleri Paolo  
United States Scottsdale
Soleritown. Visioni di un'utopia concreta, Genova (Italy), Castello D'Albertis, 26 june / 17 october 2021
2005 - 2015
Labirinto della Masone
Franco MariaRicci  Bontempi Pier Carlo  
Italy [Italia] Fontanellato
Umberto Eco, Franco Maria Ricc,. Labirinti, Storia di un segno, Labirinto della Masone, ParmaUmberto Eco, Franco Maria Ricci. Labirinti. Storia di un segno, Casalbarbato, Parma (Italy), Labirinto della Masone, 22 may 2021 / 20 march 2022
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Stefano Boeri
Stefano Boeri. Sii albero, Ulassai (Italy, Sardinia), Stazione dell'Arte, Museo di arte contemporanea, 20 june / 19 september 2021Stefano Boeri, Sii albero, Ulassai, Stazione dell'Arte, Museo di arte contemporanea
Jean-Pierre Buffi
Jean-Pierre Buffi, formes urbaines, Paris (France), Cité de l'architecture & du patrimoine, Galerie d'architecture moderne et contemporaine, 2 june / 20 september 2021
Gianluca Peluffo & Partners
Tempo e luogo della Materia (Costellazioni), Milano (Italy), Simposio Design, 4 / 22 september 2021Tempo e luogo della Materia, Costellazioni, Gianluca Peluffo, Simposio Design, Milano
Gianluca Peluffo
Tempo e luogo della Materia (Costellazioni), Milano (Italy), Simposio Design, 4 / 22 september 2021Tempo e luogo della Materia, Costellazioni, Gianluca Peluffo, Simposio Design, Milano
Marcello D'Olivo
Marcello D'Olivo, Lignano Pineta (Italy), "Il Treno", 11 august / 30 september 2021
Adolf Loos
Adolf Loos – Nachleben. Schaufenster zum Hof, Vienna [Wien], Im Hof des Az W / Ausstellungshalle 1 (In the Az W Courtyard / Exhibition hall 1), 3 september 2020 / 30 september 2021
Aldo Rossi
Aldo Rossi. L’architetto e le città / The Architect and the Cities, Roma (Italy), MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, 16 december 2020 / 29 august 2021

A desire of expressing the greatness of his gaze, the complexity of his thoughts and research and the variety of Rossi's work is what breathes life into an exhibition which is extremely rich in materials, with over 800 pieces including documents, correspondence, models, sketches, drawings and photographs coming mainly from the archives of Aldo Rossi preserved in the MAXXI Architettura Collection and by the Aldo Rossi Foundation, as well as important loans, courtesy of the IUAV of Venice - Archivio Progetti, the Deutsches Architektur museum in Frankfurt, and the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht.
In addition to Rossi's own works, the exhibition boasts photographic images coming from the many important photographers who have measured themselves against his work and have thus enriched the meaning of each work of architecture with their own personal touch. In addition to the famous images by Luigi Ghirri, the exhibition also features those by other important photographers of the likes of Gabriele Basilico, Giovanni Chiaramonte, Ugo Mulas, Mario Carrieri, Stefano Topuntoli, Antonio Martinelli, Marco Introini.

The exhibition is divided into two large sections, one narrating his projects in Italy, the other those around the world and three additional thematic; the first revisits his years of training in Milan, the others are dedicated to two of the most iconic projects carried out by Rossi: the Modena cemetery and the The Theatre of the World in Venice.

The exhibition itinerary starts from the very first thematic area, in the middle of Gallery 2, which is dedicated to the early years of his professional training in a post-war Milan, which was still recovering from the bombings and was immortalised through the camera of Enrico Peressutti. There, in the newsroom of Casabella by Ernesto Nathan Rogers or at the Casa della Cultura directed by Rossana Rossanda, emerged both the ethical need of a young Aldo Rossi to contribute to an architectural culture able to face the challenges of rebuilding after the devastation, and the poetic language that will be his faithful companion throughout his life. In this section, the vast scale replica of the Duomo Cathedral in Milan that Rossi kept in his studio can also be found.

At the two opposite ends of the Gallery are the thematic areas on the Modena Cemetery and that on The Theatre of the World.
Rossi thought of the Modena cemetery, designed in 1971 with Gianni Braghieri and to this day still unfinished, as a city of the Dead, composed of straight arcaded paths featuring two archetypal architectural figures at both ends: a red cube and a cone. This city of the Dead, notwithstanding its being so essential and metaphysical, stands very powerful and evocative, just as in the famous photograph by Luigi Ghirri, where the red cube, a shrine of the Dead during war, emerges on a white blanket of snow and is exhibited here with other photos that Ghirri took at the cemetery for the Lotus International magazine, as well as Stefano Topuntoli's aerial footage, that documented the rapport with the territory. The video-gallery is located just behind this thematic area, broadcasting the movie Ornamento e delitto written by Rossi himself with Gianni Braghieri and Franco Raggi for the XV Milan Triennale as well as interviews, speeches at conferences and documentaries.

The Theatre of the World stands moored in one of the most visible places in the world. This as evocative, joyful and ephemeral theatre unlocked the doors to international fame for Rossi. Built for the first Architecture Biennale directed by Paolo Portoghesi in 1980, this small floating theatre was located in front of the Punta della Dogana. At the end of the Biennale, it sailed to Dubrovnik and, once back in Venice, it was dismantled. Its construction and incredible journeys are documented in the drawings and the scale model as well as by the photographs by Antonio Martinelli.
Behind this thematic area, the Piroscafo bookcase, designed thirty years ago with Luca Meda (1991) and produced by Molteni&C, hosts the Quaderni Azzurri (blue notebooks), a sort of personal journal with thoughts, notes, memories and drawings that inspired the quotations of the whole itinerary of the exhibition.
Also the Parigi chairs (1989) produced by UniFor are on display in this area.

All along Gallery 2, in a busy and crowded central corridor that recalls a city’s urban fabric, 40 models are on display laying the basis of the two main sections of the exhibition. These are dedicated to the projects carried out in Italy and in the world, fragments of a poetic yet realistic tale of the cities, where the specific colours and features of the buildings breathe life even into faceless contexts.
These models interact with technical drawings, photographs, artistic drawings of different formats and made in ink, wax, pastel, watercolour, just like architectural compositions and fantasies, where real-life, out of scale objects are mixed up with architectural elements, creating fantastical urban scenarios. Drawings and photographs are arranged on the wall and on 40 tables created ad-hoc for the occasion by Molteni & C. In addition, several cases are lined up on the walls exploring more in depth different aspects of Rossi's work and thought, such as teaching at the IUAV, his relationship with the Venice Biennale and the Milan Triennale, as well as the one he had with the city of Berlin and with America, his discovery of Japan, his passion for the movies, his editorial activity, and his successful books such as The architecture of the city, translated all over the world, or the Scientific Autobiography, a sort of personal journal in which the creation of projects and the studying become one with his personal history.

In the section dedicated to his projects in Italy, stands a large 2x2m drawing of the famous the Analogous City, a remarkable reflection on an imaginary city, suspended between memory and desire, represented through the combination of urban features, historical pieces of architecture and projects all by Rossi himself. The Analogous City also features an experimental application developed by Dario Rodighiero, which allows the viewer to select any element of the painting and provides relevant information and references for further information.
Then come the projects for two of the most important Italian theatres, the Carlo Felice in Genoa and the Fenice in Venice, those for the Piazza di Fontivegge in Perugia as well as the “Gallaratese” in Milan, a long urban building which recalls the typical Lombard case a ballatoio, set within a larger housing development designed by his fraternal friend Carlo Aymonino, both intended as attempts to confer an urban dimension to the suburbs.
Among his projects abroad, which started with the large panel of the relief of the city of Zurich, which Rossi created during the years spent teaching at the ETH in this Swiss city, a significant one is the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, which is located on the edge of the Meuse river and is the most important museum built by Rossi.
The author of many museum projects and as many set-ups, he also designed the colourful complex of the Schützenstrasse in Berlin, a mischievous way of criticising the grey reconstruction of the German capital; the Disney Headquarters in Orlando, a colourful urban element in which the historical shape of Italian cities blend in with the verticality of their American counterparts.
Helmut Jahn
Helmut Jahn: Life + Architecture, Chicago, Chicago Architecture Center, 23 july / 24 october 2021
Italo Rota
Pianeta città. Arti cinema musica design nella Collezione Rota 1900-2021, Lucca (Italy), Fondazione Ragghianti, 9 july / 24 october 2021
Carlo Mollino
Carlo Mollino. Allusioni Iperformali, Milano (Italy), Triennale Milano, 4 september / 7 november 2021
Enric Miralles
Miralles. A l’escola, Barcelona (Spain), ETSAB Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona,22 september / 24 november 2021
Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier und die Farbe / Le Corbusier and Color, Zürich (Switzerland), Pavillon Le Corbusier, 7 may / 28 november 2021
Aldo Rossi
Aldo Rossi, Kresby a projekty, Bratislava, Slovakia, Sídelná budova SNMAldo Rossi. Kresby a projekty, Bratislava (Slovakia), Sídelná budova SNM, 25 june / 5 december 2021
Enric Miralles
Miralles. To be continued..., Barcelona (Spain), Fundación Enric Miralles, 15 april / 23 december 2021
Sauerbruch Hutton
Draw love build. L'architettura di Sauerbruch Hutton, Venezia Mestre (Italy), M9 - Museo del ’900, 3 september 2021 / 9 january 2022
Heikki Sirén
Kaikki ja ei mitään. Arkkitehdit Kaija + Heikki Siren / Everything and Nothing. Architects Kaija + Heikki Siren, Espoo (Finland), KAMU. Espoon kaupunginmuseo / Espoo City Museum, 23 october 2020 / 9 january 2022
Kaija Sirén
Kaikki ja ei mitään. Arkkitehdit Kaija + Heikki Siren / Everything and Nothing. Architects Kaija + Heikki Siren, Espoo (Finland), KAMU. Espoon kaupunginmuseo / Espoo City Museum, 23 october 2020 / 9 january 2022
Manuelle Gautrand
Manuelle Gautrand Architecture, Firminy-Vert (France), Église Saint-Pierre (Site Le Corbusier), 18 june 2021 / 16 january 2022
Jeff Koons
Shine, Firenze (Italy), Palazzo Strozzi, 2 october 2021/30 january 2022
Franco Maria Ricci
Umberto Eco, Franco Maria Ricc,. Labirinti, Storia di un segno, Labirinto della Masone, ParmaUmberto Eco, Franco Maria Ricci. Labirinti. Storia di un segno, Casalbarbato, Parma (Italy), Labirinto della Masone, 22 may 2021 / 20 march 2022
Josef Hoffmann
Josef Hoffmann, Progress by Beauty, Vienna, Wien, MAK, AustriaJosef Hoffmann: Fortschritt durch Schönheit / Progress by Beauty, Vienna [Wien], MAK - Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst - Gegenwartskunst / Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, MAK Exhibition Hall, 15 december 2021 / 19 june 2022


To celebrate his 150th birthday the MAK is honoring the architect, designer, teacher, exhibition organizer, and cofounder of the Wiener Werkstätte Josef Hoffmann (1870– 1956) with the most comprehensive retrospective of his entire oeuvre ever shown. Hoffmann cultivated an exemplary modern lifestyle model and focused on aesthetics and beauty as the central parameters of modern design. The exhibition JOSEF HOFFMANN: Progress Through Beauty revisits every facet of the almost 60-year creative output produced by this influential global pioneer in architecture and design around 1900 and enriches the systematic research into and dissemination of his legacy.

Josef Hoffmann, Progress by Beauty, Vienna, Wien, MAK, AustriaWith an initially puristic design vocabulary, Josef Hoffmann carved out his position as one of the protagonists of Viennese Modernism. His ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk—or total work of art—and his outstanding buildings like Stoclet House in Brussels (1905– 1911), now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, left a mark on the architectural and artistic landscape both nationally and internationally. Although this all-round designer has featured in every important exhibition on Viennese Modernism, only sections of his oeuvre have been analyzed in full.

To mark this year’s anniversary the exhibition’s team of curators—Matthias Boeckl, Rainald Franz, and Christian Witt-Dörring—set themselves the task of closing the gaps that still exist in the research by using at times unknown sources and by updating his catalogue raisonné. According to the curators, the perception of Hoffmann’s creative work as an architect and designer is incomplete in terms of the sources used, oversimplified in terms of design aspects, and limited in terms of his geographical and historical sphere of influence.

In 20 chapters and with over 800 exhibits, the exhibition JOSEF HOFFMANN: Progress Through Beauty introduces visitors to his prodigious lifework, which covers every single aspect of daily life, including architecture, interior design, fashion, and practical objects. Originally from a wealthy middle-class family in Brtnice, now in the Czech Republic, Hoffmann lived through five different political regimes, from the Habsburg Monarchy to the Second Austrian Republic. He was considered a creator of taste and identity and lived an exemplary modern lifestyle as a teacher of many years, as an influential designer in the decorative arts, and as cofounder of the Vienna Secession, the Wiener Werkstätte, and the Werkbund. In his groundbreaking mindset he united an artistically ambitious architectural approach with an artisanally inspired product culture.

Josef Hoffmann, Progress by Beauty, Vienna, Wien, MAK, AustriaThe exhibition covers every stage of his life from his youth and studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna to his death in 1956. The focus of the exhibition is his work’s lasting impact on architecture, the decorative arts, and design, starting with his most prominent projects and buildings: Sanatorium Westend in Purkersdorf (1904/05), Stoclet House in Brussels (1905–1911), the Kunstschau in Vienna (1908), the Austrian pavilion for the Werkbund exhibition in Cologne (1914), the pavilion for the International Exposition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris (1925), the Werkbundsiedlung [Werkbund Estate] in Vienna (1931), and the pavilion for the Venice Biennale (1934). A multimedia timeline guides visitors through Hoffmann’s life and draws attention to forgotten projects and texts.

A reconstruction of the Boudoir d’une grande vedette [Boudoir for a Big Star] (1937), designed by Josef Hoffmann for the Paris World’s Fair, makes it possible to instantly experience Hoffmann’s sense of space. Furnishings like furniture and light fixtures for Árpád Lengyel’s villa in Bratislava (1929) will be on public display for the very first time, as will other never-before-seen furnishings from the villa for Sonja Knips (1924) and a variety of Josef Hoffmann’s designs that were previously hidden in archives like that of the company J. & L. Lobmeyr.

With this exhibition and its accompanying catalog, the MAK is helping to paint a much richer and more detailed picture of Josef Hoffmann as a creator and teacher and to show his role—from Modernism to the present day—in a different light. As a competence center of Viennese Modernism, the MAK is home to the world’s most comprehensive holdings of furniture, objects, and designs by Hoffmann. The MAK and the Moravian Gallery in Brno run a joint branch in the house where Josef Hoffmann was born in Brtnice, Czech Republic.


December 2020

Josef Hoffmann, Progress by Beauty, Vienna, Wien, MAK, AustriaOriginally intended to open in December 2020 to coincide with Josef Hoffmann’s 150th birthday, the exhibition JOSEF HOFFMANN: Progress Through Beauty has been post- poned for one year. The most comprehensive retrospective ever mounted on the lifework of Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956) will now be on display in the MAK Exhibition Hall from 15 December 2021 to 19 June 2022. In 20 chapters and with over 800 exhibits, the team of curators—Matthias Boeckl, Rainald Franz, and Christian Witt-Dörring—aims to revisit the entire 60-year oeuvre of this architect, designer, teacher, exhibition organizer, and cofounder of the Wiener Werkstätte. In light of the show’s conceptual and organizational dimensions and associated expense, the MAK is hoping for considerably more favorable circumstances come the opening of the exhibition late next year in order to have the broadest possible impact—not only within Austria, but also internationally.

Josef Hoffmann, Progress by Beauty, Vienna, Wien, MAK, AustriaThese challenging times during the pandemic have significantly impeded the presentation of rarely shown objects from international collections, which are able to spotlight new facets of Josef Hoffmann’s oeuvre. Furthermore, the later opening date for the exhibition makes it possible to extend the duration of this MAK project: instead of being on display for four months as originally planned, the exhibition can now be shown for half a year.

Initial insights into the exhibition JOSEF HOFFMANN: Progress Through Beauty are afforded by a discussion event to be held at the MAK on Josef Hoffmann’s 150th birthday, 15 December 2020.

The publication to accompany the exhibition, entitled JOSEF HOFFMANN 1870–1956: Progress Through Beauty. The Guide to His Oeuvre, edited by Christoph Thun- Hohenstein, Matthias Boeckl, Rainald Franz, and Christian Witt-Dörring, will be released as a German and an English edition in spring 2021 by the Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel. In 40 essays renowned international experts analyze Hoffmann’s most important buildings, interiors, and exhibitions, as well as decorative art designs and objects. Drawing on the latest research, the guide conveys the multimedia approach and wide-ranging international reception of Hoffmann’s artistic vision and is set to become a new standard reference work on Viennese Modernism in an international context.
 
 
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