"There is no greater Cross Vision than the willingness to open up, an attitude to positive contamination": Lorenzo Palmeri designs a space for transit and reception

COURTYARD OF HONOR SUBPORCH, UNIVERSITY OF MILAN - As a place of passage, rest and meeting, where cultural exchanges took place between people from different latitudes, the caravanserai is a symbol of the spread of ideas.

“Here, unprecedented influences have been triggered between civilizations, from which a fruitful hybridization and fascinating forms of art have arisen. Encounters, mingling, reuse: founding values in a historical moment like this. There is no greater Cross Vision than a willingness to be receptive, an aptitude for embracing positive synergies, for hospitality.”

For this installation, Lorenzo Palmeri has developed the concept of ‘mixing’, designing a space specifically for the transit and reception of those who happen to be passing through the portico of the Cortile d’Onore. For its creation, he chose Cosmolite® from Stone Italiana, “a composite material, capable of giving new life to waste elements in a single beneficial output.”

Caravanserraglio (9 x 1.80 meters) is made by Stone Italiana with slabs of Cosmolite®, a composite material made out of recycled minerals from the quarrying industry, used as coatings and worktops.

The floor in DNA Urbano recycles the grit swept up by street cleaning. The installation is conceived as a place to stop and exchange ideas.