It was the surprise of last design week and Dropcity, the Center of Architecture and Design, conceived by the architect Andrea Caputo strong>, returns for the Fuorisalone 2023 with a program of exhibitions and installations curated by international architecture studios.
If the preview of 2022 had unveiled the tunnels and the project, describing the objectives and the recovery process of the spaces and the surrounding urban fabric, during the design week Dropcity Convention 2023 offers a preview of the scope of the cultural apparatus that will be produced by the Architecture and Design Center in its definitive structure: not only a place dedicated to the culture of design, to the experimentation of new technologies, to teaching, to debate, but above all a center for the production of projects of research that converge in exhibitions or previews of exhibitions of international scope, commissioned specifically for Dropcity but destined to cross its borders.
Among the scheduled exhibitions, Arrigo Arrighetti. A public architect, dedicated to Arrigo Arrighetti, architect and urban planner for a long time in charge of the Technical Office of the Municipality of Milan, who in the 1960s and 1970s created, with great attention to form, architectural structure and construction details, public buildings (public housing, schools, markets, offices, swimming pools and religious centres) among the most interesting and innovative in the city.
Curated by Salvatore Porcaro, with an installation conceived by the young Ferrarese collective HPO, Arrigo Arrighetti. A public architect retraces, through archival materials, drawings, and a photographic exhibition by Pino Musi, the life and works of a master of architecture Italian, which has been able to combine public commitment and the quality of the project.
The installation Aspen, the Italian Manifesto, curated by Francesca Picchi and designed by Studio Ossidiana of Rotterdam, retraces an extraordinary period for Italian design and its exponents, inspired by the congress organized by the International Design Conference in Aspen (IDCA) in 1989.
On that occasion, some of the most visionary Italian designers, such as Achille Castiglioni, Ettore Sottsass, Andrea Branzi, Mario Bellini, Gae Aulenti, Italo Lupi were invited to Colorado to talk about their work and thoughts on the public, including Steve Jobs, generating a series of exchanges in which entrepreneurs, critics, journalists, and figures of the Italian design and cultural scene also took part, including Alberto Alessi, Aurelio Zanotta, Federico Zeri.
In that week of meetings and events, some key themes of Italian design took shape: interdisciplinarity, the construction (even spontaneous) of communities of designers based on common ideals, the humanistic vision, the experimental attitude that has never of the artisan component.
The installation Aspen, the Italian Manifesto, will be introduced Sunday, April 16 by a conversation open to the public with the protagonists of 1989.
