Spaziale presenta

Uccellaccio

Designer: HPO

Advisor: Claudia Durastanti

Incubators: MAXXI L’Aquila and the Municipality of Ripa Teatina

Ripa Teatina (Chieti), Abruzzo

Uccellaccio is the title of the fourth of nine site-specific interventions for “Spaziale presenta,” the preparatory component of “Spaziale: Everyone Belongs to Everyone Else,” the project by the collective Fosbury Architecture (Giacomo Ardesio, Alessandro Bonizzoni, Nicola Campri, Veronica Caprino, and Claudia Mainardi) for the Italian Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture. This fourth intervention will take place in Ripa Teatina, in the province of Chieti in Abruzzo, and will involve the participation of the architecture collective HPO (Alessandro Argentesi, Luca Cei, Mara Femia, Filippo Ferraro, Gregorio Giannini, Gabriele Giau, Giulio Marchetti, Oreste Montinaro, Dario Rizzi, Riccardo Simioni, and Giorgio Scanelli) as the designer, and writer Claudia Durastanti as advisor. The incubators of the project will be MAXXI L’Aquila and the Municipality of Ripa Teatina. It was 1973 in Ripa Teatina, a town in the Abruzzo hinterlands with a population of 4,000, when the foundation stone was laid for a structure that remains unfinished to this day. After fifty years and numerous attempts at completion that alternated with threats of demolition, this abandoned building remains a presence, for its community, as disregarded as it is intrusive.Through a perspective of pacification and unveiling, the project is proposed as an opportunity to imagine a new process of participatory reactivation, capable of taming the “eco-monster” that has so marked life in this territory. “In architecture, there is no positive counterpart to building. Demolition is not a process in itself, but only the inescapable conclusion of a parabola,” declare the curators, Fosbury Architecture. “We believe that through deconstruction and selective disassembly, a future of sustainable regeneration, even in economic terms, can be cultivated.” In its breadth, the project for the Italian  Pavilion  is founded on Fosbury Architecture’s vision that architecture is a research practice beyond the construction of buildings and that design is always the result of collective and collaborative work that goes beyond the idea of the architect-author. According to this vision, “space” is understood as a physical and symbolic place, a geographical area and abstract dimension, a system of known references and a territory of possibilities. In the period from January to April preceding the opening of the Biennale Architettura 2023, “Spaziale presenta” will monitor the activation of nine site-specific interventions in as many places, each representative of the Italian territory. “Spaziale: Everyone Belongs to Everyone Else,” in the Italian Pavilion from May 20 to November 26, 2023, will be the formal and theoretical synthesis of the processes triggered in the nine regions in the previous months, providing a distinctive and original portrait of Italian architecture within the international context. The works in progress of “Spaziale presenta” and the activation of the nine interventions will be narrated step by step on the website www.spaziale2023.it and on the Instagram account @spaziale.presenta.The curatorial design of the Italian Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2023 and all related details will be announced at a dedicated press conference (February/March 2023).

HPOFounders: Alessandro Argentesi, Luca Cei, Mara Femia, Filippo Ferraro, Gregorio Giannini, Gabriele Giau, Giulio Marchetti, Oreste Montinaro, Dario Rizzi, Riccardo Simioni, and Giorgio Scanelli.HPO is a community of architects based in Ferrara. Across various scales of intervention and a collaborative and experimental approach, HPO endeavors to demonstrate the non-obvious results of the architectural profession. CLAUDIA DURASTANTIClaudia Durastanti is an Italian writer and translator. For her work La Straniera, she was shortlisted for the Premio Strega 2019 and the Premio Viareggio. Her book has been translated into twenty-one languages and is being adapted into a television series. She holds a degree in cultural anthropology from the Sapienza University of Rome.

FOSBURY ARCHITECTUREFosbury Architecture (FA) is a collective practice founded in 2013 by Giacomo Ardesio (1987), Alessandro Bonizzoni (1988), Nicola Campri (1989), Claudia Mainardi (1987), and Veronica Caprino (1988). FA is a spatial agency interpreting architecture as a tool that mediates between collective and individual needs; expectations and resources; sustainability and pragmatism; environment and human beings. FA is a research group aiming at expanding the boundaries of the discipline, redefining its role, and rethinking its production processes in the perspective of current challenges. FA was curator of the monographic exhibition Characters at the Magazin Gallery in Vienna (2022), as well as of Urban Center in Prato at the Centro Pecci (2021/2022) and Milan 2030 at the Milan Triennale (2019). The collective has participated in numerous national and international Architecture Biennales, including Lisbon (2019), Versailles (2019), Chicago (2017), and Venice (2016). In addition, FA’s work has been exhibited in the group shows Take Your Seat supported by the ADI Design Museum in Milan; The State of the Art of Architecture at the Milan Triennale; Re-Constructivist Architecture at the RIBA Gallery in London; Adhocracy at the Onassis Center in Athens; and Mean Home at the British School in Rome.FA has worked on numerous exhibition layouts, including Verde Prato (2019) at the the Centro Pecci, which was awarded an honorable mention for the TYoung Prize 2021. The collective edited, with Alterazioni Video, the publication Incompiuto, La Nascita di uno Stile(2018) supported by the then MIBACT (the current Ministry of Culture) and awarded an honorable mention for the Compasso d’Oro 2020.

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