Arazzi Contemporanei
Contemporary Tapestry — Rome edition

curated by Alberto Fiorenzi

photography Ilaria Ieie ©

curated by Alberto Fiorenzi

photography Ilaria Ieie ©

Just a few months since his passing, we paid tribute to Cristiano Toraldo di Francia by continuing along a path that he began with us in 2017, in helping us start reflections on Soft Architecture, precisely through the metaphor of tapestry and the flexibility of the material and production systems we had invented and of which he, with an unexpected surprise, was an admirer.

We therefore wanted to start again with him, supported by his friends, fans and heirs to pick up where he left off. After Milan, we displayed in Rome, with his "Histogram" and with many excellent authors like Ico Migliore (Migliore+Servetto Architects), Alberonero, Ippolito Fleitz Group, Graphic Surgery, Giovanna Latis, Rona Meyuchas Koblenz, Marco Ferreri, Pierpaolo Pitacco, Lis Beltran & Alberto Lievore.

We therefore not only created new tapestries to be presented in Rome in addition to the original ones, but we have imagined a Talk that would reopen the debate on Soft Architecture, something that we already dream of extending to all those countries where i-Mesh is present, but it is great to restart in the capital of Italy, once Caput Mundi.

Cristiano saw i-Mesh and its zero-waste production system as the ideal material for creating Soft Architectures, and it is by investigating the meaning of his words, framing them within the historical period of Radical Architecture, inflecting them in our times where sustainability, reconversion, individual well-being, comfort in cities and the protection of cultural differences are indispensable watchwords, which Dajla Riera, a PhD candidate duly supported by Federica Ottone, followed along the Alberto Fiorenzi's path of awareness that began years ago at Eduardo Vittoria's school.  

For this reason, once Dajla Riera and Federica Ottone clarify why i-Mesh is the paradigm of Soft Architecture, Gabriele Mastrigli tells us about Cristiano and when his vision of architecture became soft, while Manuel Orazi dive into the past, present and future looking for traces of Soft Architecture. The testimonies of Alessio Battistella, Margherita Manfra and Giuseppe Grant will help us understand why that which they do every day is Soft Architecture. Lastly, Stefano Catucci discuss the aesthetics of Soft Architecture and the relationship between decoration and function.

The host of the evening was Cristiana Colli: no one can better recount how Cristiano and I met, because she personally introduced us in the graphic studio of Pesaro where “Mappe” was created, previously known as “Progetti”; Cristiana, who above anyone else has made this story one to be told.

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