Progetti d’Acqua

Executive Project and assistance for the Architectural project management for Atelier Traldi for the realization of the exhibition ‘Renzo Piano. Progetti d’Acqua’ for Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova, ‘Mise-en-scène’ Studio Azzurro
Projects by Renzo Piano Building Workshop

credits: all photos Studio Azzurro, 2018

Ten years have gone by since the Fondazione Vedova asked me if I would take in hand, as my friend Emilio had wished, the renovation of the Magazzino del Sale, a genuine place of enchantment.
I have a special affection for Venice, a “city on water” like my native Genoa. Venice, where I devised, back in 1984, the performance space for the opera Prometeo, together with its composer Luigi Nono.
That was a real experience and it was lived not only with Nono, but also with Massimo Cacciari, Claudio Abbado and Emilio Vedova – all friends – creating a unique “musical space”: a sort of archipelago with the audience in the middle, surrounded by a music platform that they couldn’t see all of at once, but which could none the less be sensed in the round, thanks to the music itself, which came like an ocean breeze from behind and about us to produce effects in front of our eyes.
It may be my “Genoese-ness”, or even more my Italianness, but what has always been inside me, since I was a child, is an affinity for water, for the sea. If I have to do a project where there’s no water, I do it against my will. Where I don’t find water, I try to introduce it. If there’s no saltwater in the vicinity, I make do with fresh.
Water is a key element, water is beauty, to be sure, but also a symbol of unity – it unites the world. And then of course it doubles images, reflects the light. And everything vibrates.
So we have chosen some of my studio’s works where water is in some way an important element in the project.
More than an exhibition, Progetti d’acqua is a true mise-en-scène, imagined by Alfredo Bianchini and curated by Fabrizio Gazzarri. The imagination and know-how of Studio Azzurro, with an architectural design by Alessandro Traldi, with whom I have worked many times, have combined to create another “archipelago”, where the visitor can, so to speak, “navigate” between some of my projects from around the world.

Renzo Piano

Curator: Fabrizio Gazzarri Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova

‘Mise-en-scène’ and layout: Studio Azzurro, Milan – Design and artistic direction: Fabio Cirifino, Laura Marcolini – Editing and post-production video: Silvia Pellizzari – 3D animation: Pietro Mariani – Soundscape: Tommaso Leddi – Technical set-up: Daniele De Palma, Alejandro Izquierdo Toscano – Graphics: Samuele Albani, Piera Leonetti, Elena Volpi – Executive producer: Carmen Leopardi

Architectural project manager: Atelier Traldi, Milan – Alessandro Traldi with Sara Tessari

Collaboration to the architectural project: Agnese Alfonsi

Support to the selection of material exhibited: Stefania Canta – curator of photographic archive, Renzo Piano Building Workshop with Chiara Casazza

Production Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova – Elena Oyelami Bianchini, Clelia Caldesi Valeri, Sonia Osetta, Maddalena Pugliese, Bruno Zanon

Graphic design and documentary video: Twin Studio, Milan – Executive producer: Elena Pedrazzini – Video director: Tomaso Pessina – Art director: Daniele Desperati – Editor: Veronica Valenza – Digital Producer: Giorgia Nardulli – Graphic designer: Laura Cattacin

Press office and communication: Studio Systema, Venice – Adriana Vianello, Andrea de Marchi, Livia Sartori di Borgoricco