Milano Arch Week 2018

Milano Arch Week is back, from Wednesday, May 23 to Sunday, May 27. Building on its success last year, the week-long event directed by Stefano Boeri is devoted to architecture and the future of cities. It is promoted by the City of Milan, the Politecnico University of Milan, and La Triennale di Milano, in collaboration with the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation. The second edition of Arch Week confirms Milan as the World Capital of Architecture, involving the general public in an ambitious program of events that is open to all, with workshops, installations, exhibitions, performances, and lectures with some of the most prestigious winners of the Pritzker Prize: Jacques Herzog, Toyo Ito, Kazuyo Sejima, and Wang Shu. And there are some of the top names on the international scene, such as Bjarke Ingels, David Adjaye, Sou Fujimoto, Massimiliano Fuksas, Andrea Boschetti, Alberto Campo Baeza, Jeanne Gang, Juan Herreros, Patrick Blanc, Carrilho da Graça, Ecosistema Urbano, Iñaqui Carnicero, The Decorators, and Ensamble Studio.

The title of the 2018 event is Urbania, uno sguardo sul futuro delle città (Urbania: A Look at the Future of Cities), and it will be a wide-ranging opportunity for refecting on the future dynamics of architecture and on the complexities of contemporary urban centers. The discussion will take place in three of the leading centers of training and debate in the city of Milan: the Politecnico di Milano University, La Triennale di Milano, and the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation.

The Politecnico and La Triennale di Milano will approach the subject of the future of cities from the point of view of design and architecture, with lectures by great international architects. The Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation, on the other hand, will explore the implications of spaces on cities through its About a City: Places, Ideas and Rights for 2030 Citizens program. A public lecture by Jacques Herzog on Thursday, May 24 will mark the start of an intense program of talks, debates, shows and screenings. Chaired by Stefano Boeri, Mauro Magatti, and Salvatore Settis, the program will revolve around three main challenges, which will emerge from a constructive confrontation between Milan and other international cities. The frst theme will be that of growing diversity and problems of coexistence, the rights of minorities, and access to services. The second will look at the advance of digital technology, technological infrastructures, and the immaterial dimension of future cities. The last will be that of the imperative for sustainability and resilient green-based approaches to urban planning in harmony with nature. Administrators, policy makers, scientists, philosophers, architects, writers, urban planners, and scholars of international renown, such as Cino Zucchi and Alberto Rollo, will discuss the connection between sustainable and inclusive development, urban transformation, and citizenship. On Saturday, May 26 and on Sunday, May 27, it will be possible to take part in Veduta, in the scenic reading room on the ffth foor. This artistic performance is devoted to the city and to a future-oriented vision of the urban landscape with mk, one of the most exciting companies of international choreography, in partnership with the Triennale Teatro dell’Arte.

The Milano Arch Week program will be further expanded with the contribution of some of the leading institutions in the world of architecture and culture in Italy and internationally: from The Chamber of Architects of Milan to Fondazione Prada, to Artlab—the platform promoted by the Fondazione Fitzcarraldo—and Strelka KB of Moscow. The Chamber of Architects of Milan, which has always worked to promote architecture and design in the city, will be sponsoring Arch Week and promoting activities including architecture tours to discover the buildings constructed by housing cooperatives, an exhibition of the finalists’ designs for the Baffa Rivolta European Architecture Award, and Rovista la Rivista, a project to rediscover vintage magazines and books on architecture, urban planning and design, to mention but a few.

Among the various exhibitions, the Politecnico will host a monographic display on Carrilho da Graça, curated by Andrea Gritti, and Remix, curated by Marco Biraghi. Luigi Ghirri: The Landscape of Architecture, a retrospective on the great Modena-born photographer, curated by Michele Nastasi, an exhibition organized by Museo di Fotografa Contemporanea di Cinisello Balsamo and La Triennale di Milano, will open at the Triennale on May, 24. Urban spaces in Lebanon will be examined in an exhibition in the same museum, with works by Armando Perna and Saba Innab, curated by Emilia Giorgi and produced in collaboration with the Fondazione Merz. A focus on photography, science and architecture will be curated by Paolo Rosselli.

The e-flux Teatrino pavilion designed by Matteo Ghidoni—Salottobuono for e-flux Architecture, made with the help of the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia (FVG) Region and by Filiera del Legno FVG (with the coordination of Regione FVG and Innova FVG), will host interviews with leading exponents of design. There will also be an intense series of workshops, ranging from Archive of Resistance, with IRA-C and Fosbury Architecture in collaboration with Domus, to Kids as Architects of Tomorrow, with Parasite 2.0. And there will be forays into the world of landscape, with The Empowerment of Nature, by Matteo Poli and Sara Gangemi, and into that of the written word, with BookCity.

These are the cornerstones of an intense program, to which more events are still being added, that will make Milano Arch Week a veritable catchment area for all that is transforming spaces, visions, ideas, and the imagination.

Milano Arch Week is a festival directed by Stefano Boeri, under the scientifc supervision of the Vice Chancellor Emilio Faroldi and the Dean of the School of Architecture, Urban Planning, and Construction Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano Ilaria Valente, and curated by Azzurra Muzzonigro, Luis Pimentel, Matteo Ruta, and Livia Shamir.