Art and architecture meet at MAXXI

Architecture and art have always contributed, together, to shaping and building the places and spaces of human life. In our recent past, however, the two disciplines have increasingly distanced from each other and oscillating between autonomy and the crossing of their domains, have in fact given up working side by side to give us those magnificent masterpieces to which they had accustomed us. Recently, however, we find more and more cultural initiatives that aim to highlight the transversal link between architecture and art and vice versa. One of these is undoubtedly 'Architetture a regola d'arte', an exhibition opened at the MAXXI museum in Rome which, starting with archive materials from the MAXXI Architettura Collection, recounts the work of four protagonists of the last century: BBPR, Costantino Dardi, Vincenzo Monaco and Amedeo Luccichenti, and Luigi Moretti. Those chosen by the curatorial team - composed of Luca Galofaro with Pippo Ciorra, Laura Felci and Elena Tinacci - are architects differing in their approach and path, but united by their desire to contaminate their projects with other artistic practices. In fact, they have collaborated with great authors, including Saul Steinberg, Costantino Nivola, Daniel Buren, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Pietro Consagra, Antonio Corpora, Nino Franchina, Giulio Paolini, Gino Severini, and Giuseppe Uncini, often making their professional and personal dimensions intersect.

The exhibition is divided into a sequence of four rooms, each dedicated to one of the selected architecture studios, which are recounted through 400 models, documents and drawings, projects, fittings, photographs and private correspondence. The tour begins in the environment dedicated to Studio BBPR, with a focus on the project for the restoration and musealisation of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. In the space hosting Costantino Dardi we find one of his pylons housing the works, dialoguing with a sculpture by Uncini in the centre of the room and with the other projects on display. This is followed by the room dedicated to Monaco-Luccichenti, in which, among other materials, the photographs commissioned by MAXXI to Giovanna Silva are exhibited, portraying the artistic interventions carried out for the projects of the two Roman architects by prominent authors. Finally, in the last section we find Luigi Moretti and his film on Michelangelo; on the walls and in the showcases drawings and models testifying to his accurate and personal study of the masters of the past.