We read the article Affari, favori e milioni. I Signori degli appalti nell'Expo di Shanghai. Il padiglione italiano nel mirino del "Sistema Balducci" written by Carlo Bonini and Giampaolo Visetti and published in "Repubblica" on 3 dicembre 2010. The article, among other things, questions the processes underlying the assignment of the first prize for the design of the Italian pavilion in Shanghai. These are journalistic investigations and it is not up to us to judge them. What we can judge is the quality of the outcome and the roles of some of the protagonists of this affair.
We would like to immediately clarify that our interest in this episode is personal, given that we wasted time and money participating in the competition. This is not, therefore, an impartial letter. It seems, however, logical and civil for us to examine an episode we personally involved in, and based upon which certain considerations on the state of architecture in Italy can be formulated. Ultimately, we believe each of us must take responsibility for that which we observe, for that which is closest to us, without pretending not to see and without proclaiming ourselves saviours of the nation. We are therefore writing from the perspective of our own participation in the competition: we believe it can be useful in defining the terms of a wider problem. These are a few circumstantial observations, raised by individuals who harbour the suspicion of having been judged by arbiters of questionable competence.
Let's start from the final outcome: Italy presented at the Expo a building whose sole effort consisted in an attempt to prove itself up-to-date with cultural tendencies outmoded at least twenty years ago. The pavilion can only be described as a simplified version of certain exercises by Peter Eisenman dating abck to the late '80s. Remedy to the banality of the project is sought in the use of technology: the building is in part clad in a new material, transparent concrete (which reminds us of The Emperor's New Clothes).
National pavilions in Universal Expositions are of particular significance because they represent the locus in which the productive and cultural realms of a nation enter into contact with one another. Nations invest substantial amounts of money in a self-representation, and to do so they must identify architects to whom this task should be delegated. The choice of the architects is entrusted to the greatest experts on the subject. These experts are ultimately sought in the most predictable place: universities. Strange as it may seem in the Italy of today, in this episode, at a certain point, a need for intellectuals arises. The competition is published in early 2008. At the time of its publication, the composition of the jury is not in the public realm (another absurd Italian custom, that distinguishes us from any other European country). The jury, composed of Beniamino Quinteri (president), Gaetano Caputi, Agostino La Bella, Carlo Mezzetti and Franco Purini, is nominated shortly before the deadline for submissions.
Agostino La Bella (Dean of the Faculty of Engineering of Tor Vergata University), Carlo Mezzetti (faculty at the D'Annunzio University of Pescara) and Franco Purini (faculty at the University of La Sapienza) are the technical guarantours of the jury's professionalism. They are therefore responsible for the choice of the winning project, having at the very least failed to overridde a decision we consider highly dubious, even in the absence of the improprities alleged by "Repubblica". It is not coincidental that we had already expressed our perplexities about the outcome of the exhibition on several public occasions well before the investigations of the newspapers led them to allege irregularities in the competition (at Festarch, Cagliari 2008, at UIA, Torino 2008 and at the conference "Whatever Happened to Italian Architecture?", Rome 2010).
Let's take a look at the materials submitted for the competition. For the sake of brevity let's examine the videos (the competition brief required, among other materials, the submission of a 1-minute video). Judging by the materials published on the competition website after the selection of the winners , the winning entry included a video in which one could admire in rapid succession the Riace Bronzes, fusilli pasta and a sliced box rolling in space to the rythm of a slightly dated ambient track (perhaps Moby?). The 3D model appears to have been created with SketchUp software, most likely in a couple of hours. Further confirmation of the standard of the materials produced by the winning group can be found in the gallery of images available on the website. Four images can be seen there, two of which are "night-time views" derived from the other two by way of the Photoshop "invert" command, and without even going to the trouble of modifying the position of the people in the image. For sure, the qulity of the materials submitted for a competition are not necessarily the sole metric by which the overall quality of a project can be judged, but it is really possible to win a competition as important as the Italian Pavilion at the Universal Expo of Shanghai with "Riace bronzes, fusilli pasta + sliced box"? Can the jury truly be said to be professionally competent?
More generally speaking, what kind of competition does the inability to judge the professionalism of submissions condemn us to? Does the absence of solid professional criteria not cause dubious decision-making processes to thrive? Is it not in the interest of all Italians that the professionalism of juries should be augmented? Wouldn't it serve to promote better designers? And wouldn't this serve to improve the landscape and cities in this country? And again, could the competition for the pavilion not have been seen as an opportunity to promote practices that stand a chance of breaking into the international market? Is this not how the majority of other European countries use their pavilions? Would all of this not play a logical part in the development and strengthening of Italian architecture as a productive sector? Why didn't we do it? Do we think we're smarter than that? Is deliberately nurturing mediocrity really worthwhile? Who does it serve? Lastly, wouldn't it make sense for those who have already made the wrong choices too many times to be substituted by someone more competent? baukuh