AN INFINITE CHALLENGE

In Milan, in via Bergognone 40, Giorgio Armani opens the spaces of the Armani / Silos to host the first exhibition dedicated to the architecture of Tadao Ando. Considered one of the masters of contemporary architecture of our time, the Japanese architect is celebrated through the story of fifty years of projects.

"The Challenge" - this is the title of the exhibition - is a narrative path, designed by Tadao Ando with his studio and in collaboration with the Center Pompidou, which traces his own career through sketches, original models, video installations, technical drawings , travel notebooks and photographs. On display the most significant projects articulated around four main themes: Primitive forms of space, An urban challenge, Genesis of the landscape, Dialogues with history.

Intrigued, I decide to enter. Immediately a feeling of well-being and relaxation assails me. Everything is so simple but capable of giving off so much inspiration.

“Like everything created by man, architectural works are destined to deteriorate and, one day, to disappear.

If the history of architecture can be read as a testimony of the attempts of mankind to counter this ineluctable destiny, what I would like to create are architecture that can last forever, not in substance or form, but as an indelible memory in the heart. some men".

Tadao Ando

Starting from this goal, Tadao Ando has tried to purify his architecture thoroughly, to create white canvases. Touched by light and wind, these white "voids" are impregnated with life. Only when architecture is confronted with events do new dialogues come to life. Dialogues that speak to people's souls. For this reason, in his projects the surfaces disappear to make way for the experience of space: the smooth concrete walls, simplified to the extreme, come to life with light, arousing a physical and sensitive experience of architecture, lived through the body and the spirit.

The sense of purity, the rigorous use of materials, the dialogue between water and light reminds us how nature is never far away. A sensitivity also evident in the selection of over forty years of Giorgio Armani's creations, exhibited in the upper floors of the building summarized in three fundamental themes: Androgynous, Ethnicity and Stars.

I spent hours completely immersed in beauty. Drawings, dresses, and embroideries are enclosed in a simple formal frame, made very powerful by an extraordinary use of materials. The perfect container for the Armani archive!

- ERICA SCALCIONE -

Armani / Silos

Via Bergognone 40, Milan

Exhibition "THE CHALLENGE - Tadao Ando"

9 April - 28 July 2019