From today the 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia is officially open! Here are our first photos from the exhibition:

CROSSING CORVIALE _ COMING TO TERMS WITH UTOPIA

1 _ THE CROSSING

Thanks to its huge size, Corviale has an enormous quantity of potential free space. The renewal of this building will be done based on its intimate character, its walls structure which, differently from its longitudinal layout, allows the transversal crossing. CORVIALE FROM A BARRIER WOULD THEN BECOME A FILTER, a big porous urban megastructure, similar to an aqueduct.

2 _ EARTHWORKS

A new figure will balance the concrete kilometer by a wide horizontal extension, which harmonizes the crossings with ground levels and re-establishes the continuity of the ridge and of the surrounding topography.

Thus, the building basement would become a huge EARTHWORK where the new winding road strengthens and frees a diverse and continuous landscape in front of and behind the new building entrances.

3 _ LANDSCAPE AS A CLIENT

A square, at the scale of the km, gives the inhabitants a collective and democratic space that – thanks to its platforms – fixes the topographical gap existing in the middle of the building; the last platform of the square is the original “agro romano“ soil. Crossing below the new Center of Biodiversity (at the edge of the square) the free landscape is regained through the walls structure. Here a public ramp reconnects the city with its environment while colorful Paladino horses rise up out of a water basin.