History, Innovation, Inspiration

Architecture in Motion: Instability at MAXXI

At MAXXI – National Museum of 21st Century Arts, “Unstable Architecture” explores movement as an intrinsic quality of contemporary architecture.
In a city like Rome, where architecture is often associated with solidity and permanence, this exhibition offers a chance to reflect on the very concept of instability — not as a flaw, but as an opportunity.

Curated by the renowned New York studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro, known for its experimental and visionary approach, the exhibition is grounded in the idea that architecture, in a world marked by constant climatic, social, and technological changes, cannot remain static. On the contrary, it must adapt, transform, and respond fluidly to the needs of its users and the surrounding environment.

Featured projects, including the famous The Shed in New York and an original module of the visionary Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo, are vivid examples of this vision: buildings that breathe, move, and transform.

Between Abstraction and Figuration: Tony Cragg at the Baths of Diocletian

Inside the majestic Baths of Diocletian, the exhibition “Tony Cragg: Infinite Forms and Beautiful” presents sculpture not as mere decoration but as a tool for inquiry.

The works of the renowned English sculptor offer a journey through mineral and vegetal worlds, featuring eighteen medium-to-large sculptures created over the past two decades, exploring diverse materials such as bronze, wood, travertine, fiberglass, and steel.

Cragg’s captivating biomorphic sculptures seem to change as you observe them, their sinuous surfaces both contrasting with and harmonizing alongside the massive Roman structures, creating a dialogue between form and space. For architects, this exhibition encourages reflection on material versatility and spatial relationships.

Artistic Renewal and Science: Futurism

At the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, “The Time of Futurism” celebrates the eightieth anniversary of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s death, highlighting the connection between science, technology, and art.

Rome, long a city of grand historical narratives, becomes here a laboratory of ideas projecting into the future — a future imagined by the Futurists and now increasingly relevant in light of artificial intelligence: the mechanization of humans and the humanization of machines.

The exhibition features around 350 works, including paintings, sculptures, designs, drawings, furniture, film projections, cars, motorcycles, and a seaplane, all authentic to the period. Futurist books and posters are also included. This major exhibition encourages architects to embrace technological progress and integrate it creatively into the evolution of design.

Eduardo Chillida: Exploring Space

On the occasion of the centenary of the great Spanish sculptor, a solo exhibition of Eduardo Chillida offers a rare opportunity to admire, for the first time in thirty-two years, forty-one works including drawings, sculptures, and “gravitations”, at the Instituto Cervantes in Piazza Navona.

The exhibition opens with figurative drawings from his early period, revealing the curved forms that would define his later work. Seventeen “gravitations” — delicate two-dimensional works made from layered paper bound with cords — explore the qualities and limits of space and depth. Three iron sculptures that won him the Best Sculptor prize at the 1958 Venice Biennale appear almost to grasp space itself. This exhibition is an extraordinary opportunity for architects to perceive space in a unique, unparalleled way.

Architecture Between Sacredness and Mystery: Göbeklitepe

Finally, at the Colosseum Archaeological Park, “Göbeklitepe: The Enigma of a Sacred Place” takes visitors on a journey to the origins of civilization.

The Turkish site, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018, represents the oldest monumental site ever discovered (dating between 9,500 and 8,200 BCE). Its extraordinary T-shaped megalithic structures, adorned with animal reliefs and abstract motifs, testify to architecture’s longstanding role in expressing the sacred.

The discovery of this site reshapes our understanding of human history during the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic, marking the emergence of the first sedentary societies. For architects, the exhibition is a reminder of how design can transcend time, rooted in human spiritual and cultural needs.

Visiting these exhibitions is not only about discovering works of art but immersing oneself in an experience that connects history, innovation, and place. Rome, with its extraordinary heritage, once again proves to be an inexhaustible source of inspiration, where every element — from the dynamism of contemporary architecture to the sacredness of its monuments — tells a story that continues to fascinate and guide those shaping the built environment of tomorrow.