A wall eight and a half metres high, a portable theatre, a machine for inhabiting the public space that will accompany visitors from June and throughout the summer period, hosting events and offering the public of the museum an area for relaxation
This is 8 ½ by the Rome-based studio orizzontale, winner of YAP MAXXI 2014, the programme that promotes and supports young architecture, now in its 4th Italian edition, organized by MAXXI in collaboration with MoMA/MoMA PS1 of New York, Constructo in Santiago, Chile, Istanbul Modern (Turkey) and for the first time MMCA the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Seoul (Korea).
“The Young Architects Program is dedicated to young designers to whom MAXXI offers the opportunity to conceive and create a temporary space in the museum piazza” says Giovanna Melandri President of the Fondazione MAXXI. "It is one of the best responses to MAXXI’s mission as an interactive platform for contemporary creativity, a crucible for ideas and a workshop for new talent. It is thanks to projects like these, which allow us to dialogue with institutions such as MoMA, Costructo, Istanbul Modern and from this year MMCA in Seoul, that MAXXI is able to nurture and support Italian talent in the world.”
The installation 8 ½ will open on Thursday 26 June 2014 at 20.00 in MAXXI’s piazza, with an evening of music open to all in which the DJs Hugo Sanchez and the Vj Manuel Savoia will play alternating sets. This inaugural event also marks the opening of the PLAY with YAP summer programme: architecture, film, design, fashion and music events, all free and all focussing on the dialogue between culture, entertainment and free time. “This year too there will be an original interpretation of the theme of public space thanks to the project by the young architects who have won YAP MAXXI 2014”, says Margherita Guccione the Director of MAXXI Architettura. “Based on flexibility and the interweaving between architecture and installation, it sits in the piazza in direct competition with the mass of MAXXI and it is enhanced with a temporary and spectacular configuration. A simple idea realised with simple, recyclable materials that offers visitors an opportunity to relax, it is immediately evocative of the atmosphere and the events that the museums will be presenting to its public with the PLAY with YAP initiatives”.
“Like MAXXI itself, this year YAP is celebrating its fourth birthday and it thus confirms its position as a project closely linked with the museum’s identity”, says Pippo Ciorra, Senior Curator for MAXXI Architettura and curator of the exhibition. “YAP 2014 also presents two interesting new features. The first is the Rome-based winning group, very focussed on the themes of the public use of space, recycling and self-building. The second is the further expansion of the network of collaborations that has its epicentre in the courtyard of MoMA/MoMA PS1, with the entrance of the first far East institution in the YAP network. This year in fact sees MMCA, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Seoul participating in the YAP project and the Korean capital will have its first installation."
THE INSTALLATION 8 ½ 8 ½ is a reflection on landscape that transforms public space from a backdrop to private encounters and individual moments to a setting for public events and collective representations.
The installation is composed of two complementary elements. The first is a crossable wooden wall eight and a half metres high that represents a “threshold” reorganizing the museum’s open space. The wall is completely covered on one side with plastic spheres deriving from the recycling of organic beer containers. The spheres become lights, while a walkway allows visitors and performers to access the upper level. The second element consists of the stage platform and the covered arena which also presents seating and water features. The arena is both a theatre, a place destined for public events and performances, and a piazza, an architectural device for the everyday use of public space. While designed specifically for Piazza Alighiero Boetti, 8 ½ has been designed to be able to be easily dismantled and transported and adaptable to new sites with flexibility and intelligence. The materials and the construction techniques are simple and economical and part of the materials employed devices from recycling and upcycling of poor or waste materials.
orizzontale (Jacopo Ammendola, Giuseppe Grant, Juan Lopez Cano – Cardeña, Margherita Manfra, Nasrin Mohiti Asli, Roberto Pantaleoni, Stefano Ragazzo) is a collective of architects who conduct operational research into the process of reactivating urban waste. Starting with the interception of sites, ideas and materials expelled by the city’s productive cycle, orizzontale activates collaborative processes through temporary interventions and minimal self-built architecture, during which the material and immaterial residues mutually restore meaning to one another. www.orizzontale.org
THE EXHIBITION The exhibition YAP MAXXI 2014 features the models of the other four short-listed projects from the Italian edition (BE YA! by B22, PICNICTOPIA by PKMN architectures & CICLOSTILE architettura, Aladino by INOUTarchitettura and Good News by Matilde Cassani) and allows visitors a glimpse of the backstage preparation of the winning installation 8 ½ by the orizzontale studio. The exhibition also presents the entire Young Architects Program 2014 through images of the winning and short-listed projects from MoMA/MoMA PS1, MMCA and Costructo accompanied by statements from the respective organizers and curators, offering visitors the possibility to compare the different approaches to the theme from the four corners of the globe. Istanbul Modern organizes YAP on a biennial basis and so this year is not represented among the projects on show.
PLAY WITH YAP From 26 June 2014, 8 ½ will be hosting the PLAY with YAP programme that will animate the museum’s piazza through to the end of September with events including the MOBILE ARCHITECTURE seminars, the selection of films from the DesignFilmFestival, XXI Century, a series of screenings organized with Istituto Luce, NEL BAULE Artists talking about themselves, the music of Cabaret Contemporain a concert staged in collaboration with the Istitut Français, Cose Turche a conversation with six architects focussing on Istanbul and much, much more.
YAP 2014 AT MOMA PS1, AT MMCA AND AT CONSTRUCTO The winning installation at MoMA/MoMA PS1 in New York, The Living by Hy-Fi, opens on 26 June 2014, while the exhibition opens on 2 July. The MMCA installation in Seoul, Shinseon Play by Moon Ji Bang opens together with the exhibition on 8 July 2014, while the winning installation at Constructo in Santiago, Chile, Wicker Forest by Grupo Talca will open with the exhibition this coming winter.
