"Living the City" Exhibition
The exhibition “Living the City” is hosted in the heart of the city of Bergamo, in the historic building Palazzo della Ragione, the oldest town hall in Italy, built at the end of the twelfth century on Piazza Vecchia.
The building’s main hall, Sala delle Capriate, is an ancient assembly hall where the city’s jurors gathered to make laws. The room is 16 meters wide and 18 meters long, with no internal support structure, filled with paintings and frescoes, including works by Bramante which had previously been stored in the adjacent Palazzo del Podestà.
The Accademia Carrara, a renowned art school and gallery founded in the eighteenth century, used the space as a temporary home in 2008 to display its rich collection, which would otherwise have been unseen during the restoration
of the historic site. The project’s setup, conceived by architect Mario Botta, adds new geometries to the room, modifying the way spaces are used. The arrangement, preserved for the “Living the City” exhibition comprises of a system of wood and iron totems, placed in a circle in the centre to create a room within a room. All around, an elaborate system of panels some way away from the original walls become the display walls.
The project focused on building almost neutral technical elements which would interfere the least with the pre-existing installation. A large rear projected panel and a long table are arranged into this space. They are independently oriented, even of other geometries in the room, creating a new way of perceiving and using the environment.
The panel showing the Video fresco brings ten different videos of as many cities. The videos depict the life in different urban contexts, which merge at times to create a single image.
More detailed, the Story table contains objects, images and publications that connect ANCSA to twelve different cities: twelve ‘cores’ where urban design theories flourished.
The table, made of untreated wood, along with the panel’s framing structures, direct the gaze to the Bergamo wall where the Accademia Carrara puts the photographic work by Gabriele Basilico on show as a tribute to the city.
The exhibition took place also in Bologna.
