Best Architecture Exhibitions not to be missed

Our selection of the best architecture exhibition in Italy and abroad

Isplora’s editorial team has selected for you a number of exhibitions on architecture not to be missed during the Christmas holidays, a journey through architecture, art and photography.

Architecture exhibitions: appointments

"GioPonti. Loving Architecture", MAXXI, Rome, Italy

Among the exhibitions taking place at the moment that we would like to point out, there is undoubtedly the retrospective “Gio Ponti. Loving Architecture”  curated, among others, by Maristella Casciato and Fulvio Irace. Realized forty years after the architect's death at the MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome and on stage until April 13th, 2020, the exhibition presents the multifaceted and polyhedral figure of Gio Ponti through the lunges at all the stairs on which the architect worked, from the design object to the skyscraper. At the MAXXI Museum you can also find the exhibition “AT HOME. Projects for contemporary housing", open since last March. The exhibit reveals how it was living in the post-war period up until today through interesting juxtapositions between the works of great masters of the twentieth century and emerging designers.

If you pass by Naples, the Museum and Real Bosco di Capodimonte will host a monographic exhibition entitled  “Santiago Calatrava. Nella luce di Napoli”, a retrospective strongly desired by the architect focused on his last forty years of career seen from an unusual and particular angle, through the presence of light in his projects.

If, on the other hand, your holidays take you to the shores of the Atlantic, in Porto (Portugal), you cannot miss two monographic exhibitions dedicated to two masters of Portuguese architecture, both winners of the Pritzker Prize: Álvaro Siza and Souto de Moura. Until February 2nd, in fact, at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Serralves Foundation,  you can visit the exhibition “Álvaro Siza: In/disciplina”: a retrospective exhibit that investigates the architect's "unruly" creative method in a "container" designed by himself, offering a lunge on thirty projects, realized and not, through models, sketches, unpublished notes and drawings.

Not that far from Porto, at the Casa da Arquitectura in Matosinhos, until September 6th 2020 you will find the monographic exhibition “Souto de Moura – Memória, Projectos, Obras”, curated by Francesco Dal Co and Nuno Graça Moura: a review on the architect’s work. The "Architect's Studio" review of the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, on the other hand, which from 2017 focuses on a new generation of emerging designers whose sustainable and socially aware architecture faces the challenges of globalization, sees the work of Mexican Tatiana Bilbao, on display until April.

Architecture and photography

For architectural photography lovers we recommend visiting the exhibition “Architecture, Silence and Light. Louis Kahn in the photographs by Roberto Schezen” at the MAXXI Archives Center (from December 18th, 2019 to June 2nd, 2020 *), where the photographer's vision and lens "filter" the work of the American architect.

"Autostrada del Sole" in 1958 - photo by Fedele Toscani

Closing on January 12th 2020 is another interesting  photographic exhibition dedicated to the photographs of Hans Engels on Bauhaus at the Ceramics Museum of Savona, which can be visited by appointment only, due to the limited availability, while “Kenro Izu. Requiem for Pompei” shows the shots of the archaeological site by Japanese artist Kenro Izu at the Modena Visual Arts Foundation. In Milan, at "Palazzo Morando", "Milan in the 1960s" (“Milano Anni ‘60” ) stages a series of shots that show the incredible evolution of Milan during the 1960s, from a building, infrastructure and cultural point of view.

Architects behind the scenes

"Albero degli Alberi", Michele de Lucchi - photo by Botanical Garden of Padua

Until January 5th, 2020 at the Botanical Garden of Padua it will still be possible to see the “Albero degli Alberi” ("Tree of Trees") exhibition by Michele de Lucchi, which collects the relics of 14 million trees fallen because of bad weather in the Northeast of the country. Architects Cherubino Gambardella and Simona Ottieri, whom we met a short time ago in our ArchiTALKS, instead planed the set-up of the exhibition "Thalassa, submerged wonders from the Mediterranean" at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, open until March 9th, 2020. Migliore + Servetto Architects, also protagonists of our ArchiTALKS, are at the center of two ongoing exhibitions: "Leonardo and the Madonna Litta" at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan and "Medardo Rosso" at the National Roman Museum in Palazzo Altemp.

A 2020 full of events

"Countryside, The Future", curated by Rem Koolhaas and Samir Bantal

2020 seems to be shaping up to be a year full of important events. It will be the year of the Venice Architecture Biennale, but above all in February it will inaugurate the much-debated exhibition "Countryside, The Future" at the Guggenheim in New York, curated by Rem Koolhaas and Samir Bantal, Director of AMO. The Accademia di San Luca will host an exhibition on Renato Rizzi, while the Milan Triennale has already unveiled a series of previews on its restyling and the schedule for next year: not only will it host for the second time an exhibit dedicated to Enzo Mari but it will also inaugurate a "widespread" exhibition curated by Joseph Grima and Damiano Gulli dedicated to Corrado Levi, architect, artist and professor. Grima will then launch "The State of the Art of Architecture": an investigation into the state of the art and developments of contemporary architecture.

*The MAXXI website mentions that the exhibit will be closed from January 20th to February 3rd, 2020.