22 March – 29 September 2013
Gallery 1 and Architecture Archive Centre 
curated by Pippo Ciorra

Three exhibitions in one to recount sixty years in the history of Italy, and elsewhere, with a “visionary” view of the future, through the current burning issue: the impact of energy on architecture and the landscape, from the oil boom to renewables.

Over 80 historic drawings and projects, three master photographers and seven architectural firms of international repute for an itinerary in three steps - Past, Present and Future - that sets out with a description of post-war Italy and the economic boom – with the “eruption” of cars and speed, the first filling and service stations, motels and motorways burst upon the scene – and proceeds to traverse the present through the attentive and sensitive gaze of three photographers and explore the future by way of visionary projects seeking a zero impact supply of energy, like the filling station inspired by a forest or the motorway that itself supplies energy throughout its length.

ENERGY is divided into three sections: Storie/Stories (recounting the past), Fotogrammi/Frames (investigating the present) and Visioni/Visions (exploring diverse hypotheses for the future).

CATALOGUE ENERGY. Oil and post-oil architecture and grids edited by Pippo Ciorra Electa, 2013 - 184 pages Download Giovanna Melandri, Presidente Fondazione MAXXI Margherita Guccione, Direttore MAXXI Architettura Pippo Ciorra, Senior Curator MAXXI Architettura

"F" model city gas station from the 1950s. Loaner Walter Berselli

22 March – 29 September 2013
Gallery 1 and Architecture Archive Centre

The Stories section, curated by Margherita Guccione and Esmeralda Valente, tells of the most fruitful and successful season of the collaboration between architects and the energy industry in the early postwar decades.
Stories looks toward the recent past and presents reflections on road and highway architecture in Italy from the 1940s to the present day.
The section presents the most well-known events in the Italian scenario - including Mario Ridolfi, Costantino Dardi, Edoardo Gellner, Pier Luigi Nervi - and accentuates the wealth of the various approaches to the theme.

Together with material from some of the major Italian archives, both public and private, for the first time ever a selection of drawings from the eni Historic Archiveare being showcased here, a heritage that in its uniqueness and unity bears witness to the evolution in the planning, industrialization and construction of the oil distribution network in Italy.

The exhibition tells four stories the invention of a typology: autogrill between architecture and landscape/  motels new district models/ metanopoli and the villages access to energy/  from the gas pump to service stations.

Chiosco urbano, Roma 1953. Archivio storico Eni
Stazione di servizio Agip, Libia 1968. Archivio storico Eni
A. Bianchetti, bozzetto Autogrill Pavesi a Montepulciano, 1965-1972. Archivio J. J. Bianchetti 

22 March – 29 September 2013
Gallery 1 and Architecture Archive Centre

The artistic Frames of the photography section, curated by Francesca Fabiani, instead describe the contradictory beauty that in the cities and landscapes surrounds these architectures.
The Frames section is dedicated to an analysis of the present day: a photographic journey across the landscape of Italy today, which analyzes the places where energy is produced, supplied, consumed and sold.
Three Italian photographers, Paolo Pellegrin, Alessandro Cimmino and Paola Di Bello, were invited to carry out a project whose goal is to interpret the ever-changing and ongoing condition of the places of energy that waver between the Italy of yesterday and tomorrow.

Paola Di Bello, Framing the Community, 2013. Video. Courtesy Fondazione MAXXI

Alessandro Cimmino, Brugnato, 2012. Courtesy Fondazione MAXXI

Paolo Pellegrin, Raffineria Versalis, Ravenna, 2013. Courtesy Fondazione MAXXI 
 

22 March – 29 September 2013
Gallery 1 and Architecture Archive Centre

The Visions, curated by Pippo Ciorra, in the last section shift our gaze toward future landscapes, where the range of energy sources and the means of distribution will be greater and possibly even more integrated.

Seven architects hailing from five different continents have designed the space of the service stations of the coming decades and tell how the cities will be influenced by the new energy devices. Their installations are accompanied by the documentation of some interesting ongoing research into the issue of energy and movement, active witnesses to the commitment on this issue and the necessary interaction between the disciplines of design, arts and sciences.

The seven designers were asked to imagine the “service station” of the future and how distribution and access to energy will impact the landscape and the urban space. Each architect has interpreted the topic with an installation characterized by models, videos, sketches and drawings.

GUILLERMO ACUÑA ARQUITECTOS ASOCIADOS | LIFETHINGS | MODUS ARCHITECTS | NOERO ARCHITECTS | OBR OPEN BUILDING RESEARCH | SOU FUJIMOTO ARCHITECTS | TERROIR

Visions also presents Research strands into the question of Europe’s energy future: the project examines the relationship between the diverse geoclimatic conditions of the European countries and their potential energy sources; an ecological corridor from Berlin to Palermo based on an integrated system of agriculture-transformation-distribution of bio-hydrogen and, lastly, a foray into the world of design which pays “tribute to post-plastic” materials

STUDIO FORMAFANTASMA | IAN+ / FREDDY PAUL GRUNERT | OMA / AMO
 

- LIFETHINGS, Seoul, Korea. Energy FARMacy. Courtesy LIFETHINGS
-- MODUS architects, Brixen, Italy. HEADS UP HIGHWAY! Cultivating energy 2050. Courtesy MODUS architects

- OMA / AMO, ENEROPA. Geothermalia avanzata. Courtesy OMA / AMO
-- Sou Fujimoto Architects. Tokyo, Japan. ENERGY FOREST. Courtesy Sou Fujimoto Architects

- OBR Open Building Research, Genova, Italy. Right to Energy. Courtesy OBR Open Building Research
-- GAAA - Guillermo Acuña Arquitectos Asociados, Santiago, Chile. The NOE project SCL. Courtesy GAAA

- TERROIR, Tasmania, Australia. ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURES. Courtesy TERROIR
-- Noero Architects - Cape Town, South Africa. productive (re)public, 2013. Courtesy Noero Architects

- IaN+ / Freddy Paul Grunert. I ponti dell’energia – Energy Bridges
-- Studio Formafantasma. Botanica. Courtesy Studio Formafantasma. Photo Luisa Zanzani