Le Piazze [In]visibili

After the international preview launched on June 2, 2020, on the occasion of Republic Day, Le Piazze (in)visibili (The (In)visible squares)--a project promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (Directorate General for the Promotion of the Country System)--is presented in full through its dedicated website, where the ebook with the texts in extended version is available as a free download. Conceived and edited by Marco Delogu, Le Piazze (in)visibili proposes an evocative journey into the beauty of Italian squares, stimulating reflections on a historical moment of "suspension" and on all those identity values that, throughout our history, have developed around the concept of "square".

The story of the Italian squares passes through the images of Olivo Barbieri, Jacopo Benassi, Luca Campigotto, Michele Cera, Giovanni Cocco, Alessandro Dandini, Eva Frapiccini, Claudia Gori, Alice Grassi, Stefano Graziani, Raffaela Mariniello, Daniele Molajoli, Luca Nostri, Margherita Nuti, Francesca Pompei, Flavio Scollo, Luca Spano, George Tatge and Paolo Ventura; and the writings – in this edition in extended version – by Edoardo Albinati, Carlo Carabba, Francesco Cataluccio, Liliana Cavani, Benedetta Cibrario, Marcello Fois, Giovanni Grasso, Helena Janeczek, Nicola Lagioia, Jhumpa Lahiri, Margherita Loy, Maurizio Maggiani, Valerio Magrelli, Salvatore Silvano Nigro, Clio Pizzingrilli, Elisabetta Rasy, Eduardo Savarese, Caterina Serra, Giorgio van Straten, Sandro Veronesi and Francesco Zanot.

Enriching the journey through time and space are the critical texts by curator Marco Delogu, Joseph Rykwert, architectural historian and author of L’Idea di città (The idea of the city), and Matteo Lafranconi, director of the Scuderie del Quirinale, which reminds us of the existence of Scossacavalli square in Rome, where Raphael lived, and currently invisible.

"Every time you enter the square, you find yourself caught in a dialogue," Italo Calvino wrote in Invisible Cities, a book to which the title of this project refers. A dialogue between image and word, between established and emerging authors, between lesser-known squares and icons known all over the world, between rediscovered architectures and a new sociality to rethink.

Thursday, June 25, 2020 at 6:30 p.m., Le Piazze (in)visibili (The (in)visible Squares) was presented as part of the Triennale Estate program.

The meeting, coordinated by Matteo Balduzzi, was attended by Marco Delogu, Luca Campigotto, Francesco Cataluccio and Francesco Zanot. The recording is available online here.