ROME (ITALPRESS) – One hundred years after the construction of Italy’s first highway, the Maxxi recounts a century of travel with “Italy on the Move. Highways and the Future,” the exhibition opening to the public Dec. 6, 2024. Curated by Pippo Ciorra with Angela Parente, in collaboration with Autostrade per l’Italia, the exhibition reveals how highways have shaped the landscape, society and imagination of an entire country.The Italian highway is not just an infrastructure: it is the thread that weaves modernity and memory, connecting places, people and stories. With the heroic impulses of the 20th century, the productive acceleration of the postwar period, and the eco-sustainable scenarios of the future, the exhibition is an invitation to rediscover Italy as millions of travelers have experienced it, throughout the ages. From the coveted eighteenth/nineteenth-century “Grand Tour” through literature cinema and television, our country has for centuries represented a destination dreamed of by travelers from all over the world. A dream made not only possible, but within everyone’s reach precisely because of highways. Among archival projects, author’s photographs, evolving maps and iconic images, the exhibition takes the visitor along a spectacular space-time itinerary, made up of the history of highways but also its recurring places and themes. In fact, the four sections of the exhibition celebrate the role of the highway as a protagonist of everyday life and collective narrative.The network is at the heart of the centuries-old project of highways, whose main goal is to bring people and stories together. The process of completing the highway network is illustrated here by the documents, the photographic and moving images, maps, tourist maps, plans and drawings found in the rich archives of the Highway Company, in the MAXXI Architecture and Contemporary Design collection, and in the archives and studios of the many lenders. The travel section is a reflection on what is offered to the traveler’s gaze, a kind of aesthetic comfort, within the highway route and services. In an increasingly curated and conscious sequence of microarchitectures, rest areas and refreshment points. From Giovanni Michelucci to Jean Nouvel, via Guido Canali and Santiago Calatrava, auteur architecture also stars in a section of the exhibition. Wineries, bridges and train stations, corporate headquarters, and manufacturing campuses designed and built by big names in architecture have begun over time and continue to thicken around the highway route, picking up that thread of architectural ambition inaugurated many years ago. An architecture that is daily present in people’s lives, visible to those inside the highway as well as to those who are just near it, much more than just a dynamic setting. Iwan Baan’s photographic visions capture from above, thanks to a series of helicopter reconnaissance, the essence of the highway landscape.Technology and environmental awareness will be the main features of tomorrow’s highways, here recounted by the concrete green proposals signed by Renzo Piano’s studio (RPBW) and the dreamlike visions of Emiliano Ponzi. So Italy in Motion. Highways and the Future is not just a celebration of ingenuity, but a tribute to travel as a metaphor for life: a bridge between past and future, between distant places and the stories that inhabit them, between everyday life and tomorrow.’Highways have accompanied our development. They have been a great accelerator of modernity and contributed to making the right to mobility effective. The centenary anniversary of the first stretch of Italian highway, the Autostrada dei Laghi, is a propitious occasion to reflect on the generating capacity of large infrastructures and the multiplier effect of the retì, writes the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, in a message to the president of Autostrade per l’Italia Spa, Elisabetta Oliveri, and the CEO, Roberto Tomasi.’The exhibition hosted at MAXXI constitutes a path that invites us to grasp the value of choices at the time of the Republic. Highways fostered the actual growth of the country, of its economy. They contributed to unity, shortening distances. They rescued territories from isolation,” the head of state continued. “They connoted the era of the civilization of the automobile. “Reviewing the images of how we were, and how much the transformations that have occurred have changed the scenarios and their very perception, while giving awareness of the path we have traveled together, invites us to look to the future. Increasingly, highway infrastructures will have to feature advanced technologies to aid driving, raise safety standards for users, and contribute to environmental rebalancing,” Mattarella stresses. “Innovation is a necessity to keep up with the times. Major infrastructures, such as highways, are today called to the verification of their function, to the test of their obsolescence and sustainability. To confirm their ability to meet tomorrow. “With this exhibition, created in collaboration with Autostrade per l’Italia, MAXXI is celebrating a century of stories and connections,” says Emanuela Bruni, Fondazione MAXXI Regent Councilor. Highways are not just infrastructure, but bridges between cities, cultures and people. For us, it is an extraordinary opportunity to interweave the narrative of the past with our mission to explore the contemporary and chart new paths towards the future. “For Elisabetta Oliveri, President of Autostrade per l’Italia, “the exhibition dedicated to the history of the Italian freeway network highlights how it is not only a complex infrastructure, but also a work that has contributed in a decisive way to the growth of our country. Italian highways, whose significant role in Italian society has also been highlighted by famous films, represent a thread through which Italy’s economic development and social changes can be narrated. Essential yesterday as today, highways will continue to be indispensable in the future, with a necessary evolution towards sustainability. Recounting the past of Italian highways means, therefore, also reflecting on the future, recognizing their crucial role in the country’s path of continuous growth. “Where there is a highway, there are people’s lives and work,” stresses Roberto Tomasi, CEO of Autostrade per l’Italia. “The idea of this exhibition was born precisely with the intention of remembering how precious infrastructure is for our country. Highways have fostered the economic development of territories, accompanying social growth and giving freedom of movement to goods and citizens. The path designed by this exhibition speaks to us of the grandeur of Italian genius in designing and building great works, soaring bridges and long tunnels to connect an orographically complex and perhaps unique territory. Finally, from this path through the history of infrastructure, emerges a glimpse of an increasingly digital and sustainable future for mobility, a future that, as Autostrade per l’Italia Group, we are committed to building every day, designing and implementing interventions for an increasingly efficient, modern and interconnected network.”Lorenza Baroncelli, MAXXI Director of Contemporary Architecture and Design, explains, “Infrastructure is the object of collective mobilization, of an unparalleled effort of ingenuity aimed at conceiving and realizing goods and systems that elevate the quality of life of an entire society. Just think of the role the construction of the A1 played in the revitalization of post-war Italy or imagine the potential for network development made possible by the technological advances we are witnessing today. Great works have been and will be the highest form of democratization of peoples. “Pippo Ciorra, Senior Curator MAXXI Architettura curator of the exhibition, points out, “For long-distance drivers, the highway represents a network that the more it grows in extension, the better: it reaches more destinations, increases their range of action, and shortens time. For those, on the other hand, who use it for shorter, daily trips, it must above all improve, be safer, connected, offer new possibilities, graft itself well into cities and landscapes, and guarantee efficient services. The exhibition recounts precisely this evolution from infrastructure in perpetual growth anxiety to a body in need of maintenance, improvements, evolved services, energy and environmental awareness, ‘intermodality’ with other means of transportation.”
– Photo press office Autostrade per l’Italia –
(ITALPRESS).
