Rome’s MAXXI showcases ‘Whatami’ by Studio stARTT
stARTT, studio di architettura e trasformazioni territoriali, was born in February 2008 from an idea by Simone Capra and Claudio Castaldo, in order to design and manage the transformation processes they affect architecture and space for human activities, starting from specific expertise developed or working in network with other structures of professionals. Now in its 12th edition at MoMA/ MoMA PS1, the YAP – Young Architects Program has reached Rome for the first time thanks to the collaboration between MAXXI and the New York museum. The program, which in Rome goes under the name YAP MAXXI, sees the museum’s external spaces transformed into a garden of green islands that will host the summer season events, thanks to the Whatami project, conceived by the Rome-based studio stARTT. The exhibition, open simultaneously at MoMA and MAXXI, documents all five MoMA PS1 finalists and the five MAXXI finalists. YAP MAXXI exhibition 24 June 28 August 2011 Gallery 5 events 23 June 16 October 2011 YAP Space An artificial landscape, delineated by hills on which to pause, topped by great flowers providing shade by day and light by night, will allow the public to relax and contemplate the sinuous lines of the museum. In New York, YAP has seen the realization of the Holding Pattern project by the New York studio Interboro Partners. Whatami is based on the manufacturing of an artificial archipelago-hill, generating smaller green areas in the garden and potentially outside the museum. Whatami is the corruption of What am I, the industrial declination of the first puzzle invented in the XVIII century for fun-learning by John Spilsbury, it could be dismounted along the geographic boundaries; a tribute to the maps of Alighiero Boetti, which is dedicated to the square of the MAXXI. The hill works as a garden, injecting “green” into the concrete plateau of the museum’s outdoor space, allowing it to serve as a stage and/or parterre for concerts and other events, or as a space to rest and look at the museum itself. The artificial landscape will be punctuated by large “flowers” providing light, shadow and sound. The materials proposed for the installation involve a two-fold recycling processes; natural elements will come back to their original sites, the high-tech objects will be replaced in one of the abandoned places of the city waiting for a rehabilitation. The central island is fixed and around two meters high, while the seven smaller islands are mounted on wheels. This landscape is mobile and illuminated at night by 18 five-meter tall glass fiber flowers that instead cast pools of shade by day. A running water feature completes the installation that is as attractive as it is attentive to environmental issues: it in fact involves a recycling process: at the end of the season, the hills realized with prevalently reusable materials (straw, geotextile membranes, plastic) will be dismantled and donated to the municipality to be used again, together with the flowers, by the local district.
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