Mario Bellini architect(s)

"In this sense, designing an exhibition is more like staging and directing a theme (in this case, European Baroque architecture) so that individual elements like staging, graphic design, lighting, materials, etc. form part of a larger, more general design
• relating to the place
The first and most important consideration was how to relate the exhibition to a setting as exceptional as the Stupinigi Hunting Lodge. I decided that some form of powerful dialectic was needed so that the building and the exhibition could make their own statements without being contaminated by each other. Though the splendid Ballroom was initially excluded from the itinerary, I wanted to make it an integral part of the exhibition, a living example of Baroque architecture modified only by the addition of stage lighting and a bare minimum of furnishings. The exhibition proper is in the wings of the Lodge, where a variety of display techniques create an illusory space in which the host architecture becomes a suggestive meta-text amplifying and extending the significance of the exhibited architecture. The wings thus become spectacular mises en âbimes of Baroque architecture: what the host buildings centrepiece (the Ballroom) narrates on a 1:1 scale, the exhibition breaks down into smaller-scale examples that compound the sense of illusion.
• sequencing
The exhibition is arranged in sequences whose individual scenes are both waystages and narrative cruces of interrelated cognitive and emotional experiences, modulated by variations in pace and register. Densely-packed polyphonic sections alternate with solo sections highlighting just one major exhibit, and quieter intervals of relaxation like the tile gallery leading to the Ballroom.
With exhibits ranging from royal palaces, gardens and private residences in the first part, to machinery for plays and entertainments, fortifications, scientific and public institutions, and ecclesiastical architecture in the second (culminating in a spectacular model of the Smol'ny in St. Petersburg), the visitor's eye is simultaneously drawn both to individual exhibits and the long perspective "enfilade" of the rooms.
• exhibit design and materials
Along the route, the oxidised iron floor sheets and the window blinds (to exclude natural light) empathetically distance the exhibited architecture from the architecture of the host building. Slanting partition walls cut like swords through the larger spaces, while the models are raised on studio trestle tables and iron sheet platforms so that the eye perceives them as real buildings. Drawings and engravings are displayed on large stylised lecterns mounted on hanging grids. One of the most innovative features of the exhibit is the presentation of the architectural fragments, which are positioned on plans (screenprinted on the floor) of the buildings they come from to make their original siting and purpose clear.
Space is constructed with lights (spots for the models, soft wash for the drawings) which in some cases change in angle and intensity to produce an accelerated sequence of the times of day: time itself is scaled down to the imaginary space of the models.
Italo Lupi's graphics exploit the three-dimensional nature of the architecture: the floors tell stories, the screened windows become the pages of a book that unfolds as the exhibition progresses, and the large information panels at the entrance form a container for service areas like the bookshop and cloakroom.
For "special effects" like the reproductions of Roman monuments in the antechamber to the exhibition, we were fortunate and privileged to have the services of Pier Luigi Pizzi, who also added inspired scenic touches to the magnificent Ballroom."

Mario Bellini

"THE TRIUMPHS OF THE BAROQUE: ARCHITECTURE IN EUROPE, 1600/1750"