Steve McCurry's Image Theatre

Milan, Italy

Add To Collection

Other Projects by HOFLAB

Add To Collection

Citadel of Construction

Steve McCurry's Image Theatre

Milan, Italy

Firm

HOFLAB

Type

Cultural › Gallery

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2013

SIZE

0 sqft - 1000 sqft

BUDGET

$50K - 100K

The itinerant display structure for Steve McCurry’s photo essay “Sensational Umbria” is conceived as an ideal stage in which images become actors and transform the occasional context in a setting in which a theatrical representation of the "green heart of Italy" takes place.
The reasons for the project originate from the desire to represent the soul of Umbria, without overpowering the installation’s content and by establishing a dialogue with its’ context. The project evokes the "U" of Umbria, the stage of the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, the perspective iteration of the Calce in Assisi, the skeletal installation of the Calamita Cosmica at CIAC2 in Foligno, the discontinuous skyline of medieval Perugia, the wood of the Ceri in Gubbio, the steel of Terni and, above all, the Teatro Continuo, an installation designed by Alberto Burri and realized in Milan at the Triennale XV (1973-1989): a kind of stage set located on the central axis of the Parco Sempione and intended to frame the view of the Castello Sforzesco .
The installation premiered in Milan during the design week (Fuorisalone) in April 2013, in the Cortile Napoleonico of Palazzo di Brera, dominated by the bronze statue of Napoleon in veste di Marte. Subsequently it has been exhibited in Piazza della Repubblica in Perugia, in Piazza Doumo in Orvieto in December 2013/January 2014, on the Isola Maggiore of the Trasimeno lake in August 2014 and in Piazza del Popolo in Todi in September 2014.
The display structure consists of a rhythmic iteration of ten overturned portals made of wooden beams, interspersed by metal gratings forming a deck raised from the ground. Five giant light boxes emerge from the spaces between the wooden portals on which high definition Plexiglas prints of the images selected by the curator are applied on both sides.

architectural design: HOFLAB (Paolo Belardi, Carl Volckerts), Andrea Dragoni
structural design: Agathos Ingegneria (Luca Leonardi), Area Progetto (Roberto Regni)
locations: Milan, Perugia, Orvieto, Todi, Tuoro sul Trasimeno (Italy)
client: Regione Umbria, Centro Estero Umbria
realization: totem srl
chronology: project and realization 2013
dimensions: footprint area 100 mq, height 5,5 m
photography: ORCH_Fulvio Orsenigo (Milan), Paolo Ballerani (Perugia) and Giovanni Tarpani (Orvieto)