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Curated by Domitilla Dardi (MAXXI Design Curator), since 2018 the Alcantara-MAXXI project has evolved into the Studio Visit format, which brings together the Masters of the past and those of the present, invited each time to provide a personal interpretation of the works of great masters in the MAXXI Architettura Collection, by using Alcantara® as their principal language of interpretation.

For the 2021 edition the Neri&Hu studio confronts one of the greatest authors whose work is comprised in the archives: Carlo Scarpa.

With Traversing Thresholds, the interdisciplinary architectural design studio, based in Shanghai, builds a cultural bridge between the western and eastern worlds, between sensitivity and vision.

The authors have identified the Scarpian interpretation in the notion of “threshold”, a concept existing in both the Chinese ‘jian’, and in the Japanese ‘ma’, which can be roughly translated as a “gap”, “space”, or “pause”. In an architectural sense, this term is often used to describe a threshold condition, or the physical mediation between two contrasting spatial environments, such as interiority and exteriority, public and private; a state which reappears in the spatial passages of the Italian Master.

Lyndon Neri explains: “If you look at it from the perspective of thresholds, this idea of “jian” could be seen as space, or it could be seen as the middle, or the idea of time”.
“This is a space of a gap” – adds Rossana Hu. “It could also be a pause when you think of time, so it’s not just space, but it’s kind of this abstract notion that is between space and time or between two structural parts. There is this notion of it being empty, as opposed to something being filled, almost like the silence between the notes which make music”.

The installation designed by Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu reinterprets Scarpa’s vision in its central nodes: the invention of detail, the dialogue between solids and voids, the creative combination of materials.

The focal points of this installation lead the observer through six key passages of Scarpa’s architecture. Pivot Plane, Eroded Corner, Inserted Landscape, Floating Datum, Slit Window, Off-Axis. These elements are reflected in some lessons of the Master such as: subtraction from the full, dialogue between the materials, anti-gravity suspension, progressive space prospective, sliding of structural axes. Architecture lessons that interpreted by Neri&Hu generate new space through a regular mesh of intersecting walls in which the six limits are occasions to call the visitor to action and to the unveiling of Scarpa’s sources.
The presence of Alcantara, an extraordinary “construction material” for great design ideas, with all its potential of versatility, tactility and elegance, makes the work a true point of connection between past and present. Used in full color variants, or in different textures – from embossed to laminated – the material becomes the cornerstone of the architecture designed by Neri&Hu and welcomes the public with its innate sensoriality.

“Rossana Hu and Lyndon Neri has given a different point of view on Carlo Scarpa’s work, one of the most precious in the MAXXI Architettura Archives.” – states Domitilla Dardi, curator of the exhibition – “Through the concept of ” threshold” the sense of space as a journey and passage opens up to an oriental design sensibility, present “in embryo” in the work by Scarpa and enhanced by the interpretation of contemporary architects “.

For each edition of “Studio Visit” the authors (Nanda Vigo, Formafantasma, Konstantin Grcic and now Neri&Hu) have been invited to dialogue with the work of one or more Masters of the MAXXI’s architecture collection, and to render their own personal vision of it. Each designer has dedicated time to researching the archives, perfectly free to choose any topic or work. The results of their considerations have been presented on various occasions in the museum halls, in a way that resembles an atelier, a “studio” open to the public and presented in the form of an installation.

Alcantara has placed at the disposal of each of these exhibitions its exceptional properties of flexibility and interpretation of the form, qualities that are equally essential to the performance of a conceptual study. In this way, textural experimentation and study materials have revealed a close analogy that has triggered new thinking.

The three works by Nanda Vigo, Formafantasma and Konstantin Grcic are now part of the MAXXI Architettura permanent collection; the same will apply to the project by Neri&Hu.

The partnership between Alcantara and the MAXXI, centered around research on contemporary design topics and now in its tenth year, has led to the definition of a new form of cultural collaboration in the art world, which has become a real case history.

“The creative collaboration with Alcantara is currently celebrating its first 10 years, while continuing to prove the efficacy of a public/private partnership model based on shared projects – points out Giovanna Melandri, President of Fondazione MAXXI -. Working with an attentive, respectful, and innovative company like Alcantara, with its keen awareness of the value of cultural contents and research, is a true pleasure. We are delighted to enrich the collection with the extremely refined installation by Neri&Hu inspired by Carlo Scarpa, which builds a bridge between past and present, between West and East”.

“Our ten-year collaboration with MAXXI offers an opportunity to reflect on the significance of a cultural partnership and on the fact that this form of intervention in the world of art, and not only, is the only sustainable option open to a company today” – comments Andrea Boragno, President and CEO of Alcantara. “For Alcantara, being the co-producer of cultural contents worldwide is tantamount to probing the limits of the material and exceeding them, investing in research, investigating new applications, interacting with avant-garde movements and being open to new dialogues. To quote the project by Neri&Hu, ‘to traverse thresholds’ so far unexplored and increase the brand value proposition”.

The exhibition titled Neri&Hu: Traversing Thresholds will be open to the public in compliance with governmental directives, until 6 February 2022.