On Saturday January 27th, from 10:00 am, the “Mary Ward” Auditorium of the Villoresi College (former Institute of English Ladies) in Merate will host the “Arte e rigenerazione urbana” event. Promoted by the Orders of Architects, Planners, Landscapers and Conservators of the province of Lecco and Monza and Brianza, by Level Office Landscape and the Rotary Club Merate Brianza, the talk will see the participation of numerous guests, including designers and international artist to collect ideas from successful redevelopment and revitalization projects of urban spaces. Greenery, light and Street Art are indeed attractive elements that restore beauty in degraded corners of the cities.
“Arte e rigenerazione urbana” Talks and Presentations
Massimo Gianquitto, architect and ceo of Level Office Landscape, will moderate the talks focused on the coexistence between art, architecture and urban landscape with a focus on Street Art, a new form of communication that has contributed to redefine urban spaces, in terms of fruition, meaning and aesthetics. Born as an evolution of the writing of the 70s, protest art of counter cultures in the 2000s, it has integrated into public space, becoming a tool for redefining areas of the city, reworking its aesthetics. From a spontaneous phenomenon, initially considered to be on a par with vandalism, over time Street Art has been reevaluated and used by municipal administrations, companies, communication agencies and architectural firms, as a resource to improve the urban fabric, giving color and meaning to areas of the city otherwise anonymous and useless.
The speech of the architect Michela Locati, President of the Order of Architects, P.P. and C. of the Province of Monza and Brianza, will open the event. She will focus on how the redevelopment interventions of public spaces represent precious opportunities to restore new green, more attractive and inclusive places into the city. “Even a mere repaving intervention, with the use of modern high-performance materials in terms of drainage and inclusion of greenery as well as aesthetic restoration, can transform an anonymous space into a place of permanence”, claims the architect.
From Rotary to Farm Cultural Park
The President of the Merate Rotary Club, Engineer Nicola Piazza, will talk about the participatory art artistic project entitled “Street Art in Schools”, an initiative which sees the involvement of Italian national artists, art history teachers and students, around which the project is built. Born in 2019 which came to life with the Liceo M. Agnesi and the I.S.S. F. Viganò and involved, in subsequent years, other high schools in the area such as: I.I.S.S. A. Greppi in Monticello Brianza, I.I.S.S. V. Bachelet in Oggiono and the scientific and musical high school G.B. Fats from Lecco.
Florinda Saieva, co-founder with her husband Andrea Bartoli of Farm Cultural Park, Contemporary Cultural and Tourist Park of Favara, will talk about the process of reconverting old abandoned buildings into places where you can admire contemporary art between a talk on social innovation and a drink on a terrace overlooking the historic center of the city.
“Arte e rigenerazione urbana”, Case Studies from the Artists
The artist Pao will involve the public in the story of a participatory work carried out at the Confalonieri secondary school in via Pepe in Milan, in 2022. The project lasts over 2 months, in the form of a student’s open workshop, with the aim of creating a painting on the perimeter wall of the school. Thanks to this work, the artist was able to teach the kids the basics of planning, improving the aesthetics of the school and the street, involving the students in the life of their neighborhood, thus increasing the kids’ civic sense. The workshop initially took place in the classroom, developing the theme, the subjects, and learning the basics of planning and drawing. Once the theme had been developed, a color range was chosen and the children developed the different subjects: having designed all the elements of the painting they were mixed into a coherent sketch. Only at that point they moved into the practical phase: the drawing was traced and the students, armed with rollers and brushes, created the painting under the supervision of the artist.
Giorgio Bartocci, through photographies and videos, will show “Riflessi mimetici”, the project conceived and created with the Zanichelli publishing house for the city of Bologna, to experiment with the insertion of the contemporary language of urban art within a old town. For the first time the artist did not work on the walls, but on the windows. The work, carried out in several phases, will show the example of a common path between the company’s cultural and communicative perspectives, of research on the artist’s language and style, which places sensitivity for the context at the center of the creative process. The development of the art work has in fact involved numerous collaborations with experts in public space, such as the architect Luigi Greco, the Aura Taitle company for the curation of lighting and the art printer Arturo Amitrano of 56 Fili, who contributed to the creation of art monotypes as a paper record of the entire project, printed at the Varsi Gallery in Rome.
Orticanoodles will virtually lead the public through the OrMe Ortica Memoria project, the first open-air museum in the city, accessible for free, which tells the story of the 20th century through the history of the neighbourhoods, of Milan and Italy all, with 20 great works of urban art. The collective’s objective was to revalue the Ortica area, the smallest neighborhood in Milan which boasts a centuries-old history, through a new artistic and cultural vocation, with constant involvement of citizens, schools and associations. Today the project is sponsored by the Municipality of Milan and included in the city’s official tourist circuit. Indicated by the FAI as an asset to be preserved, the Ortica and its murals attract thousands of tourists every year. OrMe Ortica Memoria is also active with projects such as “Scarpette Rosse”, an itinerary of artistic installations that winds through some neighborhoods of the city of Milan and which aims to raise awareness of the fight against gender violence.
Sonda will finally show the public how a non-place can be completely transformed through art. At the center of his intervention will be the audiovisual installation that the artist created in the underpass of the Seregno station.
For the purpose of professional updating, the Conference is supported by to the Order of PPC Architects of the Province of Lecco. The participation gives access to 2 credits, subject to mandatory registration on the new CNA Platform at the link https://portaleservizi.cnappc.it/