Fibrous Tectonics at MAXXI - Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo
Technoscape - The architecture of engineers
curated by Pippo Ciorra, Maristella Casciato
October 1st, 2022 - April 16th, 2023
The story of the relationship between structural engineering, whether vernacular or avant-garde, and the invasion of technology into our operating and living spaces.
The Technoscape - The architecture of engineers exhibition is arranged in two sections corresponding with the two great universes of technological innovation and construction engineering.
Along the first itinerary, developed in collaboration with universities and research centres, visitors discover installations and interactive pavilions that will allow them to understand the role played today by scientific and technological sectors that they would never have imagined in conjunction with architecture: from science applied to the environment to “smart” devices for city management, from the obsession with big data to the return of vintage, low-tech assembly techniques.
Along the second itinerary, organised into thematic areas, visitors find the work of great structural engineers from the post-war period to the present day, highlighting several approaches and symbolic buildings such as the Beaubourg or the Sydney Opera House, and the most striking cases where the task of form-finder falls entirely on the structural designer.
Fibrous Tectonics is a novel hybrid building system made from flax fibres and wooden panels, which aims to combine the effectiveness of bio-inspired fibrous structures with the ecological advantages of bio-based fibre materials. Enabled by advanced design computation and simulation as well as robotic fabrication processes, and based on design principles transferred from natural fibrous systems, this research opens up a new approach to fibre-reinforced composite structures in architecture.
As part of the exhibition Technoscape at the MAXXI Museum in Rome, the large fibrous slab structure explores novel, bio-inspired and bio-based tectonics, which are at the same time materially efficient, ecologically sound, and architecturally expressive, and tell the story of deep interrelations between technology, biology, and culture.
For further information visit: Tecnoscape Exhibition
