Le case parlanti

Ugo La Pietra

From 6 June to 19 July 2019

“The interior that moves towards the exterior is also, more than a slogan to which to sum up all my researches into overcoming the barriers still existing between private and public spaces, a method of planning for the health of an architecture that seems in search of new models to which to refer to, with few results.”

Ugo La Pietra in “Promemoria”, pub. Katà, Milan 1979/80

The MAAB Gallery is pleased to present Le case parlanti, a solo show by Ugo La Pietra (Bussi sul Tirino, 1938), an architect and artisan who was one of the founders of the Gruppo del Cenobio in 1962.

In the rooms of Via Nerino the visitors will be presented with ten small ceramic houses (Interno/Esterno, 1982 – ed. 1/4) and with a selection of mixed media and watercolour drawings; these give an excellent idea of the experimental movement defined as “radical architecture” that developed in the 1970s and that aimed at proposing an architecture  able to communicate.

After the 1979 installation Un pezzo di strada nella stanza e un pezzo di stanza della strada, presented at the Milan Triennale, with these works La Pietra once again deal with the theme of overcoming the barrier between public and private spheres, by creating healthy conflicts between the two areas and arriving at overcoming the characteristic anonymity of the International Style.

In La Pietra’s work the elements that usually qualify an interior – such as cups, vases, and curtains – are presented on the facades of the houses to connote them by everyday objects that are repeated and enlarged to generate “an inexhaustible catalogue for manipulation”. “The home still communicates!Let’s adorn the façade with curtains, flower pots, armchairs, table lamps, chairs,tables and sideboards, bottles …The interior that moves towards the exterior.Let’s break the wall between private and public space.”

The show will be supplied with a bilingual catalogue (Italian and English) with critical essays by Marco Meneguzzo and Gianluca Ranzi.

Press release

Artists
Ugo La Pietra