Paesaggi Urbani – Urban Landscapes

The studio was invited to take part in Paesaggi Urbani – Urban Landscapes, a cultural project curated by Iosa Ghini Associati and presented as part of BOLD – Bologna Live Design 2026, from 19th to 27th September in the Chiesa di San Mattia, a former church in the historic center of Bologna.

Participating in this dialogue with the contemporary urban landscape were Aldo Aymonino, Stefano Boeri, Michele De Lucchi, Doriana and Massimiliano Fuksas, Massimo Iosa Ghini, Kengo Kuma & Associates, Piero Lissoni, Elena Salmistraro and Matteo Thun, each of whom were called upon to distil a vision of the social, cultural and technological shifts that we are currently experiencing into one single work.

Each contribution – design, image, render, graphic, scenario or phrase – was reproduced on a large ceramic panel provided by companies within the industry and together these became part of a single collective installation.

The central idea of the project by Piero Lissoni was to compare the layouts of four totally different cities – New York, Rome, Venice and Ferrara – that also possess a commonality in having an historical and structural relationship with water: the canals of Venice, the Tiber River in Rome, the waterways of Ferrara and the tidal straits around Manhattan. Set in juxtaposition, the maps revealed how the water is not just a geographical element, but also a connective fabric able to define the urban identity, independently of the epochs and cultures that forged each city, and in turn these plans design a new geography of a fifth and imaginary city, shaped by the convergence of distant stories and places.