During the Milan Furniture Fair, 2A+P/A architectural studio will present the exhibition “Drawings and Projects” in the historic Antonia Jannone architectural gallery.
A collection of projects, images, illustrations and photographs are brought together in the gallery’s spaces to portray the poetic research of the studio.
Every work on display investigates other projects and tries to affirm an idea of architecture as a form of collective knowledge.
The studio’s two partners, Gianfranco Bombaci and Matteo Costanzo, explore the potential of architectural projects through non-philological reference samples that derive from a range of disciplines and include objects, paintings, buildings, sculptures and weavings.
Architecture thus becomes a research tool for understanding reality and at the same time for giving shape and space to the collective rites of the present times.
The gallery layout has played with the juxtaposition of the two bodies of work.
One wall hosts the series called “36 drawings”, first created for the Orléans Biennale and commissioned by the Frac Centre-Val de Loire.
The opposite wall instead presents a selection of projects chosen to exemplify the type of work undertaken by 2A+P/A during its ten years of activity: finished work, competition projects, exhibition pavilions and installations.
“This exhibition represents our Chamber of Wonders and is formed by two distinctive bodies of work.
On one side a meticulous selection of work created by others over time, that have been carefully collected and that are presented here as a sequence of drawings that have completely been re-elaborated, taking them out of their original context and bringing them together to form an idea of architecture.
On the other side a selection of some of our projects that have directly and explicitly drawn from this universe of references: at times trying to reinterpret certain atmospheres, at others simply trying to create formal similarities.” ……….. Gianfranco Bombaci and Matteo Costanzo
During the exhibition the gallery also hosted a talk on the role and value of architectural drawing in the present day.
Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi, 125
About 2A+P/A
2A+P/A is a Rome-based architectural practice founded by Gianfranco Bombaci and Matteo Costanzo.
The studio develops architectural projects with particular focus on nature and the condition of contemporary cities.
The duo have presented their projects and created site-specific installations at several international exhibitions, including the 14th, 13th and 11th Venice Architecture Biennale, the 5th Brasilia Biennial of Architecture and the 1st Orléans Biennale of Architecture.
Their work has been showcased in institutions and museums including the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam as well as the V&A Museum and the Architectural Association in London.
Their models and drawings are part of public and private collections such as those of Frac Centre in Orléans, MAXXI in Rome, Pierre Bergé & Associés and Antonio Lupi.
The studio has received a number of awards, including: the Piranesi Honorary Mention, the Zumtobel Group Award, finalists of the Medaglia D’Oro dell’Architettura Italiana, the Aga Khan Award, winner of the Prix Spéciale Hiver and third place in the Asia Architecture Award.
The studio also pursues research through publishing initiatives such as the architectural magazine San Rocco. The two partners are also among the founders of CAMPO, a space in which to debate, study and celebrate architecture in Rome. They are both lecturers at the Royal College of Art in London.
About Antonia Jannone
Antonia Jannone started her journey as gallerist in 1979 focussing on a form of artistic expression that had, until then, not yet found a dedicated space: architecture.
She curated her first solo exhibitions of illustrious architects, namely: Leon Krier, Ernesto Bruno Lapadula, Giovanni Muzio, Aldo Rossi, Alberto Sartoris, Ettore Sottsass, Stefan Wewerka.
At that time architectural drawing started emerging from its strictly technical function to become an independent form of art, expressing a poetic concept of the world in its own right (Aldo Rossi, Massimo Scolari, Ettore Sottsass, Arduino Cantafora) in a similar way to G.P.Pannini, Joli or Hubert Robert.
The same was happening for set design, which moved beyond being a mere painted backdrop to become a three-dimensional context intended to create an actual setting, an atmosphere.
Shows of work by Nicola Benois, Ezio Frigerio, Pier Luigi Pizzi and others.
Since 1986 this primary focus of the Antonia Jannone gallery has been combined with a profound interest in artists and designers, including Sergio Cappelli and Patrizia Ranzo, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Borek Sipek and George Sowden.
Her most recent shows have been dedicated to Mario Botta, Andrea Branzi, Alessandro Busci, Aldo Cibic, Michele De Lucchi, Vittorio Gregotti, Steven Holl, Ugo La Pietra, Alessandro Mendini, Gaetano Pesce, Umberto Riva, Alvaro Siza, Ettore Sottsass, Sergei Tchoban and Velasco Vitali.
