The
industrialization process that started in the nineteenth century was followed
by numerous and massive urban and architectural interventions. Milan has been
the subject of a remodeling that has seen a reuse of the Navigli according to
the new emerging needs. At first navigable areas were converted into roads and
blocks of buildings. Places of great charm, they have mostly been lost
following the coverage of the canals, completed in 1930.
The
underground canals in the city of Milan have marked the constant redefinition
of its conformation over time: the expansion of the buildings, the submersion
of the interstices.
Starting
from the original layouts of the "inner circle", the canals are
returned in modular elements, made of earth and concrete, distributed
throughout the exhibition space.
The
public is called upon to reposition and move the individual elements by
redesigning and remodeling an unprecedented spatial configuration. The work
will be configured as a device capable of re-signifying the relationships
between the individual and space, as well as the mechanisms of fruition of the
work through processes of interaction and participation.
The
work is the result of research carried out on the urban fabric of Milan and on
the relationship between the city and water, the key element around which the
physiognomy of the city was built. Reading the cartographic material, in fact,
testifies to the very rich presence of water in the city since its foundation.
Over
the centuries in Milan numerous artificial canals called navigli have been dug;
with “Circle of Navigli” we refer to a network of five canals (the Naviglio
Grande, Pavese, Bereguardo, Martesana and Paderno) which offered easy
connections to Milan along the town's built-up area for long stretches, around
the walls.
Today the same term refers
to a ring road that surrounds the center of Milan whose route largely coincides
with that of the Naviglio.
