The installation designed by CZA responds to the theme “Hortus Liticus” through a simple action capable of generating complex spaces and figures through the mere proportional variation of an hourglass-like element repeated countless times.
Like the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon or the basalt columns of Garni, the “stalagmite” forest designed by CZA and made by the company Franchi Umberto Marmi evokes at the same time the wonderful photos of inflorescences or legumes made by Karl Blossfeldt and the “Infinite Column” by Constantin Brâncuşi, which seems to unite the opposing principles of a totem column and an abstract figure without beginning or end in a single form.

The name given to the installation, Sharawaggi, a word “extinct” in the East and survived in the Anglo-Saxon world could well define today a new design attitude, capable of uniting precision and informality, nature and artifice, in the consciousness of an ever smaller and more fragile globe.

Born in Milano in 1955, Cino Zucchi has earned degrees in Architectural Design at M.I.T. and at the Politecnico di Milano, where he is currently Chair Professor. He has taught in many international design workshops and has been a John T. Dunlop Visiting Professor at the GSD of Harvard University. Author of several articles and books on matters of architectural and urban theory, he participated to various editions of the Milano Triennale and of the Venice Biennale of Architecture, where he has been the curator of the Italian Pavilion in 2014. He has been the chairman of the jury of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture / Mies Award 2015. Together with his studio CZA he has designed and realized several projects, among which the ex-Junghans factory site in Venice, the ex-Alfa Romeo-Portello Nord area and of the Corte Verde in Milano, the Keski Pasila master plan in Helsinki, the Car Museum and the Lavazza HQ in Turin, the Salewa HQ in Bozen.

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Curated by Vincenzo Pavan

The natural environment as the fusion of two worlds – geological and biological – can be explained and interpreted as an enclosed space, a room open to the sky above. Just like Hortus conclusus, that embodied in a microcosm of symbols the desire of the Mediaeval world for a deep bond with nature and the supernatural, the Lithic Garden can now be a place where the interplay between geo and bio materials can generate new ideas for the human habitat, in a desired and sought-after relationship based on sustainability, balance and harmony with nature.
This is the goal of Lithic Garden exhibition entrusted to the creativity of designers of international calibre in collaboration with companies in the stone sector having a focus on experiments with innovative technologies in the processing of materials.
The stone gardens wind along a paved path offering horizontal and vertical surfaces, seats and sculptural elements, vegetable and water inserts, giving life to a design that finds in the participating companies ideal partners for experimenting with new generation technologies in transformation of stone materials.