In 1970 Rem Koolhaas went to Florence to meet the Superstudio group and talk with them about their works. At the time Koolhaas was studying at the AA School of Architecture in London and, thanks to him, Superstudio were invited the following year to lecture there. It is therefore very apt that one of the projects at the current 14th Venice International Architecture Exhibition, directed by Koolhaas, is dedicated to this avant-garde architectural practice.
Founded in 1966 in Florence, Superstudio comprised Adolfo Natalini, Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, Gian Piero Frassinelli, Roberto and Alessandro Magris, and Alessando Poli.
The group was founded for the purpose of theoretical research into planning, but their first experiments and projects also included avant-garde pieces of design and furniture inspired by Pop Art that looked a bit like physical materialisations of the animations in The Beatles' Yellow Submarine film.
As the years, passed their work became more abstract and metaphysical and the neo-avant-garde group came up with concepts such as the Continuous Monument, the SuperSurface and the Twelve Imaginary Cities.
These projects marked a transition of the group from physical to non-physical and metaphysical architecture and have assumed new meanings and relevance in our digital age, being rediscovered and appreciated by many contemporary architects, artists and fashion designers as well (we will discover more about this connection with fashion in further posts).
Located in the Arsenale "Superstudio. The Secret Life of the Continuous Monument" consists in a video and an installation originally presented in 1978 at the Venice Biennale by the architectural group. Entitled "The Wife of Lot", the project consisted in five salt monuments - a pyramid, an amphitheatre, a cathedral, the Palace of Versailles, and Le Corbusier's Pavillon of the Esprit Nouveau.
A drop of water continously erodes the structures one after the other, revealing something hidden inside: a pyramidal structure made of metal wire, a residential settlement, an egg shell, Marie Antoinette's brioche, and a brass plate with the following inscription: "the only architecture will be our lives".
After the dissolution of the last monument the only vision left to be achieved is indeed the coincidence between architecture and life as the realisation that "Architecture exists in time as salt exists in water".
There is also a sort of further meaning to the installation: salt precipitates at the bottom of a basin that is part of the main structure; inside the basin there is a brass plate engraved with the words "Superstudio, Florence/Venice. May/June 1978" that reminds visitors that those who wish to build look around themselves and forward, and, by doing so, they leave behind the architects who turn into statues of salt, a very apt reference also to this year's biennale in which Koolhaas left behind the figure of the architect to focus on architecture.
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