#USI25 - Project and Prophecy. The Future according to Architects

From Thursday May 13, 2021 until Sunday January 16, 2022 will be on display, in the Gallery on the first floor of the Teatro dell'architettura Mendrisio, the exhibition “Project and Prophecy. The Future according to Architects”, promoted as part of the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the Università della Svizzera italiana.

The title of the exhibition 'Project and Prophecy. The Future according to Architects', intends to stress that in the architectural project the diagnosis of the present and the prognosis of the future rest on the same twofold register that guided ancient prophetic discourse. In this respect, architecture is perhaps the art that, more than any other, is capable of expressing how in the modern world the ancient prophetic gift has moved from religious to worldly predictions, passing on its procedures to artistic ideas and practices.

The professors and teachers of the Academy of Architecture - the members of the Council of Professors of the Academy, the leading figures of the foundation of the school, the guest architects of the present academic year and the 10 young teaching architects who supervise the ateliers of the first year of the Bachelor programme in Architecture - propose their reflections through brief comments accompanying the selection of images of a single work, which they consider particularly revealing of their idea of the future.

«The architect is the prototype of everything that works in ways contrary to nature. Instead of ensuring that today is simply the result of yesterday, he ensures that today is the result of what he designs for tomorrow.»

Albert Jacquard

Biologist, former docent and visiting lecturer of the Academy of Architecture USI

«As an activity that reforms and transforms our physical universes, architectural design is an art of great seduction, because it involves perhaps the most precious human cognitive faculty: the construction of the future space.»

Mario Botta

Architect, founder, former director and professor of the Academy of Architecture USI