Cino Zucchi: the Archimbuto and iron-architecture.

Cino Zucchi curator of Italian Pavillion “Innesti/Grafting” explains the concepts of the entrance portal Archimbuto (Archi-funnel) and talks about iron-architecture.

This year, the portal designed by Zucchi offered De Castelli not only an exceptional exhibition venue, behind Sansovino’s seventeenth-century Gaggiandre in the Arsenale and not far from the extraordinary nineteenth-century metal hydraulic crane that was recently restored by MIBACT, but also a further stimulus to pursue its experimentations into the wide range of expressive possibilities offered by metal, innovating the hand-made production processes that have always been the distinguishing characteristic of the company founded in Cornuda by Albino Celato.
This company, which has cultivated a family tradition that can boast three generations of metalworkers, has chosen to depart from the current models of metalworking to develop an absolutely contemporary perception, which at the scale of architecture and design refines both the most advanced industrial frontiers in this field and the crafting skills typical of the Venetian piedmont area, developing innovative finishes and production processes to serve their collaboration with famous Italian and international designers.
The large curved portal of the Italian Pavilion will act as a ‘visual amplifier’ to funnel the visitors into the exhibition curated by Zucchi, which under the title ‘Innesti_Grafting’ will explore the repercussions of modernity in Italy, the theme suggested to the National Pavilions by the director of the 2014 Biennale Rem Koolhaas.
Anchored to a cement platform, consisting in 163 panels for a total height of 10 meters and weighing 6 tons, the portal thus is also an explicit materialization of the title of the exhibition: ‘grafting’ contemporary creativity onto the ancient and beautiful spaces of the Arsenale, it is also a ‘link’ between inside and outside, the public dimension of the visitor itineraries and the more sheltered and reflexive enjoyment of the exhibition.