MI/ARCH 40 CONSTRUCTIONS

MI/ARCH, the International Festival of Architecture promoted by Politecnico di Milano, every year hosts a series of conferences, meetings and public events.

Its fourth edition started on 12th October and will explore until 15th October 2016 the architecture-engineering nexus through the particular perspective of construction processes: a series of emblematic stories concerning the construction of simple structures within the contemporary space. The aim is to explore the forms through which Architecture and Engineering techniques intersect or overlap, sometimes colliding other times cooperating fruitfully.

Architects and engineers, co-protagonist of the same construction story, talked about some of their projects that have been realized – buildings, landscapes, infrastructures, tools – highlighting the internal tensions experienced between Architecture techniques and Engineering branches.

During the four days of MI/ARCH we heard the voices of some of the leaders of international architecture: Solano Benítez, BIG, Grimshaw Architects, Grüntuch Ernst Architekten, Francis Kéré, Greg Lynn, Keichii Matsuda, Kazuyo Sejima, Patrik Schumacher (Zaha Hadid Architects), Ábalos-Sentkiewicz Arquitectos, Benedetta Tagliabue with Julio Martinez Calzon and Francesco Iorio, Alejandro Zaera-Polo and many many others.

Noteworthy was the speech of Kazuyo Sejima (in the jury of the arcVision Prize 2013-2015) titled “Ecublens (SUI). Rolex Learning Center”, and the roundtable “Shanghai (CHN) and Milano. Expo and experiments with structures” by Benedetta Tagliabue (in the jury of the arcVision Prize 2013-2016) with Julio Martinez Calzon (engineer MC2) and Francesco Iorio (SIO Studio Iorio).