Biennale svizzera del territorio
October 5, 2024
Project Leaders: Maria Clara Castioni, Roberto Zancan
Villa Saroli’s park, Lugano
Night alters the city's appearance and rhythm, unlocking new realms of imagination. It reveals urban spaces that, when empty and silent, unveil their unexpected potential. Lugano doesn't have many cultural spaces, but it does have many parking lots. These lots fill up in the morning and empty out in the evening. When the offices and shops close, the downtown parking areas transform into free, open spaces, inviting us to dream of a different future for the city and its inhabitants.
Notti Future proposes to bring these spaces to life after sunset, transforming them into places of urban resilience. By connecting a constellation of parking lots, the project creates a multi-stage itinerary. Through a series of performative interventions, the public is invited to rediscover and rethink the role of parking lots in the contemporary city.
Proposed by Maria Clara Castioni and Roberto Zancan for the Interior Architecture department at HEAD – Genève, the project was selected for the 2024 Biennale Svizzera del Territorio. Organized by the Istituto Internazionale di Architettura, the event took place in Lugano from October 4 to 6. Participation in the Biennale included five Interior Architecture students as part of the Scènes de Nuit research project, offering a valuable opportunity to further explore and experiment with nocturnal urban spaces.
The Notti Future itinerary featured different stages around Villa Saroli’s park, the headquarters of the Istituto Internazionale di Architettura, which served as both the starting and ending points of the walking tour. Through minimal choreography, the project highlighted the stage potential of empty downtown parking lots, transforming them into non-institutional cultural spaces. By charting a route through the heart of the city, Notti Future guided the audience across a dozen parking lots, brought to life by the performative interventions of an actor (Jean-Daniel Piguet), a dancer (Alina Arshi), and several extras, including students and anonymous, spontaneous passersby.
Over the course of an hour and a half, the mysterious, cinematic characters of Notti Future evoked reflection on the poetic and theatrical value of parking lots through their words, dances, and presence. The journey revealed these spaces as narrative interludes within the city, blurring the line between reality and fiction. These performances included the reading of a poetic text, a dance solo, an acoustic music piece, the projection of a silent video, and other short plays, all directly connected to the chosen locations. Ultimately, the aim was to understand and define the legal framework within which it would be possible to transform empty public spaces, such as parking lots, into nocturnal agoras for a new, unexpected collectivity.
Project: Department of Interior Architecture, HEAD – Genève
Head of Department: Javier Fernández Contreras
Scientific Deputy: Valentina de Luigi
Project Leaders: Maria Clara Castioni, Roberto Zancan
Students: Aline Blanc, Toyine Humair, Stéphanie Hemidi, Carolina Rodrigues, Nina Wallimann
Performers: Jean-Daniel Piguet, Alina Arshi
Images: Maria Clara Castioni
Film: Enea Zucchetti
