A few days ago we featured, in progress, the WHATAMI project, winner of the 2011 Young Architect Program at the MAXXI. We are excited to announce that we have just received material from the finished project.

Architect: stARTT / Simone Capra, Claudio Castaldo, Francesco Colangeli, Andrea Valentini
Location: Rome, Italy
Project Year: 2011
Client: MAXXI Foundation and MOMA
Project Area: 600 sqm
Photographs: Courtesy of stARTT

This pavilion will be open to public from June 23rd to October 16th, housing some events you can check in MAXXI foundation’s website.

WHATAMI is based on the manufacturing of an artificial archipelago-hill, generating smaller green areas in the garden and potentially outside the museum. WHATAMI is the corruption of “What am I”, the industrial declination of the first puzzle invented in the XVIII century for fun-learning by John Spilsbury. It could be dismounted along the geographic boundaries; a tribute to the maps of Alighiero Boetti, which is dedicated to the square of the MAXXI.

The hill works as a garden, injecting “green” into the concrete plateau of the museum’s outdoor space, allowing it to serve as a stage and/or parterre for concerts, other events, and as a space to rest and look at the museum itself. The artificial landscape will be punctuated by large “flowers” providing light, shadow and sound.

The materials proposed for the installation involve a two-fold recycling process; naturale elements will come back to their original sites, the high-tech objects will be replaced in one of the abandoned places of the city needing for a rehabilitation.