The money

by Marina Spreafico with Pierluigi Salvadeo and various authors

PASSIONS AND QUESTIONS

I have been working with the architect Pierluigi Salvadeo for some time. We share a number of passions and questions. Our predominant passion is for teaching. Students, whether of architecture or theater, constitute for us a treasure, a resource and a love.

Another passion is the one for artistic adventure. For us architecture and theater are joined in a sort of strange marriage.

A SPACE FOR THEATER

It is hard to define what space is needed for the theater of today, as contemporary drama has neither form nor rules nor agreed conventions. Perhaps a modern disjointed space, with a certain “industrial” flavor… Perhaps a space that does not impose physical constraints… A polycentric space… In order both to test this intuition, and to meet the wishes of the Polytechnic itself, which wants to make the city aware of its Spazio Patio, a special architectural-theatrical project entitled MONEY has been conceived and realized.

MONEY

How to put together 41 final-year students of architecture, 28 of theater and the Spazio Patio? We opted for some coordinates that seemed to us the best. The students would be divided into work groups. Each group of architects would design its own scenic space, choosing one portion of the Spazio Patio in which to realize it. The actors would have to devise and put on an equal number of short sketches in the spaces they designed. The Spazio Patio would have to be used in its entirety. The materials at the disposal of the architecture students would be simple, cheap and malleable: elastic bands, pasteboard and nonwoven fabric. The short theatrical sketches must last no longer than 10 minutes and be original creations. One general theme would serve as the inspiration for all, money. In the end the Spazio Patio was populated by 15 sets-theatrical stations and the audience guided on a route that linked them in sequence.

Over 500 people attended the performance.

Promoting bodies
Milan Polytechnic and the Department of Architecture and Society of Milan Polytechnic, course of set design, Prof. Pierluigi Salvadeo, with the collaboration of Davide Fabio Colaci, Paola Ostellino and Gianluca Zecca

Teatro Arsenale, Scuola di Teatro Arsenale

The Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lombardia contributed to the initiative