UNStudio's Motion Matters exhibition at the MAXXI Museum in Rome

After two successful showings, the third edition of UNStudio's Motion Matters exhibition opened at the MAXXI Museum in Rome on Dec. 6. As an exploration of movement, space, and perspective, the site-specific installation has visitors interact with and experience 10 rescaled representations of UNStudio's architectural designs.

The concept of Motion Matters was recently nominated in the International Space Design Award in Shenzhen, China for the Exhibitions category.

Have a look at some installation photos below.

Project description:

"UNStudio’s installation brings to a close the ‘Nature’ cycle in which MAXXI has been experimenting with a different approach to monographic exhibitions [...] In the Motion Matters installation the object exhibited is not in a display case, or merely an object to be looked at, but instead interacts with the visitor and requires their active participation."

"For many years UNStudio has been investigating the potential of the temporary installation as an experimental testing ground for manifold architectural concerns and it is these investigations that form the basis of the exhibition ‘Motion Matters’."

"The effects of situation, light, colour, and material on viewer perception are tested in this spatial installation of shifting perspectives. Within a trajectory of transitional spaces, optical illusions and trompe l’oeil effects are brought to contemporary structures, generating an experience that negotiates the ideal and the relational."

The exhibition presents ten of UNStudio’s milestone projects. At an almost 1:1 scale the visitor can, as it were, step into the projects on display. These include: the Burnham Pavilion (Millenium Park, Chicago, USA), the Ponte Parodi Harbour development (Genoa – Italy), the Theatre Agora (Lelystad, The Netherlands), the Galleria Centercity (Cheonan, Korea), Ardmore Residence (Singapore), the MUMUTH Music Theatre (Graz, Austria), the Holiday Home, (ICA, Philadelphia, USA), the Education Executive Agency & Tax Offices (Groningen, The Netherlands), the Haus am Weinberg (Stuttgart, Germany), and the Mercedes-Benz Museum (Stuttgart, Germany)."

"Ben van Berkel: 'When we talk of ‘motion’ within architecture we not only refer to buildings and their potential effects, but also to shifts, or twists in the whole, integrated practice of the profession; we talk of the mobile forces which engender change and where the future of architecture may lie. ‘Motion’ therefore also encapsulates the past, the present and the possible future of the profession.'"

"In addition to the primary focus on these key projects, a more detailed view is generated by means of five thematic threads which bind the projects together along a three-dimensional ribbon which meanders through the exhibition space.

"These threads consist of numerous small images which afford the reading of the various relationships between the exhibited projects within a larger context of inspiration, debate and realisation processes."

Project details:
Exhibition Motion Matters, MAXXI Rome, Italy 2013

Client: MAXXI Rome
Location: MAXXI Rome, Gallery 2a
Program: Exhibition curated by Alessandro D’Onofrio
Status: Realized
Credits: UNStudio
Exhibition Design Team: Ben van Berkel with Christian Veddeler, Veronica Baraldi, Soungmin Yu, Jeffrey Johnson, Zhongyuan Dai
Graphic Design: UNStudio with Bloemendaal & Dekkers
Lighting advisor: Zumtobel

Photos © Cesare Querci, courtesy of UNStudio

To read more UNStudio articles on Bustler, click here.

Click the thumbnails below to see diagrams and process renderings.