2026.02.11
UniFor hosts La città degli oggetti: Aldo Rossi e Francesco Somaini on the occasion of Milano MuseoCity 2026, an installation curated by Studio Klass with Fondazione Francesco Somaini Scultore.
UniFor hosts La città degli oggetti: Aldo Rossi e Francesco Somaini on the occasion of Milano MuseoCity 2026, an installation curated by Studio Klass with Fondazione Francesco Somaini Scultore.
Installed in the central space of Spazio UniFor, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the exhibition unfolds as a sequence of four rooms conceived by Studio Klass as small museological architectures. Through light, display elements, proportions and colour, the exhibition design constructs an intimate and layered dialogue between the iconic furnishings designed by Aldo Rossi for UniFor and a selection of sculptures by Francesco Somaini from the 1970s.
Cartesio, Consiglio, Parigi and Museo are furnishings, or architectural objects, that condense personal and archetypal memories while evoking imaginary urban landscapes, in which bookcases take on the appearance of large buildings with regular, modular façades.
In dialogue with these objects, Francesco Somaini’s archi-sculptures introduce a sculptural counterpoint. Somaini’s reflections on the city, developed through his engagement with the built environment, find a natural resonance alongside Rossi’s projects, expanding the dialogue between memory, matter and the city. For the sculptor, New York becomes a space in which to explore the relationship between art, architecture and urban scale.
Aligned with the structural grid of the building and, by extension, with the urban fabric, the four rooms function as intimate “chamber theatres”. Each space hosts a pairing of sculpture and object and introduces a distinct chromatic reference, a recurring theme in Aldo Rossi’s work.
From this encounter emerges a landscape in which the real city overlaps with the imaginary one: an analogue city, shaped by collective memory, set in contrast with acritical reinterpretation of the modern city. As described by Studio Klass, the exhibition design offers an intimate, close-range reading of the two authors’ visions of the city, tracing a unified path through art, design and architecture.
Within the framework of MuseoCity’s In Vetrina project, the installation transforms Spazio UniFor into a place of encounter between languages and generations, reaffirming UniFor’s role as a cultural interlocutor and custodian of a design legacy deeply rooted in the history of Milan.
Installation: Studio Klass
Artwork courtesy of Archivio Somaini
Ph: Alessandro Saletta – DSL_Studio
Francesco Somaini, Antropoammonite II. Grossa, 1975, courtesy Fondazione Somaini Scultore
Francesco Somaini, Antropoammonite I, 1975, courtesy Fondazione Somaini Scultore
Francesco Somaini, Carnificazione di un’architettura: martirio [I], 1975, courtesy Fondazione Somaini Scultore
Francesco Somaini, Colosso di New York II, 1976, courtesy Fondazione Somaini Scultore
