GROWING BY NUMBERS

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DESCRIPTION

"Drawing By Numbers is the name of a game: joining with a pencil line some numbered points to disclose a hidden image. Turning drawing in growing the group of Architettura Attuale has conceived a playful imaginative project where the main protagonists are the towers of Milano, the historical ones, those already built and those under construction. On top of each of them, from the Pirelli tower to the one by Cesar Pelli in the Garibaldi-Repubblica, passing through the Galfa tower and the new Palazzo Lombardia, the architects have placed digits from 0 to 9, nine meters high and made up of a total of 1650 Capix lights, a product based on RGB LED technology. The big numbers which light up in red at sunset, have become familiar in the metropolitan skyline, transforming the shapes of the towers into enigmatic appearances.

Milano is at a crucial stage, under a boost of acceleration that will change its face: downtown the Porta Nuova projects within the masterplan Garibaldi-Repubblica, Isola and Varesine, CityLife in the former fairground and, in the outskirts, Nuovo Portello, the Maciachini Center, not forgetting all the actions concerning the Expo 2015, from the exhibition site to all the infrastructures. Choices, outcomes and methods in use are highly topical issues.
But the designers of Architettura Attuale wanted to linger on the communicative and symbolic meaning that the growth (and rebirth) of the towers has for the inhabitants of Milano, according to the principle that reality provides data to imagination, becoming material for a project that interweaves design, communication and performance. The mutating city is made evident from the sequence of numbers that during the night seem to hover in the dark, establishing a wordless dialogue with those who observe them.

'Quoting Ruedi Baur, we believe in the visual accident which occurs when you least expect it,' says Paolo Cesaretti, 'The city is a place of surprises. How many people have seen the numbers? How many have talked about them? The silence of the project is opposed to the pollution from over-information on behalf of the meaning of the city, its transformation and growth. We wonder what reaction the people of Milano have in front of the numbers. We are interested in the empathic aspect of the project'. A Facebook page and a blog keep an open dialogue with the citizens."

Client: Zumtobel Italia
Designers: Paolo Cesaretti, Antonella Dedini, Guendalina Di Lorenzo
Assistant Designer: Cristina Coronilla
Promoter: Comune di Milano
Photos: Simone Simone, Milano
Video: Micropunta, Milano