Elizabeth Diller's MAXXI exhibition and the legacy of Ricardo Scofidio

Elizabeth Diller delivered a lecture at the MAXXI museum in Rome on February 20, 2025, as part of the exhibition "Architettura Instabile" curated by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Days later, her partner and co-founder Ricardo Scofidio passed away. Scofidio taught at Cooper Union for over forty years and co-founded Diller + Scofidio in 1981, later joined by Charles Renfro (2004) and Benjamin Gilmartin (2015). The firm's projects include the High Line, Lincoln Center campus transformation, and MoMA expansion. Current projects include V&A East Storehouse, opening late May 2025, and the Applied Arts Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. The exhibition features moving curtains that follow ceiling beams, creating temporary theaters. The firm's first monograph "Architecture, Not Architecture" (Phaidon) is structured as two conjoined volumes exploring themes like vision, water, and "blushing." Diller described "restless architecture" as constantly adapting to a changing world, and architecture as a performative art form. The show includes archival materials from MAXXI, such as Maurizio Sacripanti's proposal for the Italian Pavilion at Expo 70 Osaka.