Vincenzo Castella's 'Architetture oblique' at Triennale Milano

Triennale Milano presents 'Architetture oblique,' a focused exhibition on Vincenzo Castella's dual research themes: cities and botanical gardens. Curated by Lorenza Bravetta, the show occupies a limited space but is meticulously arranged. Visitors are greeted by wall-mounted video materials that engulf the gaze in movement, beneath which are small city images and contact proofs. At the entrance, a series of contact prints from the 1980s documents the construction of the Stadio di San Siro, an early work that reveals Castella's method of urban investigation, comparable to Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological reading of Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire. Large-format city photographs depict Rouen, Istanbul, and especially Milan, where an aerial perspective reveals urban changes with the building as unit of measure. A 2012 installation explores the area between Stazione Centrale and Via Melchiorre Gioia, characterized by intersecting straight lines of streets with building and skyscraper contours. One display case contains a target, a recurring motif Castella describes as a sort of operational metaphor. Close-up details of botanical gardens are presented in large-format images, creating visual disorientation relative to the urban photographs. Nature engulfs the viewer, fostering a sense of participation. The continuous parallelism between city and nature declares what often goes unseen in reality.