Yona Friedman's Creative Process Unveiled in Milan Exhibition

The exhibition 'Yona Friedman. Sculpting the void' at Galleria Francesca Minini in Milan reconstructs the Parisian studio of the late architect Yona Friedman (Budapest, 1923 – Paris, 2020), highlighting his social research and visual thinking. The main room features slideshows of photocopied drawings with simple, primitive lines exploring fluidity, human-animal relationships, and nomadic movements from the Greco-Roman era. A large visual alphabet on the gallery floor serves as another focal point, reflecting Friedman's preference for image-based reasoning in an increasingly visual culture. The installation was coordinated by his close collaborator Jean-Baptiste Decavèle, who used long-lasting paints to demonstrate how community passage constantly modifies a space. In the second room, models of modular living units made from recycled materials sourced from the areas they are built for are displayed. The gallery's glass window, executed using colored plastic bags, becomes an artwork, with light passing through to reflect on human adaptation compromised by contamination and uncontrolled overproduction. The exhibition concludes in the office with a series of recycled unicorns titled 'Les manifestation des Licornes (l’Argent)', symbolizing perfect cohesion between animal and human realms and conveying warnings for a better future: less production, more cohesion.