Infrastructure between new languages and cultural devices in the series of talks organised by Aspi at Casa Italia at the Triennale. On show, images by architectural photographer Iwan Baan
Integration, dialogue and new languages. The stories of motorways, in their close relationship with landscape and infrastructure, together with the construction of consensus and the need for innovation, were at the heart of the talk “Italia in movimento. In viaggio lungo le autostrade”, organised by Autostrade per l’Italia (Aspi) at Casa Italia for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, hosted at the Triennale di Milano.
The panel brought together Pippo Ciorra, architect, lecturer and senior curator at MAXXI in Rome; Andrea Gritti, architect and professor at the Politecnico di Milano; and photographer Iwan Baan, also the author of the exhibition on view until 22 February.
How can we talk about infrastructure to non-specialist audiences? “Photography is a tool for knowledge, not only for documentation,” said Baan. “I began 20 years ago, fascinated by the East and its architecture. And not only by design, but also by construction sites. Over time, I found myself working with several architects, documenting and bearing witness to the combination of the architectural element, the natural element and people. The fascination of architecture lies not only in its forms, but also in the way it becomes part of landscapes. That is also why I began photographing it from above: to show how these were not isolated elements within a context, but part of it.”
Dubai, Miami, New York: all these projects interact with and influence one another. “In Houston, I photographed the city’s widespread infrastructure, including its oil infrastructure: a single body together with the spaces of work, school and everyday life,” he explained. “Every place has its own specific character. In Italy, the road network is immense and immersed in history and landscape.”
From above, distance makes it possible to understand impact and the whole. Motorways “slip into” places, cross boundaries and connect. They are embedded in the soul of territories.
This photographic investigation is presented in the exhibition at the Triennale, “Italia in movimento. Autostrade e futuro“. Motorways are seen not as simple invisible infrastructures of everyday life, but as complex works that shape development and generate imagination.
From Liguria to Lake Iseo, moving through Veneto, sliding down the Adriatic side, following the bridges of the Apennines and then further south, as far as Irpinia. The aerial images, taken over several flights, present the motorway as both a visual and material axis around which old and new places gather.
“I belong to a generation,” said Pippo Ciorra, “for whom the motorway was a space for transmitting knowledge, one of the main generators of space. In the 1980s, the motorway then became our city, our home. Around it, wonderful architectures emerged, where we developed the creative force of movement, crossing and displacement.”
From motorways as public space to motorways as contemporary language. Andrea Gritti, co-author with Gianni Biondillo and Francesco Scarponi, with texts by Nazione Indiana, of “Piccolo vocabolario autostradale ad uso dei contemporanei”, gives voice back to the motorway public and meaning back to words: from airbag to viaduct, passing through drowsiness, wrong-way driving, accident and toll. It is often an ambiguous language: “green wave”, “counter-exodus”, “column”.
Gritti described the background noise as essential: the life of the motorway itself, made up of conversations with passengers, messages, traffic bulletins and signage. “Language remains a fundamental element of the motorway world,” Gritti stated. “In 1964, after a speech by Aldo Moro, Pier Paolo Pasolini raised the question of language, at a time when Italian society was moving from a rural and dialect-speaking reality to an industrial and mass society. Political speeches, including those of the leader of the Christian Democrats, reflected, according to Pasolini, the use of technical and bureaucratic language aimed at the prevalence of communication over expression. The motorway represents this great social change, embodying the Italy of industrialisation and commuting.”
Places change, the ways of reaching them change, cities are transformed and languages shift. The motorway remains at the centre of the story. The motorway as a positive and innovative agent in the design of the territory. But also as an artistic work, tracing a line that takes shape every time we travel along it, like the experience recounted in Autonauts of the Cosmoroute by Julio Cortázar and his partner Carol Dunlop: an epic and timeless journey from Paris to Marseille.
And will motorways ever become archaeological remains, like the Roman consular roads or, today, the tunnels of Trento? “The motorway devours itself; nothing in that image can be considered permanent. Only the route remains — that, yes, forever,” Gritti concluded.
