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The exhibition Palazzo Treccani – Italian Culture for all, set up at the Hantang Culture in Shanghai, is the first stop on the celebratory journey of the Treccani Centenary, inaugurated with the Treccani100 exhibition – curated by Treccani and designed by Dotdotdot, opened on February 21 in Rome, in the presence of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella.
Curated by the President of Treccani Massimo Bray and by Francesco D’Arelli, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Shanghai with art direction and multimedia design by Dotdotdot, the exhibition offers a new vision of Treccani as a laboratory of ideas in continuous evolution and presents itself to the visitor as a journey inside a palace of the Knowledge, a dynamic place where Italian culture comes to life through images, words and new forms of narration.
The exhibition - 20 videos arranged in 13 rooms for a total of 700 square meters of exhibition space - was built starting from the six key words identified by the curators - heritage, space, handmade, stories, imagination, taste - that welcome the visitor from the entrance and act as a narrative compass to explore a visual and sound universe.
By offering suggestive sequences of images, animations and videos, but also installations, objects and works of art, visitors find themselves immersed in worlds that span time and space, embracing art, design, landscape care, craftsmanship, techniques and technologies, all enriched by soundscapes.
The exhibition therefore becomes an immersive narrative that invites the public to trace new connections between knowledge and cultures, a sensorial experience that is not only contemplative, but an act of participatory interpretation and collective construction of meanings and imaginaries.
Through an accessible language and a multidisciplinary approach, Palazzo Treccani therefore presents itself as an ambassador of a dynamic, innovative and globally open Italy, redefining the role of Treccani as a contemporary cultural platform capable of speaking to international audiences as well as a protector, animator and disseminator of its values, its contents, its research ideas, and the characters who made it great.
The facade overlooking the Pudong district presents the six guiding words heritage, space, handmade, stories, imagination, taste and has been covered with a layout that recalls the T of the Treccani logo and the loggia of the Treccani building in Rome.
At the entrance, the visitor is welcomed by a curatorial text and a colophon. At the back of the room, a hypnotic video celebrates Italian Beauty, assembling architectural and landscape elements that have inspired the country's culture over the centuries. Next to the entrance, the Res Manent room, Verba Volant emphasizes the evocative power of images over words, through installations of encyclopedias on podiums and pages that transform into immersive scenography. Here, the six key words that guide the entire exhibition emerge.
Inside the Palace transports the visitor to the heart of Palazzo Treccani in Rome, revealing its majestic architecture and cultural function. Opposite, two walls celebrate the great Italian masters with a facsimile of the Divine Comedy and a drawing by Michelangelo, symbols of the extraordinary Italian artistic heritage.
The Italian Fashion Room is divided into two sections. The first presents the valuable volumes produced by Treccani, with the new book "La moda italiana" at its center, produced in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute and the Hantang center. A video reveals the craftsmanship behind these author editions. The second section offers a scenographic installation inspired by the volume, with large strips of paper that evoke roller printing.
The Studiolo, a Wunderkammer dedicated to the Treccani wonders, collects reproductions of precious texts, works of art by Fulvio Bianconi and Loris Cecchini, and artisanal objects such as the special edition of "La Grande Enciclopedia" edited by Armani or the chessboard by Michele De Lucchi.
The Italian Culture Gallery transforms the Treccani Encyclopedia into an immersive experience, selecting archive images through a machine learning system that transforms them into a dynamic and sensorial narration.
The Classical World section guides the visitor through Pompeii and other UNESCO sites, through reproductions of books and animated frescoes. Middle Ages Illuminated offers a digital journey into the Divine Comedy through the miniatures of a medieval code. Renaissance celebrates Michelangelo and Raphael with reproductions and immersive projections.
The exhibition closes with Contemporaneity, a multimedia installation that brings together six protagonists of Italian culture: Rita Levi Montalcini, Emilio Isgrò, Mimmo Paladino, Samantha Cristoforetti, Alessandro Mendini and Massimo Bray. Their words intertwine in stories that exalt multidisciplinarity and the value of shared knowledge, inspiring new connections between past and future.
