One hundred years of highways at MAXXI in Rome: a journey through Italy on the move

In Rome , MAXXI opens Italia in movimento. Highways and the Future, an exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the construction of Italy’s first highway. Curated by Pippo Ciorra and Angela Parente in collaboration with Autostrade per l’Italia, the exhibition opens to the public from December 6, 2024 to February 2, 2025, inviting visitors to discover how highways have influenced the country’s landscape, society, and collective imagination.

The Italian highway is more than just an infrastructure: it is a central element in the country’s narrative, capable of uniting territories, histories and generations. The exhibition offers a journey from the heroic impulses of the 20th century and postwar reconstruction to the eco-sustainable scenarios of the future, with a focus on the role of highways as a symbol of modernity.

From the fascination of the eighteenth/nineteenth-century Grand Tour to the spread of mass tourism, highways have transformed the Italian dream of millions of travelers into a reality accessible to all. Literature, cinema and television have helped consolidate the image of a country traversable thanks to a network that weaves together culture, architecture and technological progress.

“Highways,” said President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella in a message at the opening of the exhibition, “have accompanied our development. They have represented a great accelerator of modernity and contributed to making the right to mobility effective. The centenary anniversary of the first stretch of Italian highway, the Autostrada dei Laghi, is an auspicious occasion to reflect on the generating capacity of large infrastructures and the multiplier effect of networks. The exhibition hosted at MAXXI constitutes an itinerary that invites us to grasp the value of choices at the time of the Republic. Highways fostered the effective growth of the country, of its economy. They contributed to unity, shortening distances. They rescued territories from isolation. They connoted the era of the automobile civilization. Reviewing the images of how we were, and how much the intervening transformations have changed the scenarios and their very perception, while giving awareness of the path we have traveled together, invites us to look to the future. Increasingly, highway infrastructure will need to feature advanced technologies to aid driving, raise user safety standards, and contribute to environmental rebalancing. Innovation is a necessity to keep up with the times. Major infrastructures, such as highways, are now being called to the test of their function, the test of their obsolescence and sustainability. To confirm their ability to meet tomorrow.”

A journey through images and archives

The exhibition is divided into four thematic areas designed to guide visitors through the milestones of the birth and development of the Italian highway network. From the first stretch of highway to the detailed mapping of the entire national territory, the exhibit offers an immersion in the landscape surrounding the main arterial roads. This visual journey is made possible thanks to panoramic photographs taken during helicopter flyovers specially commissioned for the event.

The journey also pushes into the future, exploring in an innovative and evocative way the concept of tomorrow’s highway. This is done through a project that blends painting and graphic novels, giving a creative and visionary approach. The layout reflects on the relationship between exhibition content and mode of presentation, seeking to amplify the narrative of the exhibition and bring it closer to the experience of a road trip.

Gallery 3 is distinguished by a progressively growing exhibition trend, articulated in an itinerary of sharp contrasts: open, bright and spacious spaces alternate with more collected, dark and intimate ones. This dynamic dialogues directly with the architectural peculiarities of the gallery, exploiting elements inspired by the highway landscape as exhibition tools.

Upon entering the museum, the first room is dedicated to the history of the highway network. Visitors are greeted by two emblematic models: the original model of the A1 Milan-Naples project, dating back to 1964, the year of its inauguration, and the model of the Aglio viaduct, a symbol of the Autosole for its engineering complexity.

The second environment explores the theme of travel, highlighting how the highway represents not only a link between regions and cities, but also an autonomous cultural and aesthetic experience, made up of spaces and structures that are often carefully designed and feature prestigious signatures.

An additional section is devoted toauteur architecture, emphasizing the role of the highway as a place that hosts works by great masters. From Giovanni Michelucci to Jean Nouvel, via Santiago Calatrava, the itinerary highlights how the highway has often been the focus of attention of famous architects.

On the last terrace, 74 images taken by Dutch photographer Iwan Baan, who captured from above, flying over theentire network managed by the ASPI Group and its relationship with the territory, find space. Finally, the glazed arm of the gallery, facing the forecourt, turns to the future, exploring new technologies and visions thanks to 10 illustrations created by Emiliano Ponzi and innovative research conducted by Renzo Piano’s studio (RPBW). An important space is dedicated to the vision of the future, where technology and sustainability play a crucial role. Renzo Piano Building Workshop’s green proposals and Emiliano Ponzi’s dreamlike visions outline a future where highways are not only efficient but also environmentally friendly.

Statements

“With this exhibition, produced in collaboration with Autostrade per l’Italia, MAXXI is celebrating a century of stories and connections: highways are not just infrastructure, but bridges between cities, cultures and people,” emphasizes Emanuela Bruni, MAXXI Foundation’s regent advisor. “For us, it is an extraordinary opportunity to interweave the narrative of the past with our mission to explore the contemporary and chart new paths to the future.”

“The exhibition dedicated to the history of the Italian freeway network highlights how it is not only a complex infrastructure, but also a work that has made a decisive contribution to the growth of our country,” says Elisabetta Oliveri, president of Autostrade per l’Italia. “Italian highways, whose significant role for Italian society has also been highlighted by famous films, represent a thread through which Italy’s economic development and social changes can be narrated. Essential yesterday as today, highways will continue to be indispensable in the future, with a necessary evolution towards sustainability. Telling the past of Italian highways means, therefore, reflecting on the future as well, recognizing their crucial role in the country’s path of continued growth.”

“Where there is a highway, there are people’s lives and work. The idea for this exhibition was born precisely with the intention of reminding us how valuable infrastructure is to our country,” says Roberto Tomasi, CEO of Autostrade per l’Italia. “Highways have fostered the economic development of territories, accompanying social growth and giving freedom of movement to goods and citizens. The route designed by this exhibition speaks to us of the grandeur of Italian genius in designing and building great works, tall bridges and long tunnels to connect an orographically complex and perhaps unique territory. Finally, from this path through the history of infrastructure, emerges a glimpse of an increasingly digital and sustainable future for mobility, a future that, as Autostrade per l’Italia Group, we are committed to building every day, designing and implementing interventions for an increasingly efficient, modern and interconnected network.”

“Infrastructures,” points out Lorenza Baroncelli, director of MAXXI Contemporary Architecture and Design, “are the object of collective mobilization, of an unparalleled effort of ingenuity aimed at conceiving and realizing goods and systems that elevate the quality of life of an entire society. Just think of the role the construction of the A1 played in the revitalization of post-war Italy or imagine the potential for network development made possible by the technological advances we are witnessing today. Major works have been and will be the highest form of democratization of peoples.”

"Forlong-distance drivers, the highway represents a network that the more it grows in extension, the better: it reaches more destinations, increases their range, shortens their time," explains Pippo Ciorra, MAXXI Architettura senior curator and curator of the exhibition. “For those who use it instead for shorter, daily trips, it must above all improve, be safer, connected, offer new possibilities, graft itself well into cities and landscapes, and guarantee efficient services. The exhibition tells precisely this evolution from infrastructure in perpetual growth anxiety to an organism in need of maintenance, improvements, evolved services, energy and environmental awareness, ’intermodality’ with other means of transportation.”

One hundred years of highways at MAXXI in Rome: a journey through Italy on the move

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