ResART is a project for Art, that arises from the belief that art can become today a significant driving force for urban requalification. This is based on the consideration of the existing connection between art and architecture and of the bounders (if any) between them.

My center for art is located in Piazza Mancini, area object of many proposals aiming to find a solution to the issues of urban and environmental blight that today characterize it. Piazza Mancini is not just an  urbanistic important area, but it is also remarkable for what is surrounding it. Indeed it is located within the hallmarks of the new contemporary architecture culture, and it presents itself as a new place for the collectivity. The quite close square of the “Maxxi” Museum By Zaha Hadid, tries to support the need of socialization of the neighborhood, offering at least for 12 hours a collective space, despite the fact that its principal function is to provide an exhibition space. Thus the area is ready to accept a new artistic community, part of a neighborhood in which art is already spread, in contact with wealthy people, potential consumers of artistic products.

Then I suggest an architectural space in which architecture and art are merged, a place where artists can live, work, exhibit the product of their talent. It will be a building that comprizes the three major vital functions for art workers: the possibility to live  in a challenging and aesthetically stimulating environment, to think and produce artworks in a suitable location, and to share them with the community through exhibitions. The interaction and the common interest of  the consumers guarantees the project success.

The position of ResART in the center of square, is not casual, but accurately chosen for urbanistic and functional reasons. Indeed the projects wants to recreate the ideal and visual continuation of the axle, that from the obelisk of Mussolini’s forum, through the Sphere Fountain,  and the “piazzale dell’Impero”, leads to the Duca D’Aosta Bridge, and that already from the 1931 plans should have reached Via Flaminia, so dividing the actual Piazza Mancini. An urban installation was necessary to finalize the plan. The functional idea behind  is, instead, related to the idea of gallery. ResArt is a place for everyone, even for those who are not interested in arts: it joins two key points of the city and is itself a passage, that can exist only in the middle of the square.
In the surroundings “Maxxi” promotes the artistic culture, the one already universally recognized that finds its place in museums. ResArt, instead, is looking towards “the new”, that softly enters the market and that does not have an adequate space. The major subject is the artist still unknown by the public, who needs to promote himself and his works and necessitates spaces to  live and express himself. ResArt Residences are temporary, and reflect the artist’s demand, a search without a real destination, driven only by the creative drift, that after a certain period of time need to move towards different places. Such urban pilgrims need a physically stable place that can host them during their exploration activity and instability. So permanent architecture accommodates the transitoriness : the mobile artistic community and the people passing through the place. ResArt residences are for everybody, they are essential, modular, and cheap. ResArt offers the possibility to work inside the house and outside, in private workshop or in interactive factories, to promote themselves within the community but also with the occasional and potential consumers. In this way the artist becomes an urban pioneer and a forerunner of a new economy: his creations attract the attention of the curious people and improve the area.

I do believe that the creative class can become the protagonist of a cultural and environmental renaissance and this, in my opinion, should be strongly encouraged. I think that we have to promote creativity and help the development of the cultural and personal connections. We must invest on qualified spaces: art and culture, green and open areas, to create cities full of emotions.

Until 1900 art differentiated from architecture since it was considered as something devoted to excite the admiration. Instead nowadays it comes out from the exhibition centers to involve the spectator visually and emotionally. Art is moving towards an interactive function that prompt the artist to abandon museums to work in transitory places, outside in squares and parks. Art gets closer and call for spaces. That means architecture: occupy space,  fill it with style and deliberately leave empty areas. Artists represent now not only the urban environmental background, but the target of the project. They try to get along with people wishes and needs, create relationships between public operators, clients, institutions and inhabitants.
Some projects have the power to “build up the city” thanks to the will of reconstructing the complexity of relations and opportunities, lost at the present time or never existed. This implies the mandatory effort of reconstructing  links between the neighborhoods and the city, even through micro, precise or symbolic initiatives.  

ResArt is moving in this direction: it is a kaleidoscope of ideas. It is at the same time art and architecture, to provide an interesting mean of aggregation in which all the different aspects of the artist vocation can find place: a new house for people and their ideas, open towards the neighborhoods and the city…
ResArt, a key for ideas.