Made in Italy will be recognized not for its beauty and finish but for its capacity in getting connected and #social

1. BY CHIARA ALPAGO-NOVELLO. ILLUSTRATIONS BY BORJA BONAQUE, INFOGRAPHS BY LAMOSCA, PHOTO-PORTRAITS BY ANDREW ZBIHLYJ
It’s written ITALIA it’s read AILAT I.
A mirror on a future that’s possible. In the Wired Hall at Venice’s
Architecture Biennale. How will our life be? What will be feed
on? Which medicines shall we inhale? Where will we live? Find
out the answers at a day in the life of Italy....in 2050
14 VISIONARIES, 14 ARCHITECTS, 1 SHARED FUTURE
P R E S E N T S

2. Sometimes you write a book that’s like a duel: when
theshootingisover,youseewho’sleftstanding,and
ifit’snotyou,you’velost.WhenIwrote“TheBarba-
rians,” twenty years ago, I looked around and they
were all still there, on their feet. It had the look of
a defeat, but I wasn’t convinced. So I sat down and
waited. The idea was to watch them fall one by one,
belatedly but definitely dead. It would just take pa-
tience. Sometimes they’d die very elegantly. Some
crumpled suddenly to the ground. I wouldn’t take it
as a victory; it’s likely that they went down on their
own, not thanks to my bullets: but certainly my aim
wasn’t bad, I feel I can say, in partial consolation.
The last to fall, aftertotteringforalongtime,veryslow-
ly and with great dignity, filled me with emotion, because
I knew him well. I believe that in the past I even worked
for him (my pistols loaded with words, as always), or
her: profundity. The concept of profundity, the practice
of profundity, the passion for profundity. Maybe some-
one remembers them—they were animals, still fit, at the
time of “The Barbarians.” They were
nourished by the stubborn conviction
that the meaning of things was situat-
ed in a secret cell, safe from the easiest
judgments, preserved in the freezer of
a remote obscurity, accessible only to
patience,hard work,determinedinves-
tigation. Things were trees—you had
to plumb their roots. You went back in
time,youexcavatedsignificance,letthe
evidencesettle.Eveninthecaseoffeel-
ings you aspired to the profound; you
wanted beauty itself to be profound—
in books, gestures, traumas, memories,
and at times even looks. It was a jour-
ney, and its goal was called profundity.
The reward was meaning, which was
also called ultimate meaning, and it
granted us the sonority of a phrase to
which, years ago, I think I sacrificed a
sea of time and light: the ultimate and
profound meaning of things.
I don’t know when, exactly, but at a
certain point this way of seeing things
began to seem unsuitable. Not false:
unsuitable. The fact is that the mean-
ing conveyed by profundity too often
turned out to be useless, and some-
times even damaging. Thus, in a sort
of timid prelude, we came to question whether there real-
ly existed an “ultimate and profound meaning of things.”
Provisionally, we took up softer definitions that seemed to
mirror the reality of the facts better. For example, an idea
of meaning as a becoming that could never be fixed in a
definitionseemedtousagoodcompromise.ButtodayIbe-
lieve one can say that we simply weren’t bold enough, and
that the mistake wasn’t so much to believe in an ultimate
meaning as to confine it to profundity. What we sought ex-
isted, but it wasn’t where we thought.
It wasn’t there for a disconcerting reason that the change
that occurred in the past thirty years threw in our faces,
issuing one of its most fascinating and painful verdicts:
profundity doesn’t exist, it’s an optical illusion. It was
the childish translation into spatial and moral terms of
a legitimate desire: to place our most precious posses-
sion (meaning) in a stable place, safe from contingencies,
accessible only to privileged gazes, attainable only by a
privileged path. That’s how treasures originate. But in
hiding it we had created an El Dorado of the spirit—pro-
fundity—which in reality seems never to have existed, and
Believe it or not, I
wrote this article in
July, 2026, that is,
sixteen years from
now. Let’s say I’ve
made some progress.
Take it that way.
Here’s the article.
which in the long term will be recalled as one of the useful
lies that human beings tell each other. Rather shocking,
no way around it.
In fact, one of the traumas inflicted by the change is, pre-
cisely, that we find ourselves living in a world that lacks a
dimension we were used to, that of profundity. I remem-
ber that in the early days the sharpest minds interpreted
this curious condition as a symptom of decadence: they
noted, not wrongly, the sudden disappearance of a good
half of the world they knew—above all, that which tru-
ly counted, which contained the treasure. Here was the
origin of the instinctive tendency to interpret events in
apocalyptic terms: the invasion of a barbarian horde that,
not having available the concept of profundity, was rear-
ranging the world in the only dimension it was capable
of, superficiality. And the result was a disastrous loss of
meaning,ofbeauty,ofsignificance—oflife.Itwasn’tastu-
pid way of reading things, but we know now with some
precisionthatitwasshort-sighted:ittooktheelimination
of profundity for the elimination of meaning. In reality
what was happening, amid infinite difficulties and uncer-
tainties, was that, with profundity eliminated, meaning
was shifting, coming to inhabit the surface of facts and
things. It wasn’t disappearing, it was moving. The rein-
vention of the surface as a place of meaning is one of the
tasks we have completed: a job of spiritual craftsmanship
that will pass into history.
On paper, the risks were enormous, but it should be re-
called that the surface is the place of stupidity only for
those who believe in profundity as the place of mean-
ing. Once the barbarians (that is, us) unmasked this
belief, the automatic association of surface with lack of
meaning became a mechanical reflex betraying a certain
soft-headedness. Where many saw a simple surrender to
superficiality, many others sensed a different scenario:
the treasure of meaning, which had been confined to a se-
cret, private crypt, was now distributed over the surface
of the world, where the possibility of reconstructing it no
longer corresponded to an ascetic descent into the under-
ground, controlled by an élite priesthood, but depended
on a collective skill in recording and assembling tiles of
the real. It doesn’t sound so bad. Above all, it seems more
suitable to our abilities and our desires. For people who
are incapable of staying still and concentrating but are,
on the other hand, very quick to move and to collect frag-
ments, the open field of the surface seems the ideal place
to play the game of life: why should we play, and lose, in
those underground burrows that they insist on teaching
us about in school?
So we don’t seem to have given up on a noble, lofty mean-
ing in things: but we have begun to pursue it using a
different technique, that is, by moving over the surface
of the world with a speed and a talent that human be-
ings have never known. We have begun to create figures
of meaning by arranging points of the real in constella-
tions through which we pass with unheard-of agility and
lightness. The image of the world that the media reflect,
the geography of ideals that politics offers, the idea of
knowledgethatthedigitalworldputsatourdisposalhave
no hint of profundity: they are collections of subtle, even
fragile, facts that we organize into shapes that have a cer-
tainpower.Weusethemtounderstandtheworld.Welose
the capacity for concentration, we can’t do one thing at
a time, we always choose speed at the expense of close
attention: the meeting of these defects generates a tech-
nique for perception of the real that systematically looks
forthesimultaneityandsuperpositionofstimuli:it’swhat
we call having experience. In the case of books, of mu-
sic, of what we call beautiful when we look at or listen
to it, we are increasingly aware of the ability to articu-
late the emotion of the world simply by illuminating it,
without bringing it into the light: it’s the aesthetic that
we want to cultivate, the aesthetic on account of which
any boundary between high art and low art is disappear-
ing: for there is no longer a low and a high, but only light
and darkness, sight and blindness. We travel swiftly and
seldom stop, we listen to fragments and never the whole,
we write on telephones, we don’t marry forever, we watch
movies without going to the cinema, we listen to readings
on the Internet instead of reading books, we stand in slow
lines for fast food, and all this activity without roots and
without weight still produces a life that must seem to us
extremely sane and beautiful if, unlike anyone before us
alessandrobariccoThenewcomerofWiredSeptemberissueisaTurin,52yearoldgraduateinphilosophy,founderofthe
schoolHolden,afilmdirector,musiccritic...Bytheway,heisoneofthemostimportantItalianwriters.Havewealreadysaidit?
002
T H E B A R B A R I A N S
B Y Alessandro Baricco
SPECIAL ISSUE
VENICE BIENNIAL
FUTURE
ITALY2050

3. Ihadonlyjustmettheman,hehadintroducedhim-
selfsayinghewastocuratetheItaliaPavilionatthe
upcoming Venice Architecture Biennale. He went
ontosaythathewantedtotellofadifferentsortof
Italy,anItalywithnofearsforthefuture,becausehe
tries to build a better future every day. He also said
he wanted to do it with us. With Wired. I remem-
berhimsaying“whyshouldn’twebeafraid?”which
struck me and left me nonplussed for a moment or
two. He wasn’t really expecting me to answer his
question about why we shouldn’t be afraid of the
future,rightthereandthenwashe,orwasthatwhy
he was waiting there? Or could the real reason he
was actually there be because Wired attempts to
provide the answer to that particular question on
a monthly basis through the stories we tell? I went
for the second option. And said Yes.
There are stories than never end. They go round
in huge circles and then turn back on themselves. The sto-
ry of the Barbarians, for example. The new Barbarians. The
Internetgeneration.In2006,AlessandroBariccostartedto
writeaboutthem,inaseriesforLaRepubblica,anamazing
uncharted journey that found its own way, page after page,
takinginwine,footballandmusicalprodigiesasitwent.He
eventalkedaboutpeoplewho«breatheintheworldthrough
Google’s lungs». This phrase made a deeper impression on
me than any other: “breathing in the
world through Google’s lungs”, so-
mething that many people must have
reallythoughtbarbaric.Ididn’tunder-
stand it very well at the time.
That journey was turned into a bo-
ok: three years later I bought it at an
airport and read it at a single sitting.
That time it seemed prophetic, or vi-
sionary. It was as if Baricco had been
thefirsttoclearlyenvisionthefactthat
anewworldwasabouttosweepaway
the old, the past that was clinging on
byitsfingertips.Gone,vanished.Albeit
slowly,butinexorably,youonlyneeded
tolookaroundyoutowitnesstherevo-
lution. It was all clear, all but the end:
the book ends with the Barbarians at
the gates to the Great Wall, there has
always been a Great Wall in the hi-
story of man, but what happens once
theyfinallygettotheotherside?Itwas
obvious,though,intheendtheBarba-
rianswinandgetthrough,that’swhat
always happens with new cultures.
And now to the Biennale. The
challengetotellofadifferentItaly.Lu-
caMolinarimustbeslightlyafraidofthepresent,Ithought,
if he has decided to move our future on so far ahead, into
2050, into a realm in which prediction and science fiction
meld.Visionswereneeded.Whoshouldbeentrustedtoco-
meupwiththem?Wemadeaninformedchoice:peopleaged
around 40. Largely because they belong to the Internet ge-
nerationandthecultureoftheNetisingrainedinthem.And
alsobecausetheydonotsimplyimaginethefuture,theyare
building it: here and now. We chose fourteen exceptional
yet absolutely normal Italians. Many of them you will pro-
bably meet for the first time right here: you won’t regret it.
I lined them up in my mind and said to myself: right, here
they are. The Barbarians.
«Alessando will you tell me how the story en-
ds?». «What story?». «The story about the Barbarians, in
yourbook,goon–whathappenstotheBarbariansoncethey
finally take over the city?». Or Italy. A good question. You
will have to imagine a world steered by the culture of the
Web,butnotdominatedbycomputers,quitethereverse.It
willbeaworldinwhichknowledge,collaboration,commu-
nication and participation are shared. This is the culture of
the Web. The Barbarians’ values. A good reply.
Iletmyselfimaginethisworldforasecond,andthensaid
to myself: «That’s why we shouldn’t be afraid.»
«Why shouldn’t
we be afraid?».
Luca Molinari
was sitting
in front of me,
in the editorial
offices
of Wired.
O U R B A R B A R I A N S
B Y Riccardo Luna
in the history of the human race, we are so urgently and
so passionately preoccupied with saving the planet, culti-
vating peace, preserving monuments, retaining memory,
prolonging life, protecting the weak, and defending lardo
di Colonnata. In times that we like to imagine as civilized,
they burned libraries and witches, they used the Parthe-
non as a warehouse for explosives, they crushed lives like
flies in the folly of war, and swept away entire peoples to
make a little space for themselves. Often they were per-
sons who worshipped profundity.
The surface is all, and on it is written the meaning.
Rather: on it we are capable of tracing a meaning. And
since we have developed this ability, it’s almost embar-
rassing when we suffer the inevitable jolts of the myth of
profundity: beyond every reasonable measure we endure
ideologies, fundamentalisms, art that’s too lofty and seri-
ous,anyshamelesspronouncementofcertainty.Probably
we’re wrong, but in our minds these things are welded to
profundity by indisputable reasons and priesthoods, and
though we now know them to be based on nothing, we are
stilloffended—perhapsfrightened.Thuseverysimulation
of profundity today sounds like kitsch, and, all in all, any
concession to nostalgia subtly cheap. Profundity seems
to have become discarded goods for old people, the least
wise, the poorest.
Twenty years ago I would have been afraid to write sen-
tences like this. It was perfectly clear to me that we were
playing with fire. I knew that the risks were enormous
and that in such a change we were betting an immense
patrimony. I wrote “The Barbarians,” but meanwhile I
knew that the unmasking of profundity could lead to the
rule of the insignificant. And I knew that the reinvention
of superficiality often has the undesired effect of legit-
imatizing, through misunderstanding, pure stupidity,
or the ridiculous simulation of a profound thought. But
in the end what happened was the fruit of our choices,
of the talent and speed of our intelligence. The change
produced behaviors, crystallized watchwords, redistrib-
uted privileges: now I know that in all that the promise
of meaning survived—the promise that, in its way, the
myth of profundity handed down. Surely those who were
quickest to understand and manage the change include
many who aren’t aware of that promise, and aren’t ca-
pable of imagining it or interested in handing it down.
From them we are receiving a brilliant world with no fu-
ture. But, as always happens, the culture of the promise
was also stubborn and talented, and capable of extorting
from the indifference of the many hope, trust, ambition. I
don’t believe it’s foolish optimism to record the fact that
today, in 2026, such a culture exists, seems more than
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solid, and often guards the command post of the change.
From these barbarians we are receiving a layout of the
world suitable for the eyes we have, a mental design ap-
propriate for our brains, and a plot of hope equal to our
hearts, so to speak. They move in flocks, guided by a revo-
lutionaryinstinctforcollectiveandimpersonalcreations,
and so they remind me of the nameless multitude of me-
dieval scribes: in their strange way, they are copying the
grand library in the language that is ours. It’s a delicate
job, and bound to accumulate mistakes. But it’s the only
way we know to bequeath to our heirs, to those who will
come, not only the past but also a future.
Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein
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4. INTERACTION DESIGNER
WIRELESS
DEVICE
SERVER
B
y 2050 I imagine the “Internet of Objects” will have become a reality.
A wider and deeper internet than Web 2.0, on a planetary scale, capa-
ble of taking on GAIA, the Earth, and enabling both humans and their
“machines”tobecomepartofsocialnetworks.ThisthirdInternetwave
willNOTsimplyrelatetotheFuture,itisinfactrootedinthepast:ithadalready
made its entrance into people’s homes by 2010, speeding up the systematic
reinventionofobjects.Rethinkingeverydayobjects,muchaswasthecasewith
theadventofplastic,andreshapingthemtofitthefuturewehopetolive:itis
this opportunity that Italy – more than so many other systems and countries
– is cut out to grasp. A strategic opportunity,
notjusttoavoiddisappearingaltogether,but
alsotopavethewayforanewRenaissance,of
which we ourselves will be the protagonists.
Objectsindailyuseserveasourarchaeological
historyandourmirror.Sowhyandhowshould
wereinventthemnow?Everyobjectshouldtell
its own story. The story of its past (what it is
madeof,whereitwasproduced,howitisused)
and its future (how to differentiate it, how to
take it apart, how to recycle it). It should be
activelyself-aware(beingsentientoratleast
havingsomeideaofthetimeandplaceforits
own use), be connected and social, in other
wordsitshouldbelongtoushumans,“living”
aspartofourdigitalandsocialnetwork.Tech-
nology remains a fundamental pillar of this
thirdInternetwave,anditwilltakemultidis-
ciplinaryteamsworkingtogethertocre-
atesensibleproducts.¶Thishasbeenthe
caseforyearsindesignschools.Itisnow
timetotaketheseapproachesintocom-
paniesandusethemtopowerthecountry.
Designshouldbecomejustasimportant
as craftsmanship, which is what has set
our top designer brands apart thus far.
The artisan sector and software engi-
neering need to work hand in hand. It
is not beyond the realms of possibility
thatoverthenext40yearsMadeInItaly
will encompass a technological dimen-
sion, evolving from style to interaction.
Thus,tomorrow,asocialobjectcouldbe
associated with Italy not merely for the
sake of its appearance but particularly
for its level of “sociality”. In a nation of
inventors (as well as engineers, inter-
action designers, and creators of every
sortandkind)timeisalwaysontheside
ofthefuture.
Made in Italy will be recognized not for its
beauty and finish but for its capacity in
getting connected and #social
The US President has said that
man will land on Mars within
30 years, adding: «I expect to
be around to see it». The crux
of his prediction, which we can
affirm with certainty today,
was not Mars, but the optimism
in the words “I expect to be
around”. Almost 50 years after
Kennedy’s speech announcing
the moon landing, a man doing
the same job has made a similar
announcement, but with a
corollary that is more important
than the announcement itself.
A corollary that has less to do
with Barack Obama and more to
do with us all. The point is that
the real certainty does not lie in
man being on Mars, but in our
likelihood of witnessing it. We
have a lengthy history behind
us and we have come realise
that is impossible to imagine
the future, what technological
equipment we will have, how
we will live: however, what we
can say with some certainty in
2010 is that witnessing change
will be as important as the
change itself, and that this is the
only thing that will not change:
therefore, as President Obama
says, we will be around to witness
future events, to celebrate discoveries,
to mull over our disasters together.
Like the mythical men chained in
Plato’s cave, like us today, people in
2050 will look at each other, will size
up the outside world, sometimes they
will venture outside; they will have
partial, distorted visions that diverge
from other people’s, about themselves
or their (as yet unimaginable)
technologies; they will lose touch with
the outside world, and may even lose
all perception of what outside means.
As they look, they will wonder whether
they can believe what they are seeing
or trust the medium through which
they are seeing it, and they will even
be unsure of the evidence that they
are presented or regaled with; we can
only hope that, as they move forward,
they will come to understand a little
more about themselves and about the
importance of actually looking.
# Testimonny of
changee will bbe aas
y
importaant as channgggeeeeeeee
g
itself – tthe sole issuuuuueeeeeee
pp g
that willl survive
changee
IN 2050, ELECTRICITY FROM WASTE AND RENEWABLE SOURCES WILL SUPPLY AS MUCH AS 50% OF PRIMARY ENERGY DEMAND IN 2020, IN ALL OECD MEMBER STATES, RECYCLING OF SUSTAINABLE MATERIAL AND PACKAGING WILL BE COMPULSORY BY LAW (SOURCE: VISION 2050)
GIVE THINGS
A SOUL
B Y Leandro Agrò
I’LL BE THERE TO
TELL THE STORY
B Y Susanna Nicchiarelli
21
DIRECTOR
700
SPECIAL ISSUE
V ENICE BIENNIAL
FUTURE
ITALY2050
KEYWORD {GEO TAG} WHAT HAPPENS TO THE GARBAGE? LET’S FOLLOW IT STEP BY STEP
SOURCE: MIT SENSEABLE CITY LAB
{b}
{c}
{d}
{e2
}
{e1
}
The garbage TRANSMITS SIGNALS to an
antenna, which calculates its position
through a triangulation.
The data are collected by
MOBILE PHONE PROVIDERS
and sent to the municipal
company’s SERVER
The MUNICIPAL COMPANY processes
the data and generates real-time
viewing that are then sent back
to the user who can access them
through different applications.
{a}
A WIRELESS
DEVICE is
introduced
into the
garbage.
INTERNET, VIA
A DEDICATED
WEBSITE
IN AREAS OPEN
TO PUBLIC
THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT WAS DONE
AT THE MIT SENSEABLE CITY LAB IN
CAMBRIDGE, US. THE PROJECT, WHICH
COULD REVOLUTIONIZE THE WASTE
DISPOSAL SYSTEM OF OUR CITIES,
PROVIDES FOR GARBAGE MAPPING
THAT THE USER CAN CONSULT FROM
HOME OR DEDICATED AREAS.
DATASTREAM

5. SCIENTIST
Speaking clothes, walls turned
to giant integrated screens tunedto giant, integrated screens tuned
p g ,g ,
to the wooorld: all foor usssssss tttooooooo
g , gg , g
####cccooooommmmmuuunniiccaaattteeeeee
PAPER IS 150 MICRON THICK (A HAIR’S BREADTH=100) AND ABLE TO SOAK UP PETROL 20 TIMES ITS WEIGHT
800
ANOTHER EYE AND
EAR IN THE WALL
B Y Francesco Stellacci3
O
ver the last couple of weeks I have been thinking
about how Italy (and the rest of the world) might
look in 2050. The first thing I did was to compare
thecountrytoday(2010)withwhatitwas40years
ago(1970).Therehavebeenhugechanges,albeittodiffer-
ent extents according to sector. Transport, for example:
planesflyfaster,butnotmuch,carsaremoreefficientand
differentlyshaped,butnotmuch.Medicineisbasicallythe
same. Houses are more integrated, but again not much
haschanged.Intheearly70swetalkedaboutalternative
energy, just as we do now. In some sectors, on the other
hand, we have moved light years ahead, particularly in
regard to communication. Homes did not have comput-
ers and mobile phones, the Internet and Facebook were
quite simply unimaginable. This means that modernisa-
tionprogressesbyleapsandboundsinsomefields,while
inothersitstaysstill.Carswillbethesame,buttheywill
be powered differently: not by petrol, but probably by
hydrogen or ethanol. There will be great changes in the
communicationsandmedicalfields,wherearevolutionwill
finallytakeplace.Therelationshipbetweenmanandthe
environmentwillalsoundergoaseachange.Communica-
tionIbelievethatevolutionisstillonlyhalfwaythere.We
will employ an increasing number of objects with which
to speak to each other. Clothes have always been com-
munication tools; they reveal what our mood is and who
we are. In Italy in 2050, they will do this electronically.
Theywillcommunicateexternallywhateverwemaywish
them to communicate. For example someone may want
to go and have a glass of beer with somebody else, or be
a Pink Floyd fan or be wondering whether or not to go to
themuseum.Thiswillallhappenwithoutanybodybeing
aware of it, although they will have the ability to know
whethersomeoneclosebyfeelsthesame.Thewallsofour
roomswillbehugescreens,acrossbetweenvideophones,
SkypeandFacebook,perfectlyintegratedwiththerestof
the world, with which we will thus be kept constantly in
touch. Language will be less and less of a barrier: we will
have simultaneous clothes interpreters. Everything will
serveas agreatcommunicationtool,withnodistinction
betweenpersonalandguidedcommunication(televisualor
journalistic,forexample).MedicineThisiswhereIexpect
theretobearevolution.Wewillcarryhealthdeviceswith
usatalltimes.Thiswillchangethewayweeatandhowwe
relatetoourbodies,becausewewillknowourselvesmuch
better.Doctorswillringusandtellustogotohospitalfor
furtherchecks,orevenjusttopointoutthatwehavenot
been eating healthily recently. Drugs will be tailored to
eachindividualperson.EnvironmentTherewillbefarmore
greenspacesandmuchmorecleanenergy.Houseswillbe
lit by photovoltaic light, shed from the walls. There will
be more bicycles, possibly hybrids, more green scooters
andcarswillrunonhydrogen.Everythingwillbecharged
wirelessly,bemoreopenandvirtual,andyetreal.
SPECIALISSUE
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THE MASTERPIECE IN THE ART OF WODKA
consumaWodkaExquisiteresponsabilmente
Pernod Ricard Italia
THE TRUE SPIRIT OF ARCHITECTURE DRESSED BY FRANK GEHRY
CELEBRATES THE OPENING OF PADIGLIONE ITALIA
AT ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE 2010
WYBOROWA EXQUISITE MEETS YOU IN VENICE!
Stellacci
created an ultra
hydro repellent
nanowire paper
able to absorb
petroleum.
With Carlo
Ratti, a
colleague at
the Boston MIT,
he has
designed
robots coated
with this paper
that could
reclaim Bp type
spills.
KEYWORD {NANOWIRES} THE OIL ABSORBERS
BURNER
UNFLATABLE RING
A 4000 UNIT FLEET ABSORBES
3 MILIONS BARRELS*
*some is used to travel, 10% can be recycled
PETROLEUM SPILLS AT SEA
COLLECTION
ON SPECIAL
SHIPS
FLEET
HYDRO
REPELLENT
PAPER
RECYCLED PETROLEUM
SELF-FEEDING
DATASTREAM

6. I
hope that good, traditional cooking, using local, seasonal
ingredients,withnoenvironmentalfootprint,willstillbe
the norm in 2050. I can visualise a retracing of footsteps
to the past that will help us move forward in leaps and
bounds: we will start again from scratch, with small shops
sellingnicheproducts;wewillbe“sated”,fedupwithhyper-
markets where everything and the opposite of
everythingcanbefound,boredwithtinsandfro-
zenfoods.Eventoday,someofthelargecompa-
niesareputtingtheemphasisonfreshproduce,
the “6 day shelf life” philosophy.
Theoldlocalgroceryshops,wherehalfalitreof
milk or an ounce of ham can be purchased will
make a welcome return. Technology will have
afundamentalroletoplay,becausetheseshops
IN 2050, 70% MORE FOOD WILL BE NEEDED TO FEED 9,1 BILLION PEOPLE (+34%) (SOURCE: FAO)
010
willbecabledandcomputerised,theirproductscertifiedandhygien-
ically sound. The credit crunch may be forcing some to scrimp on
foodstuffs in favour of mobile phones and electronic gadgets, but
this “return to the past” will serve to buck this trend. Conviviality,
always a large part of Italian tradition, will triumph again: Sunday
lunch,bringingpeoplegettogethertotalkandsharetheirnews,will
berevived.25yearsago,whenIfirststartedworkingwithGualtiero
Marchesi,weimaginedthatnutritionin2000wouldconsistsimply
of pills. But here we are in 2010, and I am still cooking traditional
fare. That seems to me to bode well, a good omen for us all.
Going forward by looking
backward: ok to pills, 50 grams
g y gg y
of ham and a litre of milk at the old
p , gp , g
#corner-shop. Cabled and
computerized
GOODBYE FROZEN
AND CANNED FOOD
B Y Davide Oldani4
CHEF
SPECIALISSUE
V
EN
ICE
BIEN
N
IAL
FUTURE
ITALY
2050
Showroom Milano - Via Fiori Chiari, 18 - 20121 Milano - tel. +39 02 80581823 - showroom@dedar.com
Dedar - Via della Resistenza, 3 - 22070 Appiano Gentile - Italia - tel. +39 031 2287511 - info@dedar.com - www.dedar.com
Dubai, +9714 2997196 - London, +44 20 7368 7700 - Madrid, +34 931842467 - Moscow, +7 499 2414202 - Munich, +49 89 5442480 - Paris, +33 1 56811095 - USA, +1 404 3252726
Tessuti Passamanerie Carte
FRUIT
VEGETABLES
POTATOES
BREAD
LEGUMES
PASTA
COOKIES
MILK
YOGURT
OIL
RICE
EGGS
PORK
POULTRY
SWEETS
CHEESE
FISH BEEF
FOOD
ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT
Diet is responsible for
25% of the ecological
footprint of each
and everyone of us.
Those who follow
the typical North
American high protein
diet, introduce daily
in the atmosphere
approximately 5,4
kilos of carbon
dioxide, more than
double of those
who follow the
Mediterranean diet.
KEYWORD {FOOD SUSTAINABILITY} THE “ECO” DIET SCALE
SOURCE:BARILLACENTERFORFOOD&NUTRITION
DATASTREAM

7. Television images will flash
simultaneously across the surfaces
of all the floors in flats. Buildings will
all have become environmentally-
friendly. Technology will reign supreme
in homes and cities, public transport
will be the best way of moving from one
place to another, small, silent trains
will run along the main city roads,
cars will be in a minority, bicycles will
be everywhere. The design of public
transport will be minimalist in the
extreme. Every condominium will
have its own supermarket, located on
the first floor, while the second floor
will house internet points and fitness
centres. Every condominium will
have a psychologist on tap for all the
commonholders. City restaurants will
remain open 24 hours a day. Motorways
will run through see-through glass
tunnels that change colour according
to the temperature, the time of day, the
number of vehicles in transit. Travel
information will be relayed on top of the
glass. Churches will become museums
where people go to read and study.
Believers of all existing religions will
gather to pray in a single
large garden, in the
middle of which there is a
statue of the sun holding
out a hand. Closed circuit
television will operate
in all the focal points
of the city centre and
suburbs. Cinemas will
be a thing of the past;
films will be projected
onto gigantic open-air
screens positioned in
front of homes, enabling
people to watch the films
from their own balconies
using headsets to hear
with and 3D specs
to see with.
Films will play on
throughout the night.
Where once there were
petrol stations there will
now be MP3 suppliers.
I
nmyItaly2050,homeswillbeheatedbyanorganicmatrix
of domestic refuse thanks to differentiated collections,
whicharelargelythenorminallItalianfamilies,notleast
because they have now become law. Wind, geothermal
and photovoltaic power will be the energy sources that,
along with nuclear power (alas) will supply the country’s
energy needs.
On a domestic level, solar heating will be particularly com-
mon,especiallyinsmallhousingclustersandinthecountry,
as will geothermal heating.
All the organic agricultural residue (wastage from grapes,
tomato stalks etc.) will be used as biomass for power pro-
ductionplants.Fossilfuelpoweredcarswillnolongerexist,
butwillhavebeenreplacedbyhydrogen-poweredorelectric
cars (also fitted with solar panels) and trials will be being
carried out on organic fuel vehicles, or rather cars running
on fuel derived from food waste.
New buildings will be environmentally friendly, with solar
panels,thermalinsulationtominimiseenergywastageand
cumulativesystemsthatderivetheirenergyfromfloorsand
theopeningandclosingofdoors(fittedwithspecialsprings
that set off little dynamos).
Bothlargeandsmallcitieswillbecomehugepedestrianisedareas,where
theonlypermittedmodesoftransportwillbeundergroundpublictrans-
port(electricundergroundtrains)orgroundlevelvehiclesonmagnetic
tracks.Therewillbenotrafficandnotrafficlights,mostoftheroadsand
parking lots will have been turned back into green spaces.
Metropolises will see their populations cut by half because most types
of work will be able to be done at home, thanks to increasingly power-
ful and efficient computer networks.
The countryside will be repopulated and families will no longer aspire
to a city centre pad and a big suv, but to a house in the country with its
own kitchen garden.
All the tools required for daily life, made of paper, plastic or metal, will
be produced from recycled materials, thanks to systems for converting
processed materials back into their original state
Drinking water in Italy and in the rest of the world will come from effi-
cientseawaterdesalinationplantsthatwillhavealsoenabledhugedes-
ert and pre-desert areas all over the world to be reclaimed.
PRIMARY ENERGY DEMAND IN ITALY WILL BE REDUCED BY AS MUCH AS 32% IN 2050. RENEWABLE SOURCES WILL MAKE-UP A STAGGERING 61% OF SUPPLY. A WHOOPING 80,000 OF NEW “GREEN” VACANCIES WILL SPROUT UP (SOURCE: GREENPEACE)
A FULL TANK OF MP3
AT THE GAS STATION
B Y Fabri Fibra
A #city wheree
buildings offerr aaa
y
supermarket annnnnddddd
g
a psychologistt,,
p
churches are tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnneeeeeddddddddd
p y gp y ,
to museums anndddddddddd pppppeeeeeettrooooolllll
pumps sell musssic
p
5
ARTISTARAPPER
ENGINEER
#Energy from
renewable sources,
gygy
pedestrian-friendly
,
towns, hydrogen-
p
fuelled public transport,
, y g, y
water for one and all,
p pp p
deserts goodbye
LIFE WITH
NO GAS
B Y Emilia Visconti6
SPECIAL ISSUE
V ENICE BIENNIAL
FUTURE
ITALY2050
SOLAR
PANELS
OFFICES
SOLAR PANELS
HOUSES
MAIN POWER PLANT
GRID’S ELEMENTS
ISOLATED MICRO-GRID
EOLIC PLANT
INDUSTRIAL
FACTORY
HOME-OFFICE
FOSSIL
RESOURCES
RENEWABLE
RESOURCES
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
CURRENT
SCENARIO
SCENARIO E [R] EFFICIENCY
2005
2010
2020
2030
2040
2050
KEYWORD {ENERGY [R]EVOLU TION} MAN SHALL LIVE OF RENEWABLES ALONE: TWO EXAMPLES TO BELIEVE IT
PROCESSORS PERFORM SPECIAL
PROTECTION PLANS IN MICROSECONDS
SENSORS DETECT FLUCTUATIONS AND
STATICS AND CAN NOTIFY TO SHUT OFF
THE GRID
ACTIVATEDIN STANDBY
SUPPLY THE ENERGY PRODUCED DURING OFF
PEAK HOURS CAN BE STORED IN BATTERIES AND
USED LATER ON
GRID TROUBLE
SMART DEVICES CAN SHUT OFF IN CASE OF
FREQUENCY FLUCTUATIONS
COMPSUPTION MANAGEMENT THE USAGE CAN
BE POSPONED TO OFF PEAK HOURS FOR SAVING
PURPOSES
GENERATORS ENERGY PRODUCED BY SMALL
GENERATORS OR PANELS CAN DECREASE THE
ENTIRE GRID DEMAND
SMART GRID TECHNOLOGY
The key elements of the near
future based upon a renewable
energy system can be inserted
in a smart grid consisting of a
network of micro-grids capable
of monitoring and repairing
themselves.
{2}{1}
FOR A VIRTUOUS ITALY
Current Italian consumptions
with the hypothesis of a massive
use of renewable highly efficient
resources, with a CO2 reduction of
70 percent
SOURCE:GREENPEACEENERGY[R]EVOLUTIONREPORT2010
DATASTREAM

8. TUMOUR
SPECIFIC
LYMPHOCYTE
GENERIC
LYMPHOCYTE
TCR
ACTIVATOR
GENE
KILLER
GENE
MANIPULATION
TEAM-WINNING
B Y Ilaria Capua7
IN 2030, FUTUROLOGIST RAY KURZWEIL PREDICTS, BILLIONS OF NANOROBOTS WILL BE FLOWING IN OUR VEINS, 1000TIMES MORE EFFECTIVE THAN THE WHITE BLOOD CORPUSCLES FIGHTING ILLNESSES. MAN WILL LIVE TO TURN 150(INDIAN SCIENTIST PUSHPA MITTRA BHARGAVA)
T
he efforts of the medical and scientific community to
preventneoplasticdiseasebyadvocatinghealthylife-
styles (nutrition) and discouraging dangerous habits
(smoking), will undoubtedly have lowered its inci-
dence. The risk of developing cancer, currently 45 percent
in men and 39 per cent in women, will therefore be lower
but still not wiped out. However, perspectives, worries and
hopeswillcertainlychange.Inmostpatients,cancerswillbe
pickedupatanearly,asymptomaticstage,throughscreening
forvarioustypesofcancer(largelydrivenbyenvironmental
risk factors and individual genetic variants) during a single
session, in centres dedicated to early prevention, designed
withtheemphasisonhealthpreventionratherthanoncuring
disease.Thepopulationwilltakeregularandinformedpart
in prevention programmes, rather as parents take part in
vaccination programmes for their children. Should scree-
ning produce positive results, patients will undergo fast,
non-invasive highly specific second level testing. Often the
tracersusedtoidentifydiseasedcellswillalreadybeloaded
with therapeutic molecules. Treatment will thus frequen-
tly overlap with diagnosis in a new science: theranostics.
There will still be some cancers than are not picked up until
a later stage. These will be treated with chemotherapy and
radiotherapy, surgery and stem cell transplantation, but in
highlysterileenvironments:wewill,forexample,beableto
circulatedrugsmoreeffectively
byexploitingthecharacteristics
ofthevascularsystemoftheneo-
plasticcellsandfreshknowledge
aboutthemicroenvironmentsin
whichtheythrive.Surgerywillbe
minimal and precise: the disea-
sedtissuealonewillberemoved,
withtheaidofsophisticatedsur-
gical instruments and clear-cut
A new science, #theranostics,
will combat cancer by uniting
,
therapy and diagnosis.
yy
Focus will be less on illness
py gpy g
and more on health
PREVENTION IS
BETTER THAN CURE
B Y Chiara Bonini
8
ONCOLOGIST
{1}
{2}
{3}
genetic and functional diagnostic images. Genetic manipu-
lation of the lymphocytes, the cells that direct the immune
system, will be crucial in order to prevent the disease from
recurring by selectively and rapidly pinpointing the neopla-
stic cells. These modified lymphocytes will live for years and
will police the entire body, eradicating any residual cancer
cells in the case of relapse, at a very early stage, even before
the situation has made itself felt. All this will be made possi-
blethankstoincreasinglydetailedknowledgeofthemolecular
make-upoftumours.Allthiswillbemadepossiblebygreater
investment in scientific research!
VIROLOGIST
In 50 years’ time, I expect that infectious
diseases will have been more or less wiped
out thanks to day hospitals, drugs and
vaccines that are currently only available
to a very small part of the world’s population.
Improved global health will also prove
beneficial for Italy: access to health means
less desperation and a less fertile ground
for spawning criminality and terrorism,
lower rates of disease and greater education
opportunities. Better migrant health lessens
the risk of disease transmission,
which in turn means reduced recourse to
Italian health facilities.
The use of “open access” technology has a
crucial part to play in setting up virtual
networks capable of capitalising on existing
knowledge and finding creative solutions to
logistics, distribution and training problems.
I'm a paladin of the importance of information
sharing in the face of virus epidemics. In
2006, my group deposited the genetic imprint
of the first H5N1 virus isolated in Africa with
the GenBank and made it available to the
scientific community: my “daring gesture” led
to international debate on data transparency
and the situation improved greatly. Greater
transparency over the genetic data of flu
viruses enabled the A/H1N1virus to be
decodified a few years later only a matter of
hours after it surfaced and to make the
information available to laboratories all over
the world. But that is not, and should not, be
enough. At the last WHO World Health
Assembly, the Dutch government, backed by
the Italian Ministry of Health, tabled a motion
asking the WHO to take an official stance on
the transparency of genetic data in microbes
that pose a risk to public health. I look ahead to
Italy in 2050 when, thanks to substantial input
Sharing of facts and figures,
for a healthier and better world.
g g ,g
#open access science will give
research and treatmentresearch and treaaattmmeent
p
the upppppeer hhhannnnddddd
DATASTREAM
from our country, the seed of open
access science planted during the
bird flu crisis will have grown into a
flourishing tree, yielding huge
advantages for research and
general health: we will produce anti-
epidemic vaccines and targeted
drugs. We will play a forward-looking
game, and a team game at that.
SPECIAL ISSUE
V ENICE BIENNIAL
FUTURE
ITALY2050
SAFE AND EFFECTIVE TRANSPLANTS
In cases of marrow transplants, a suicidal gene is
introduced to check the “stranger” lymphocyte’s
toxicity: the lymphocyte continues to be able to
recognize the patient’s tumoral cells, but it can
be eliminated by a medicine (that activates the
suicidal gene) if creates any damage.
MORE KILLERS AGAINST TUMOURS
The specific nature of the many existing
lymphocytes is due to the TCR molecule,
different for each and everyone of them. If a
gene is introduced that creates an antitumoral
TCR, even the lymphocytes not specialized
at the origin become activated to fight the
neoplastic cells.
ONE OF THE MOST ADVANCED WEAPON TO FIGHT
TUMOURS, STILL IN AN EXPERIMENTAL STAGE, IS THE
GENE MANIPOLATION OF THE T LYMPHOCYES, THE
IMMUNE SYSTEM “SOLDIERS”, EACH AND EVERYONE
OF THEM IPER SPECIALIZED IN FIGHTING AN ENEMY
(VIRUS, FUNGUS, OTHER INDIVIDUALS’ ANTIGENE…
THE T LYMPHOCYES THAT ATTACK TUMOURS ARE
VERY RARE)
ALERT AND ACTIVE LYMPHOCYTES
Apart from being rare, the antitumoral
lymphocytes often are not enough. Tumours,
in fact, produce molecules able to “put them to
sleep” or kill them. This is why, in such a case,
a gene is introduced that will increase their
possibilities to survive, grow or be active.
KEYWORD
{GENE THERAPY} 3 MOVES TO
CREATE AN ANTITUMOURS ARMY
KEYWORD {SHARING} AND YOU BEAT THE VIRUS
Thanks to
Ilaria Capua’s
“provocation”,
data transparency
on viruses
has entered
a new era.
H5N1
animal
H5N1
human
BIRD FLU HUMAN
flu
Until 12/31/2005 Until July 2010
379
2898
41
367
1609
8359
2875
17603
Virus samples deposited into the GenBank

9. If by 2050 we have failed to tackle the dramatical-
ly emerging environmental, social and symbolic
problems in a radical fashion, architecture will
seem like the superfluous art of a very grand cou-
turier. If architecture has failed to take a different
tack, by 2050 it will simply be seen as an anach-
ronistic practice bound up with distant millennia,
too slow to respond to a fluctuating present, too
rigid to dialogue with the needs of a society in
constant evolution.
The world around usisgoingthroughacompletesea
change, throwing up desires and urgent question marks
that call for responses, experimentation and visions, even
from architecture.
We are no longer able to deal with individualistic, au-
tobiographical, suppositional and cynical architecture,
blinkered to the world around it - a narcissistic sort of ar-
chitecture that continues to devour land and resources
willy nilly, but fails to come up with appropriate solutions
for a new era.
We are seeking imperfect works of architecture, rational,
generous, epic works capable of opening up unexpected
vistas, ones that do not simply pay lip service to a present
that has already slipped into the past.
We imagine an architecture capable of generating works
inspiredbyanewpoliticalandsocialphilosophyofreality,
going against the grain of that pecu-
liar auto-destruct attitude that the
human race seems to be embracing
with such gusto.
Architecture needs to come up with
theoriescapableofwithstandingtime
andwear,butitalsoneedstoaskitself
whatgeneratingshapesandspacesin
a fluctuating and unstable period ac-
tually means.
Wemuststopthinkingofarchitecture
as an ancient, proud form of defence
against the outside world, but rather
as a process that engenders new ex-
perimental forms.
We need to shrug off the paralysing
melancholy of the 20th century and
its modern heroes: we are heirs to
a much lengthier, more sophisti-
cated and complex history, and we
need to revisit the ancient stories
and myths and recognise them as
a rich and fertile heritage that will
help us produce evolved and mature
fragments of the future.
This does not signify a reassuring
declaration of a “return to order” dictated by a period of
profound crisis – quite the reverse, it means opening up a
freshdialoguewithourpast,drawingon itfreelyandwith
awareness,itmeansretrievingforgottenmatricesandus-
ing them to generate new shared histories.
This new millennium should be devoted to patiently and
lovinglyretrievingallthatwehavelost,bybuildingnewar-
chives,notmausoleumsforlonggonememories,butplaces
forliveexperimentation,passionateandunbiasedcreativi-
ty, where heritage, history and desire can come together.
During the 20th century, we embarked upon a systematic
destruction of resources and a ransacking of our heritage
(biologicalandcultural),sowhatcouldarchitecturespark
to help this new century focus on radically putting right
the things we have so crudely despoiled?
We have to change our relationship with Nature, moving
on from the virginity of the new Eden, from the exploita-
tion approach, and learn to treat Nature as a living entity,
one that needs to be explored with care.
What horizons are there for architecture to explore,
though, leaving aside the conventional ‘need for sustain-
ability’ rhetoric?
Just as fast as the great metropolises grow, they are
counterbalanced by a rise in the number of areas of wild,
abandonedandself-sufficientnature. Climatechange,with
the consequent desertification processes and steady ero-
sion of the coastline, will call for a completely different
mindset,asyetunexplored.Weareusedtoviewinghistory
asanever-swellingtide(demographic,economic,well-be-
016
In 2050, a
reasonable
timescale and a
realistic horizon,
we will probably
no longer feel
the need for
architecture.
ing), churning out assets and places.
Howshouldarchitecturereacttoparallelphenomenasuch
asmetropolitanhyper-densificationinsomeplacesandde-
mographic regression in others? What models should be
applied? What visions should be laid before the political
and financial decision-makers?
Architecture needs to come back into the main-
stream of life, building new stories and hospitable spaces
that will become shared parts of people’s histories, places
thatbreathenewlifeintothewayweinhabitourcitiesand
landscape,offeringdifferent,alternativesuggestions,chal-
lenging the traditional modes of colonising space.
Architecture needs to help imagine new collective spaces
in which diversity will be welcomed, differences of opin-
ion will be embraced and transformed into dialogues, and
this diversity will be recognised as elementary genetic
heritage, with a part to play in shaping temporal, toler-
ant, open identities.
But what are the implications for designing communi-
ty, communal spaces in an economic downturn in order
to achieve this? How can architecture contribute to an
evolved idea of welfare that manages to combine quality
of urban space with circumscribed available resources?
Wewillnolongerbeabletocarryonguzzlingland,putting
up more and more pieces of architecture, a basic political
priority will be established in which architecture will be
expected to play its technical and cultural part.
We will not need to build new “modern” objects to live
in our times, but will need to be equipped with the requi-
site skills for reinterpreting the heritage at our disposal,
working from the inside out, making swingeing altera-
tions, densifying and frankly demolishing, freeing up
spaces without feeling that they need to be filled in im-
mediately.
Empty space is increasingly becoming a planning and ex-
perimental resource in a reaction to the horror vacui that
devastated the previous century.
In a future that is almost upon us, in which open-source
provisionofinformation,energyandresourceswillbefree-
ly available in every nook and cranny of the country, the
wayinwhichweinhabitandtransformspacewillundergo
aradicalchange,forcingustocomeupwithnewsettlement
models and ways of sharing public and private places.
The cities and regions that we inhabit will be increasing-
ly seen and used as digestive bodies, living organisms,
metabolisms that are active 24/7, which will change the
geographyofplaces,ourexperiencesandthewayinwhich
we live and share public and private spaces.
Architecture must be spurred on to come up with a novel
form of “gentle radicalism” to bring it back into the world
asacivilart/technique,consciousofitsownroleinsociety
and as a purveyor of generous and destabilising visions.
It would be encouraging to think that architecture will be
equal to the task of building spaces for the fragile human-
ity of this new millennium to inhabit.
This may be the only way in which architecture is likely to
survive into 2050.
N.B
Italia2050isthemostradicalandcomplexsectioninthe
Italia Pavilion. It provides a real challenge that plays with
our perceptions on various levels, in an attempt to trig-
ger unexpected responses that will open up completely
different perspectives in us. In this section, Italy takes on
the guise of a universal laboratory, no longer just a small
countryseekinglocalresponsestolocalissues,butaplace
that is open to experimentation and possible new forms
of dialogue between different strands of knowledge. But
what does deciding to work on future scenarios actual-
ly mean? The word “future” has become so toxic over the
last century as to have become practically unusable. The
idea was not to conjure up science fiction-type scenarios,
orunnecessaryandsuperfluousother-worldlyvisions,but
toextractpotential,evolvedfragmentsofpossiblefutures
from the present that might help us to come up with use-
ful, vital plans for the future.
Italia2050 constitutes what amounts to an almost arti-
ficial space, a temporary one, spurring a selected group of
ideatorsintoaskingthemselveswhatmakingexperiments
and stimulating forms of reflection and knowledge-shar-
ing really means in this day and age.
Inordertobringthisabout,wedecidedtoinvolveWired,
which brought in 14 protagonists, whom we teamed with
14architectswhohaveshownanalmostobsessivecompul-
sion for experimentation over the last few years.
Thescenethatwillgreetvisitorswillbeastrong,organic
andhorizontallandscapewhichtheywillhavetoexploreto
tryanduncoverfragmentsofapossiblefuture.Theground
floor of the exhibit has been left deliberately empty, like a
waiting room. 14 steps point to an equal number of places
inwhichtodelveandbecomeapartofthecreators’exper-
iments. To the sides of the large platform there are two
longflightsofstepsequippedwithramps,leadinguptoan
overview of the proposed fragments of the future. This is
aninadequateandtenuousattempttoproduceastory;the
story of what a day in 2050 in an Italian city might be like.
A story that everyone is invited to be a part of and which
aspirestobecomingadigitalplatformthatwillextendthe
range of the display beyond its physical confines.
Theresultsarestillbeingfinessed:thissectionisawork
inprogressandtherewillbeotheropportunities,oncethe
exhibit is open, to evaluate the results and reflect on pos-
sible future avenues.
We are left with a powerful, yet incomplete challenge,
becausetheonlytoolsarchitecturehasavailabletodayare
flimsy ones, but catalysts such as this act as springboards
for shaping a different future for our world.
SPECIAL ISSUE
V ENICE BIENNIAL
FUTURE
ITALY2050
O U R A R C H I T E C T S
B Y Luca Molinari
I ta l ia Pavillion’s curator

10. AN EMOTIONS NEST
MATERIALS: deal wood.
Zinc bars and screws
MEASUREMENTS:
465x542x790h cm
THE IDEA: a “primitive” space
acting as a reminder that
architecture cannot lose
contact with physicalness,
with man’s primary needs
such as food and emotions.
1 2
MEN AND SEAWEED
MATERIALS: glass,
seaweed and computer
MEASUREMENTS:
240x90x240h cm
THE IDEA: create an interaction
between the human body and
seaweed, the last unexplored
energy resource on the
planet. A colony of virtual
seaweed is kept alive through
visitors’ movements.
LET’S RESCUE THE
RESCUABLE
MATERIALS: 90 life belts
MEASUREMENTS:
480x390x200/250h cm
THE IDEA: the life belt alludes
to the need of a playful child
friendly public space, but
also it refers to a world the
survival of which is first of
all a joint responsibility.
THE HOPE STELE
MATERIALS: Plexiglas,
gold leaf
MEASUREMENTS:
89x89h cm
THE IDEA: the vision of a
future where cancer will no
longer be a fear is assigned
to three “Rosetta steles”.
A testimony to those who
will come after us.
65
THE ROBOT RESCUES
THE SEA
MATERIALS: iron, net, steel,
projectors, nanowires
MEASUREMENTS:
120x300x240h cm
THE IDEA: SeaSwarm, a robot
prototype able to localize
and absorb petroleum spilled
into the sea thanks to a
special nano-fabric cover.
OBSERVATORY ON TOMORROW
MATERIALS: deal wood,
mirrors, Plexiglas, film
MEASUREMENTS:
180x90x450h cm
THE IDEA: the visitor, unseen,
watches fragments of the future
(the other displays). A prism of
mirrors reflects and multiplies
the entire surrounding.
87
UNIVERSE VIS-A-VIS
MATERIALS: wood
MEASUREMENTS:
540x270x425h cm
THE IDEA: a dark space, a
black hole that allows one
to experience the sense
of absolute vacuum where
elementary particles move,
bricks of our Universe.
THE DEMOCRACY SQUARE
MATERIALS: Plexiglas,
LCD screens
MEASUREMENTS:
350x400x80h cm
THE IDEA: in 2050 politics
will prosper only if the
traditional parliament will be
placed side by side to its own
double, the citizens’ network.
The democracy symbol will
become a large square.
GUNDAM VS. CEMENT
MATERIALS: metallic
mesh, cardboard
MEASUREMENTS: 400
diameter, 490h cm
THE IDEA: the real project
theme for the future will
no longer be the growth of
our cities but their souls.
The supergundam swallows
them up and gives birth
to a new synthesis.
LIVING THE TIME
MATERIALS: 40 Venini vases
MEASUREMENTS: 60 cm high
THE IDEA: today’s architecture
designs the shapes of time.
Buildings will be alive 24
hours, providing services at
any time. Each and everyone
will be able to choose the time
to live, to sleep, to work.
WANTED: THE WASTER
MATERIALS: seaweed,
fibers, sensors
MEASUREMENTS:
200x120x240 cm
THE IDEA: a cave makes it
possible to visualize the good
and bad in the world according
to an ecologic print. If it is true
that resources are constantly
more limited, it is also true
that not everyone utilizes
them in the same way.
WE ARE THE MUSIC
MATERIALS: metal,
cables, speakers
MEASUREMENTS:
360x90x220h cm
THE IDEA: a concert hall
where everything becomes a
big instrument. An invitation
to make, to interact, to
question the codes and the
accessibility of knowledge.
MONUMENTS WITH SOUL
MATERIALS: metal,
300 pieces of glass
MEASUREMENTS:
510x350x520h cm
THE IDEA: 2050 monuments
will be sentient architecture-
objects. To dwell, to live, to
watch, to exchange one’s own
substance with that of things.
MORE SOBRIETY
FOR EVERYONE
MATERIALS: Plexiglas
MEASUREMENTS
350x180x75h cm
THE IDEA: the alternative to a
widespread suburb is a compact,
multilevel, pedestrian centre.
Sober, without façades: because
the real quality of life is also
living in a more equal way.
A DAY IN 2050 ITALY
1
2
3 4
5
*THE DRAWING IS A ARTISTIC
INTERPRETATION OF THE
PROJECTS AND THE LAY OUT
FLOWING
COMMUNITIES
SPACES
architecture
MA0
vision
MARZIA LAZZERINI
PLACES OF
TASTE,
WELL-BEING,
PLEASURE
architecture
ATELIER FORTE
vision
DAVIDE
OLDANI
THE BODY
WITHIN
THE CITY
architecture
ITALO
ROTA
vision
CHIARA
BONINI
CLEAN DIFFUSED ENERGY
architecture
MARCO NAVARRA/NOWA
vision
EMILIA VISCONTI
INFINITELY
SMALL
architecture
CARLO RATTI
vision
FRANCESCO
STELLACCI
MEMORY ARCHIVES
architecture
BENIAMINO SERVINO
vision
SUSANNA NICCHIARELLI
MATTER/
ANTIMATTER
architecture
ATTILIO STOCCHI
vision
ACHILLE STOCCHI
THE DIGESTIVE CITY
architecture
ANNA BARBARA
vision
FABRI FIBRA
DEMOCRACY,
MEDIA,
METROPOLIS
architecture
IAN+
vision
TOMMASO
TESSAROLO
NEW EDEN,
NATURE 3.0
architecture
ECOLOGICSTUDIO
vision
ALESSANDRO GALLI
SCRAPPING,
RESTORING THE
WIDESPREAD
SUBURBS
architecture
MARC
vision
NICO VASCELLARI
OPEN SOURCE
LANDSCAPE
architecture
ALESSANDRO
SCANDURRA
vision
ILARIA CAPUA
VISITING LA BIENNALE HOW: tickets cost 20 ¤ (labiennale.org) WHERE: Venice, Arsenale e Giardini WHEN: 29/8 to 21/11 AGENDA: on October 24 Wired's editor and Alessandro Baricco will talk about Barbarians @Italia Pavillion.
ZERO-CUBATURE
ARCHITECTURE
architecture
METROGRAMMA
vision
GIANNI BIONDILLO
CITY OF
OBJECTS
architecture
CHERUBINO
GAMBARDELLA
vision
LEANDRO AGRÒ
3 4
9 10 11 12 13 14
6 8
9
7
10
14
13
12
11
S P ECI A L I S S UE
V E NIC E BIE NNIA L
FUTURE
ITALY2050
PLEASURE
SENSES
ENERGY INVISIBLE
DIFFUSE
OPEN
DEMOCRACY
ZERO
CUBATURE
BODY MEMORY TIME OPENSOURCE
COMMUNITY
PLAY
MATTER
ANTIMATTER
NATURE
EDEN
WORLD
OBJECTS
COMPENSATE
SUBURBIA
2
7 10 14 13
1
4 6 8 11
3 5 9 12
KEYWORDS' MAP
A GUIDED VISIT to Wired Pavilion ILLUSTRATED BY Borja Bonaque

11. P
hysicsisatafrontierrightnow:thefinestachievementofthe
last 100 years has been the discovery that all the matter sur-
rounding us is formed of only three elementary interacting
particles,whichexchangeotherparticles;weknowthatthere
areanotherninewithverysimilarcharacteristicsand12particlesof
antimatter.Weareconvincedthatthese24particlesalreadyexisted
whentheBigBangtookplacebecausewehavemanagedtorecreate
theminlaboratoryexperiments,butintheEarthsystemandinour
galaxy,matteronlyconsistsofthree.Thepuzzlewehavetounravel
is this: why is the universe we know made up of
only three particles and, more importantly still,
whyjustofmatter?Researchtoday(forexample
theLHCacceleratoratCERN)isfocusedonfinding
newparticles,includingthefamousHiggsboson,
whichshouldbeabletoexplaintheoriginsoftheir
mass in the universe. Overthe next ten years the
NationalLaboratoriesinFrascatiwillbeperfect-
inganextgenerationaccelerator,theSuperB.This
project will enable the very first instants of the
universe to be recreated in a laboratory setting
andthusprovidetheanswerstoallthequestions
IN 2050 OUR LAPTOPS WILL BE 100.000 TIMES AS FAST (DON EIGLER, IBM SCIENTIST)
020
NUMEROSPECIALE
BIEN
N
ALE
DI
V
EN
EZIA
FUTURO
ITALIA
2050
as to why it is actually composed of matter, given that equal quantities of
matterandantimatterwereproducedthemomenttheBigBangoccurred.
Yet again our researchers, who are recognised the world over for their
excellence,willbetheprotagonistsofdiscoveriesthatwillprovedetermi-
nant for us all: once we understand matter we then know what to do with
it;takenuclearorfusionenergy,forexample,likelytobetheenergyofthe
future.Our“pureresearch”hason-goingpracticaladvantagesforapplied
physics.Earlyresearchintoparticles,atthebeginningofthe20thcentury,
ledtothecathodetelevisiontubewhichis,infact,anaccelerator:inthose
days studying electrons was both cutting edge and completely abstract.
In the medical sector today particle accelerators and detectors that were
builtbetweenthe60sandthe80sarestillinuse,extremelysophisticated
instrumentsthatrevolutioniseddiagnosisandtherapy.Ifwehadn’ttried
toimproveonthecandlewewouldneverhaveinventedelectricity.
In physics, pure #researchhh aaaallwwwwwwaaaayyyyssss
provides practical advantagggggggeeesss.
p y , py , p
Electricity would never havee
p p gp p g
been invented if we had just triedddd
yy
to improve upon the candle
jj
SEEK AND YOU
SHALL FIND
B Y Achille Stocchi
9
PHYSICIST
SPECIALISSUE
V
EN
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ITALY
2050
KEYWORD {DAφNE} A FORMULA 1 FOR PARTICLES, HUNTING FOR MATTER
Daφne is a collection
of instruments (an
accumulator, a linear
accelerator and a
collider, outlined
on the right) that
together function to
make particle beams
colliding into each
other to collect
information on the
structure of matter.
Built at the National
Labs of Frascati,
its data are used
all over the world.
POSITRONES
NEUTRONES
POSITRONES
INJECTION
ELECTRONS
INJECTION
KLOE
LINAC
DATASTREAM
FONTE CATIA MILARDI, PHYSICIST AND DAφNE HEAD PROJECT

12. ECOLOGIST
h fThe waste party’s over. Time forp y
governmeent to enterrr the scenne.
p yp y
The goal: cccoonnnnnnnssssuuummmmmeeeeeeee lleeeesssssss and
gg
##ddeeesssiiggnn
g
bbbbeeeetttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttteeeeerrrrrrr
-15% IN CO2
CONSEQUENT TO ICT IN 2020, WITH ENERGY SAVINGS TO THE TUNE OF € 644 BILLION (SOURCE:VISION2050)
220
THE RESOURCE
COUNTDOWN
B Y Alessandro Galli10
T
woyearsago,29companiesgottogethertorethink
theroletheycouldplayoverthenextfewdecadesin
helpingtosteeroursocietytowardssustainability.
The result of their endeavours, Vision 2050: The
newagendaforbusiness,wasputtogetherbytheWorld
Business Council for Sustainable Development and the
GlobalFootprintNetwork,andpresentedafewmonths
ago. The Global Footprint Network assessed the conse-
quences of the hypothetical scenarios in Vision 2050 in
termsoftheirEcologicalFootprint,comparingthemwith
thepotentialcosttoourplanetifwecontinuetoplougha
BAU(business-as-usual)furrow.Thefollowingscenarios
wereputforward:worldpopulationgrowthandstabili-
sationataround9.2billionindividualsby2050(source:
UnitedNations);a50percentfallinCO2emissionscom-
pared with 2005 levels (source: International Energy
Agency);enhancedforestproductivityusingbetterman-
agement techniques and an extension of their acreage
between2030and2050(source:Vision2050);increased
productivity (+2 per cent each year over past trend) of
agriculturallandthankstotechnologicaladvancesandthe
diffusionofbestpractices(source:Vision2050);changes
totheaverageglobalnutritionalregime,intermsofboth
diet and calorie content (source: FAO). Despite all this,
thefindingsconfirmthatintherun-upto2050,humanity
willstillbeconsumingtheresourcesof1.1planets.Today
(themostrecentdataderivesfrom2006)theoverexploi-
tationofresourcesstandsat44percent:thismeansthat
it would take 17 months to “get square” with nature or
equallythatweareconsumingtheresourcesofalmost1.5
planets.Doesthismeanthatwearenecessarilyoncourse
for an apocalypse of this nature? No, but we must hold
onto the fact that efficiency (and therefore technology)
alone cannot save us. The aim of the Global Footprint is
tobringtheissueofthescarcityofresourcesrighttothe
forefrontofthepoliticalagendaanddebate,becauseitis
politicalchoicesthatinfluenceapopulation’swellbeing.
The“businessasusual”philosophyisunsustainable,and
wouldmeanthatby2040wewillneedthe
resourcesof2planetsandby2050wewill
needtheresourcesof2.3planets.
Italy–wheretheecologicalfootprintgrew
116 per cent between 1961 and 2006 – can
domuchtoprepareforamoresustainable
future. Planning has a central role to play
inpreventingthedilapidationoftheterri-
tory,butalsoandespeciallyinunderpinning
moreresponsibleconstruction.Thedataon
thelifeofinfrastructuresaresignificant:if
we construct an unsustainable bridge or
building, we will be saddled with the con-
sequencesforoverahundredyears.Dowe
reallywanttotakeonthefuturewithamill-
stonelikethataroundournecks?
SPECIALISSUE
V
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FUTURE
ITALY
2050
1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080
20
16
12
8
4
BIOCAPACITY
ECOLOGICAL
FOOTPRINT
ECOLOGICAL
DEFICIT
Take the planet resources,
their consumption and
the average duration of
manmade creations. Result:
an ecological deficit no
longer sustainable.
RAILWAY, HOME, DAM
COMMERCIAL BUILDING DESIGN
HUMAN
COAL-POWERED POWER STATION
BRIDGE
HIGHWAY
NUCLEAR-POWERED POWER STATION
CAR (US AVERAGE)
ECOLOGICAL
SURPLUS
AVERAGE
DURATION
EXPECTED
DURATION
KEYWORD {ECODEFICIT} ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS
BILLIONSOFGLOBALHECTARES
DATASTREAM

13. WRITER
DATASTREAM
T
here is not a single acre of “natural” nature in Italy. We would do well
not to forget this. The entire Italian countryside, from the Alps to
Lampedusa, has been totally altered, plotted by man. In the historic
town centres and in the metropolises, in the valleys and along the
beaches, Italy as a whole is a sort of canvas, a huge hyper-territorial proj-
ect.SuperLandArt.Thedifferencethereforeliesnot
in the bucolic dream of a return to a nature we have
never really known, but in the awareness that this
anthropisedlandscapehasbeenputthroughthemill
oncetoooftenoverthecourseofthelastcentury.The
chestnut wood is as good an economy as the hydro-
electric power station, but it also forms part of the
landscape,amaterialterritorialstatement.Weneed
togetitintoourheadsthatdevelopmentfor
development’ssakecannotgoonindefinitely
because the land available is finite. It has, in
fact,runout.Sustainabilityisoneofthearchi-
tecturalmantrasoftheearlymillennium.But
what does it mean in practice? “Zero kilo-
metres”, “zero emissions” and then what?
A vision of the Italy of the future that fails
to take in the fact that the real issue should
be “zero cubage” is still stuck in the puerile
narcissism of the idea of modern. We know
that Italy’s population will increase, thanks
alsotothenewforcesofglobalimmigration.
But we have to quash the devastating, and
actually rather petit bourgeois myth of the
borderonceandforall.Thechallengewillbe
to build without stealing a single square metre of agricultural, coastal,
embankment or shelving land. Zero cubage is a moral imperative. Today
100 square metres a minute of the Po Valley are being concreted over in
the name of magnificent, progressive onslaught. What it all amounts to
is symbolic, artistic and material suicide. The canvas of the global work
of art that is Italy needs to be treated properly. This is the challenge for
the new generation of architects: cen-
sus, discern, conserve. Do not be afraid
todemolishandredesignentireswathes
of the territory, rebuild cities better and
withgreaterawareness.Contractrather
than usurp, change the public’s mobility
habits,redesignthemetropolitanspaces,
extending those given over to the envi-
ronment. A huge task lies ahead. Reha-
bilitating the coastline from Liguria to
Calabria,demolishingkilometresofuse-
less low-grade housing and shoring up
river banks and river beds, reforesting
theridgeswherethereishydrogeological
imbalance,freeingtheBrianzaareafrom
the undifferentiated sprawl, reclaiming
the Terra di Lavoro from toxic waste,
etc. Technology and green economy.
Not in a romantic Arcadian approach,
butinourowninterest.Naturecanman-
age without us. We, however, cannot
do without nature if we are to survive.
Thechallengeaheadisbuilding
withoutencroachingontoomuchland:
developmentcannotbeinfinite,#space
availableisfastgettingover
I can remember waking up
screaming in panic when
I was about six years old,
because I had mistaken the
noise of fireworks going off
at the village party for the
sound of bombs heralding a
new war. Not long ago, that
episode came back into my
mind, when I came across
that strange man from
Vittorio Veneto who had
appeared at the Corrida di
Corrado imitating the noise
of fireworks going off at the
festival itself.
I find it impossible to
imagine the future without
thinking of the past. Time
piles up, it packs down like
humus rather than making a
straight line.
I imagine building on
the past. I think the idea
of suburbs relentlessly
eroding deeper and
deeper into the countryside is more of a
probability than a possibility. Those ghastly
unauthorised little blocks of flats and post-
war houses should be covered not just with
shame but with something completely
different. Vegetation alone, perhaps. I did
not enjoy the film at all, but the first fifteen
minutes of I am Legend, in which New York is
silent, invaded by a jungle smashing its way
up through the asphalt, far from striking me
as apocalyptic, struck me as marvellous.
Le Corbusier and his roof gardens. Sinking
to reappear in a different guise. Like the
layers of our memories. A new level. And not
a hidden one. Just think of an architectural
scrapping system that could develop
underground like mushroom roots, bearing
only its fruit up into the light.
I dreeaam a sorttt oof
#arrchhiitteeeccttuurraaaalll
scraappppppppiinngggg
systeeemm foorr
gg
builddinggs
yy
and ppost-wwwwwaaaaarrrr
g
eyessoores
THE SURE-FIT PLAN WILL ENCOMPASS 1,076,204DWELLINGS IN ITALY , LEADING TO ENERGY SAVINGS OF AS MUCH AS 2,56 MILLION TONS IN CO2
. AROUND 7,3MILLION BUILDINGS IN EUROPE WILL BENEFIT, THE EQUIVALENT OF 2,5MILLION LESS CARS ON OUR ROADS
ZERO CUBIC CONTENT,
ALL AT ONCE
B Y Gianni Biondillo
NATURE, SWALLOW
THE ECO-MONSTERS
B Y Nico Vascellari12
11
ARTIST
520
SPECIAL ISSUE
V ENICE BIENNIAL
FUTURE
ITALY2050
SOURCE:SUSTAINABLEROOFEXTENSIONRETROFITFORHIGH-RISESOCIALHOUSINGINEUROPE-UESTUDY
UPGRADING EXISTING
BUILDINGS TO BETTER ENERGY
EFFICIENCY CRITERIA IS THE
NEW CHALLENGE FOR A
SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE,
WHICH CAN NO LONGER
AFFORD TO CONSUME LAND.
BESIDES NOT POLLUTING IS
EVEN LESS EXPENSIVE
EXISTING
BUILDING
RETROFITTING
STANDARD
1 13 46
MAXIMUM
RETROFITING
EFFICIENCY
MAXIMUMEX
NOVO
EFFICIENCY
BUILDING A BUILDING B
NEW BUILDING
AND BEARING
STRUCTURES
KEYWORD {RETROFITTING} DOES THE HOUSE POLLUTE? LET’S PUT IT IN ARMOUR. LIVE BETTER AND SAVE.
SURE-FIT
PROJECT
Financed by the
European Union,
it is a retrofitting
study of existing
buildings for social
housing (4-5 floors)
built between 1945
and 1990. Here is
how the pilot by
Ipostudio works for
the city of Florence.
Based upon the “integration” principle, an independent bearing
system allows elevating to create new spaces for housing and to
add solar and photovoltaic panels, reassembling the new and the
existing dimensions in one unitary solution.
{1}
WHY IS SURE-FIT CONVENIENT?
20%-25% more liveable surface
30%-50% more energy efficiency than
existing housing
0% new housing energy consumption =
40-60% more building efficiency
0% land consumption
{2}
NO, DON’T REBUILD
At the same energy
efficiency, retrofitting
costs 33 percent less
{4}
RETROFITTA
ANCHE TU
A Los Angeles
hanno costruito
un prototipo,
la Zenergy House, per mostrare come
rendere verde la propria casa sia alla
portata di tutti (tinyurl.com/3xl6b6r).
{3}

14. I
talyin2050istheItalythatIhankerafter,thatIseekoutevery
dayandtryinmyownsmallwaytobuild,topromotewithvocab-
ulariesandmethodsthatdivergefromthestrictlyarchitectural.
Thefocusisonchildrenandyouth,theyearsduringwhichthe
mindisbeingshaped,environmentalstimuliareharnessingcon-
nections in the brain, determining responses that then become
patterns for action, behaviour and attitude that often remain
ingrainedforever.ThiswillbetheItalyoftomorrow.Thefocuswill
beonurbanandperi-urbanspaces,theareasatthegreatestrisk
ofdecay.Thesespacesshouldenable,encourage
andvalorisetheexpressionofvariousfundamen-
tal requisites: direct interface with nature and
open spaces (with areas given over to physical
activityintegratedwitheverydayones);socialis-
ing/integratingdiversities(bolsteringrelations
anderadicatingghettoes);integrationbetween
nuclei,single-familiesandsingleparentfamilies
andadult-onlyfamilies,inaspiritofcommunity;
findingabalancebetweenthe aestheticandthe
practical;findingabalancebetweentheneedfor
roots and the need for mobility (fast, efficient,
LIFE EXPECTANCY IN ITALY IN 2050: 88,8 YEARS FOR WOMEN, 83,6 FOR MEN (SOURCE: ISTAT)
620
safe,ecologicallysound,publicandchild-friendlytransport);spacesfor
play,discovery,poetry,creationthatarenaturalaswellasman-made,
whichwillenablethe“click”generationofchildrentoexperiencediscov-
ery,adventureandwhatitmeanstoparticipateactively:therighttoplay
issanctioned,onaparwitheducation,intheUNDeclarationoftheRights
oftheChild1959;containmentofthecommercialdimension(advertising
publicity and spaces); containment of “artificial” noise (low volume,
eco-friendly transport); ecosustainability (environmentally symbiotic
technology); combining adult and child needs (including the need for
adults to be able to rely on child-friendly spaces that are safe but where
theycanmeetothers,readilyaccessible).Iamnotentirelysurethatanyof
thiscountsasinnovative.Perhapsinnovationonlyrestsinplanningand
buildingspacesthatbringalltheserequisitestogether.
We design spaces for learningg,
creating,
g
#experimentinnggg
p g
.
Safe and easily accessible.
g,g, pp
We are building the Italy
yy
of tomorrow
GAMES AND POETRY,
A CITY FOR KIDS
B Y Marzia Lazzerini13
PEDIATRICIAN
SPECIALISSUE
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2050
In 2050, for the first
time, the number of
60 and 15 year-olds
will be even. In our
country the average
age is expected to
go from 29 years
in 1950 to 54 years
in 2050, a world
record beaten only
by Spain (55).
KEYWORD {GENERATIONAL PYRAMIDES} AGE GAP: THE ZERO HOUR STRIKES
1950
60+ 0-59
SOURCE: UN
2000 2050
80
60
40
20
0 0 0
DATASTREAM
5 5 5 5 5 5
PERCENTAGE PERCENTAGE PERCENTAGE
AGE

15. GENERAL MANAGER CURRENT TV ITALY
Television radio InternetTelevision, radio, Internet
and newspapers will bluuur.
, ,, ,
##IInnforrmmmaattiioonn??
p ppp
That’s uuuuuuus! All
connected aaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd knnowwlleeeeeeddgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaabbbbbbbblee
IN 2050, THE WORLD’S POPULATION WILL GROW BY 120% IN DEVELOPING NATIONS, WITH 70% LIVING IN CITIES (SOURCE: FAO)
820
SPECIALISSUE
V
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2050
WE ARE A FELICITY
NETWORK
B Y Tommaso Tessarolo14
I
n2050Italywillbetheculturalandtechnicalhubofa
newRenaissance.Nearlytwocenturiesoffull-speed
social,technologicalandscientificdevelopmentwill
at last have given way to a lengthy period of (posi-
tive)inwardreflectionbyahumanraceteeteringonthe
brinkofcollapse.Wewillhaveruntoolongandtoofast.
We will have destroyed economies, political systems,
traditions,historiesandcultures.Wewillhavecreated
rules for ourselves in the belief (or under the pretence
ofbelieving)thatwecanlivebetter,inamoreintegrated
fashion, be healthier, better looking, sated with every
conceivablething,evenmastersofnature.Butwhatwe
willhavefailedtorealisewillbethefactthattheimage
reflected by the progress we thought we were making
wasdistorted,destructiveanddeceptive.Itwillonlybe
oncewehavecomewithinahair’sbreadthofthepointof
no return that will we have come to our senses; thanks
totheNet,tothefreedomofinformation,tobottom-up
joint action. Only when Italy will have seemed to have
lostitswayforgoodandbecomeresignedtoadestinyof
fearandmiserywillithavesprungtolifeagain;acoun-
try of beauty, culture and science, the pivot of a great
revolutiononcemore. In2050oursocialstructurewill
becommunity-centredwhich,thankstotheunseendigi-
taltechnologythatwillhavebecomeanintegralpartof
everybody’s lives, will enable us to share constructive
information for living more harmonious and effective
lives. Lots of small “villages”, small squares in which
communitieswillbeabletogathertogetherphysically
andsocialise,hubsofknowledgemakinguponegigantic
networkofautonomousentitiescontinuallyexchanging
information,cultureandmaterialgoodssymbiotically.
Thesechangeswillhavetakenplaceincrediblyfastonce
therealisationthatthetimeforhesitationwaspasthit
home. The revolution will begin with information. In
2050,therewillbenodividebetweenTelevision,Inter-
net,RadioandNewspapers:aconstantflowof
informationwillemanatefromlocalcommuni-
ties out into the interconnected world. There
willbenopowergroupscontrollingwhatshould
or should not be broadcast and what should
or should not be manipulated and censored.
Everysinglecitizenwillbeafountofinforma-
tionandwillbeabletodecideforhimselfwhich
information he finds most interesting or use-
ful. This will enable fully informed choices to
be made over who will govern us at local and
globallevel.Therewillstillbemajoreventsof
nationalinterest:occasionsthatwillbringthe
entirepopulationtogetherinfrontofa“viewer”,
butthesewilllargelybeentertainment-based,
withrealemotionstakingprideofplace.Inthis
Italy2050,therewillbeabundantspaceforus
alltocultivateourownhappiness.
Cappa o lampadario? Lampadario o cappa?Toglietevi ogni dubbio perché con le nuove cappe F-light Generation li avrete entrambi. Luxia è la primogenita
e, come le sue sorelle, non ama i compromessi. Sono vera cappa in tutte le componenti, dalla potenza del motore alla capacità aspirante, dalla silenziosità
alla qualità dei materiali: acciaio e vetro su tutti. Sono vero lampadario per potere illuminante, eleganza, design. Sono di nuovo vera cappa, disponibile
anche in versione aspirante: perchè una cappa prima di tutto deve pulire l'aria. E ancora tornano ad essere lampadario: la cappa si vede solo quando
viene attivata e si fa scendere sui fuochi. E poi sono ancora cappa, e poi ancora lampadario, fino a che non la smettete di giocare con il telecomando.
TORTUGA-KITIRI
CappaF-lightGeneration-modelloLuxia
PHOTO:PAOLOPOLI
MONGOLIAINDIAMADAGASCAREGYPT KENYATUNISIA
foko-madagascar.org
environment and cyber activism
tinyurl.com/3255yr7
censorship fighting
ushahidi.com
cyber activism
tinyurl.com/2ve6k27
environmental literacy
tinyurl.com/399kne4
cyber activism
kolenalaila.com
women’s rights
The Internet is above all a “square” where can be heard nations and
individuals, ignored by western media.
KEYWORD {DEMOCRACY} LISTEN WHO’S TALKING
SOURCE:GLOBALVOICES
DATASTREAM

16. Wired
Biennale
Alessandro Baricco
Philosopher, music
journalist, director,
writer (his works being
translated and awarded
worldwide, BTW). In
2006 he wrote The
Barbarians, a forward-
looking book about the
invasion of those who
«breathe the world
through Google’s gills».
For us, Alessandro has
been to 2026 to see
what comes next.
[ OUR BARBARIANS]
Ilaria Capua
A virologist and
the director of the
International
Reference Centre
at the Venetian
Experimental Clinic
for Infectious
Diseases in
Animals. In the
name of an open
access science, in
2006 Ilaria
published the
genetic sequence
of virus H5N1
online.
Alessandro
Galli
An ecologist and a
Senior Scientist at
Global Footprint
Network that
investigates
human
dependence on
natural resources.
Considering Italy’s
ecological
footprint, his
advice is:
politicians, do
something.
Right now.
Fabri Fibra
Born in Senigallia
in 1976, a musician
(gold and platinum
record), TV
reporter (on MTV,
he compeered the
programme In
Italy), a generator
of contents and a
“teen tamer”, as a
famous Italian DJ
likes to call him.
Marzia
Lazzerini
A paediatrician in
Trieste and actively
involved in child
care in the Third
World for years.
On Wired no. 13,
she told us about
the high-protein
bars locally
produced in
Angola, tasty and
sustainable.
Susanna
Nicchiarelli
Director and
philosopher, in
2009 Susanna
bagged the first
prize at the Venice
Festival thanks to
her movie
Cosmonaut,
presented in the
section
Controcampo
Italiano. Going to
be back this year...
sitting in the Jury.
Davide
Oldani
Working with
Gualtiero Marchesi
gave Davide a real
head start to
become today one
of the most
important Italian
chefs. Opened D’O,
in 2003, a trattoria
on the outskirts of
Milan. A designer
of tableware and
author of three
books.
Francesco
Stellacci
A degree in
Engineering of
Materials from the
Milan Polytechnic,
professor at MIT,
from September,
will be
investigating about
biomolecular
interfaces and
nanotech at the
Institute of
Technology in
Lausanne.
Tommaso
Tessarolo
Editor of Mix at
the young age of
22, the first online
daily newspaper in
Italy. Founder of
N3TV at 34, the
first Net Television
broadcasting
project, able to
reach, in 4 months,
the count of
300,000 unique
visitors per month.
Tommaso is now
General Manager
at Current Italia.
Nico
Vascellari
Born and bred in
the deep North of
Italy, in Vittorio
Veneto. Has
experimented with
different media,
such as sculpture,
video, sound,
performance and
collage. Nico’s
works are
displayed in
important
collections, both
public and private.
Achille
Stocchi
Born in Venice and
now living in Paris,
where Achille is a
lecturer at
Université
Paris-Sud. A
specialist in
physics of
elementary
particles,
investigator of the
Big Bang, black
holes, matter and
antimatter. To
understand the
universe.
Gianni
Biondillo
An architect and
essayist, a popular
writer of detective
stories and a
member of the
board of editors of
Nazione Indiana.
Gianni has written
his latest book,
Ring Roads,
together with
Michele Monina.
Two wayfarers at
the edge of town,
an unusual portrait
of Milan.
Leandro
Agrò
With over 10 years
of expertise in
Interaction Design,
Leander (his
nickname) has
been a web
professional since
1995. In Wired’s
first issue he was
one of the ItAliens.
Now CEO at Wide
Tag, a pioneer in
integrated
computer systems.
Emilia
Visconti di
Modrone
An environmental
engineer born in
Cairo and living in
Rome, mother of a
one-year-old
daughter with
another on the
way. Holds the
post of Project
Manager at EDF
Energies Nouvelles,
focusing on the
wind farms being
built and developed
in Italy.
Chiara
Bonini
A hemato-
oncologist at San
Raffaele Hospital
in Milan and in
charge of
coordinating the
projects on gene
therapy for tumour
prevention (phase
III trials) thanks to
Molmed, a
biotechnology
company spun-off
from the hospital.
SPECIALISSUE
V
EN
ICE
BIEN
N
IAL
FUTURE
ITALY
2050
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17. Longitudine. Latitudine. Attitudine.
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