For one week Modena turns into the city of trees. Conceived by the Municipality of Modena and the Leonardi Archive Foundation, the project is supported by the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture.
From 7 to 13 April, the Villaggio Artigiano Modena Ovest will host "Alberi Festival. Building the city of trees", the first architecture festival dedicated to the idea that trees can be a model and a tool through which to investigate, design and reorganise the contemporary city. Recovering the solid "green" culture that has characterised the political and urban planning history of Modena, for a week Alberi Festival will offer architects, artists, schoolchildren, the curious and enthusiasts a rich programme of lectures, exhibitions, multimedia installations, itineraries and guided tours, workshops for children and adults in disused industrial spaces and public areas of the Villaggio Artigiano transformed, for the week of the Festival, into a prototype "green village". Saturday 12 April, from 9 p.m., the Festival Night and the pavilions and exhibitions open until midnight.
The first edition of the Alberi Festival was presented on Friday 14 February, in the spaces of Cesare Leonardi's house-studio, by the councillors for Culture and Urban Planning and Parks of the Municipality of Modena, Andrea Bortolamasi and Carla Ferrari; the curator of the Festival, Andrea Cavani, and Federica Rocchi of the Amigdala collective.
Organised by the Municipality of Modena together with the Leonardi Archive Foundation, Amigdala and with the support of other bodies and associations in the area, the event will be divided into four thematic sections: "Knowing how to see trees" (Casa-studio Leonardi), "The metamorphosis of trees" (MOP - Modena Ovest Pavillion), "The city of trees" (OvestLab space) and "Designing with trees" (Progetto Artigiano space). All for a narration inspired by the work of architect Cesare Leonardi, from his twenty-year studies on trees developed between 1960 and 1980 with Franca Stagi, to his manifesto project for the City of Trees in Bosco Albergati (Castelfranco Emilia) in 1990.
"Knowing how to see trees", the central section of the festival, will open to the public the doors of Cesare Leonardi's Archive and House-studio at the Villaggio Artigiano Modena Ovest where, amidst thick yellow wooden shelves handcrafted according to a strict modular criterion, the work of a lifetime is contained. Like, for example, the famous drawings of trees collected in 1982 in the volume L'Architettura degli Alberi (The Architecture of Trees), still today a reference manual for landscape design at an international level.
The multimedia section 'Le metamorfosi degli alberi' (The metamorphosis of trees), set up in the MOP Modena Ovest Pavillion, will host photographic exhibitions and video installations by contemporary artists such as the Modenese architect and photographer Francesco Fantoni, who will present 'They might be giants', a work on monumental trees, realised in collaboration with the Emilia-Romagna Region. During the course of the festival, the pavilion will also put on live display the real daily transformations of plant organisms, populating the space with plants positioned among Cesare Leonardi's Solids.
Dedicated, on the other hand, to the more political and participatory dimension that characterises the urban presence of trees, is the section "The City of Trees", within the OvestLab, where the unreleased short films of the "Fotosintesi" review will alternate with open lectures, workshops and laboratories. Among the most eagerly awaited appointments are those with landscape architect Erika Skabar (8 April), with artist Giacomo Cossio (9 April), with landscape architect Carlo Masera (11 April) and with Giulio Orsini (12 April), the architect and founder of the Archivio Leonardi. While on 13th April at 4 p.m. it will be the turn of Scrivere la natura, a conversation with Paolo Giordano, starting with his novel Tasmania on the occasion of the award ceremony for the winning short story in the "Noi e gli alberi" section of the Muratori Literary Prize. The events hosted at OvestLab also include the exhibition "La Città degli Alberi di Bosco Albergati" (The City of Trees in Bosco Albergati), which, through panels, photographs and a model for the blind created by the association La Città degli Alberi, will allow visitors to discover the history of an epic project, designed by Cesare Leonardi and implemented by a group of volunteers in the early 1990s.
In the Progetto Artigiano pavilion - a former textile workshop in the process of being transformed - the fourth section of the festival will be set up: "Designing with Trees" will have as its protagonist the city of Karlsruhe, whose origins go back to a primordial and visionary encounter between man and nature, to the desire to build a physical and tangible bond with the forest based on respect, contemplation, crossing, and defining boundaries. Visions that have led to a tangible urban form, a coherent expression of this relationship. A sort of manifesto city in which the "fan-shaped" design that seamlessly transforms the forest into public space seems to make explicit a coexistence pact between men and trees.
From the pavilions to the outdoor spaces. Completing the itinerary at AlberiFestival are the pedestrianised areas of the exhibition site, along which there will be art installations, botanical displays and en plein air exhibitions. In the courtyard of Progetto Artigiano, Giacomo Cossio and Sara Leghissa will create the art installation 'Natura morta', in a performance open to the public. The pedestrian area of Via Leoni will instead be the subject of a 'renaturalisation' project, destined to become permanent by the end of 2025, and on the 'Diagonal' cycle/pedestrian path there will be an open-air exhibition of the drawings of L'architettura degli alberi by Cesare Leonardi and Franca Stagi representing the twelve city trees selected for the 'Alberi Maestri' project.
Finally, AlberiFestival in the City, with the festival dialoguing with the city's cultural spaces, starting with the Fondazione AGO, which will host, in the Palazzina dei Giardini, the exhibition 'Lost paradise is paradise lost' by Fallen Fruit. But there will also be workshops among the trees in the Botanical Garden, themed showcases and plant sitting workshops in Modena's libraries, appointments at the Gemma Museum with "the fossil plant", themed tours of the Civic Museum's collections, and a special exhibition in the multimedia room of the former Day Hospital in Piazza Mazzini.
AlberiFestival is supported by Festival Architettura - edition 3, promoted by the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture. The festival is organised by the Municipality of Modena in collaboration with the Leonardi Foundation and in association with Amigdala, the Emilia-Romagna Region, UniMoRe, the Municipality of Vignola, the Municipality of Pavullo, the Municipality of Rubiera, The City of Trees of Bosco Albergati, Italia Nostra / Bosco in città.
They are partners of AlberiFestival: Fuse*, Bunker, LazyDog press, AlberItalia and the Gellner association.
They support the Festival: Chamber of Commerce of Modena and Rotary Club. International partner is the German city of Karlsruhe that, like Modena, is part of the Unesco Creative Cities for Media Arts cluster and where the summer edition of the Festival will take place, scheduled from 26 June to 6 July 2025.
Read more: https://alberifestival.it/
