Massimiliano Fuksas.

My real obsession is landscapes, like Ayers Rock, the red mountain in Australia, the atolls in Polynesia, enormous dunes that form and dissolve in the deserts, Icebergs. I have always been fascinated by the beauty of the absence of form, the imperfection of beauty. I have always asked myself how it is possible to create a form of architecture with no shape and with no geometrical or complex dimensions. I believe that artists, even the worst ones, are better than architects, because artists always start from a vision; architects never speak about it, they always speak about a project. I became an architect because my mother was afraid I would become an artist and, to her way of thinking, artists were people who never had any money. My dream is that everyone can have ideas, passions and feelings. What is the point in struggling to earn more and more, to gain more power?

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Trade fair as landscape

The design of the New Milan Trade Fair chooses to make the longitudinal connection axis its main generator; a spine which gives structure to the entire complex. This space, the 'central axis', is the place of activities, the centre of information, and the place of crossing. These concepts are developed through the positioning of a series of buildings alongside the main axis, with connections at ground level, and at footbridge level, 6.5m above. The buildings host various functions: restaurants, meeting rooms, office spaces, and reception areas that connect with the exhibition halls. The pathway stretches between two areas, between the east and west entrances that provide the main accesses to the Trade Fair. The buildings along the central axis are suspended above diversely treated landscaped areas: water, green areas and concrete, with the flanking stainless-steel and glass facades of the exhibition halls, become the scenography. Above the whole of this space extends the vast roof-an undulating lightweight structure like a veil; a veil, with a surface area exceeding 46 000sqm, and over 1300m in length. MASSIMILIANO FUKSAS, MASSIMILIANO FUKSAS ARCHITETTO

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