As part of one of the largest European public spaces, Opera is Edoardo Tresoldi’s new public art permanent installation on Reggio Calabria’s seafront.
Opera was created to celebrate the contemplative relationship between place and human beings through the language of classical architecture and the transparency of the Absent Matter. The open wire-mesh structure – consisting of a colonnade of 46 pillars peaking at 8 meters within a 2,500-square meter park – will offer a new monument fully crossable and accessible to locals and visitors alike. and aims to become a new landmark in the region.
Tresoldi plays with the grammar of classical architecture – as well as with the transparency of the wire mesh – to research new visual poetics in dialogue with the surroundings and the viewer. The pillars, Western cultural heritage’s founding archetypes, compose a courtly frame allowing for a further interpretation of the park while opening up relationships in several directions within an already materially open space. The perspective corridors run towards the landscape while the transparent pillars define an open structure that accommodates, accompanies and defines the spatial experience and establish a direct relationship between earth and sky. The play between pillars and trees creates a relationship of light and shadows, an airy yet rhythmic balance evoking an organic connection between the transparency and the surrounding space.
Promoted and commissioned by the local Municipality and the Metropolitan City, Opera was inaugurated on 12 September 2020.
Photo © Roberto Conte
