To create alternate worlds and visions of the possible, moving from a culture of design towards a culture of ideas. Rota’s answer to the Anthropocene (the geological era in which man has had a profound impact on the Earth’s climate and ecosystems) is the Biocene. With a provocation: “The era in which we could all aspire to have an animal or a plant in parliament,” that is to say a cultural mutation that leads us to sign a new contract with other living species. There is no attempt to simplify the complexity of reality, but rather to take charge of the potential that research and the digital world offer us to make our metropolises more efficient. An architecture that, thanks to big data, is realized without building, and makes what is already there high-performing while preserving the empty spaces. A city to be thought of not in terms of future ruins but of buildings that can be dismantled. Italo Rota asked architecture to be a tool for a new beginning, because “the future,” he said, “is the place where I will spend the rest of my life” – and that is where he directed his plans. Italo Rota’s wife and collaborator Margherita Palli, set and costume designer for the project Matter Makes Sense at this Biennale, will collect the Special Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in his memory.

Featured image: Italo Rota © Claudio Moschin