VIGNE MUSEUM
Yona Friedman
Yona Friedman, born in 1923, architect, is listed among the most accredited theorists and thinkers in the world of culture and contemporary science. A full career and a clear way of thinking, developed to corroborate his innovative and revolutionary ideas which, starting from architecture, have embraced social sciences, physics, statistics and mathematics.
A wealth of knowledge, developed and constantly returned to during the twentieth century, which Yona Friedman has placed at the disposal of the public to infuse an alternative approach to life, addressed to all classes of society, from the wealthiest to the disadvantaged, in which the individual, his autonomy and uniqueness, his specific needs, translate into architecture. An architecture made of people even before brick.
The Vigne Museum fits perfectly into this path begun in the period after the Second World War.
The revolution of thought and architecture brought by Yona Friedman began in Israel where he came face to face for the first time with the phenomenon of mass housing. The confinement and anonymity of the individuals in these projects inspired him to seek a new type of home for the populations of newly-developing cities.
In 1949 Friedman began to explore the possibilities of building prefabricated houses organised around flexible spaces and a temporary dimension. He then began to consider the possibility of having the individual inhabitants design and redesign their home according to their needs independently and without the professional intervention. Friedman named this housing concept MOBILE ARCHITECTURE.
It is with the Mobile Architecture Manifesto and SPACE CITY that Friedman gained popularity by aiming for maximum flexibility through the use of enormous "Superstructures" above existing cities and suburbs, leaving the inhabitants free to build their homes within these super structures.
Friedman's explorations continued to evolve, venturing into sociology, economics, mathematics, sciences, visual-art and film-making, even winning a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale.
Friedman's work has embraced a wide range of action, always confirming its principles based on the freedom of the individual, on the responsible use of the environment with reference to the norms of life of local communities.
With this in mind, the multiple proposals of Friedman's architectural projects aim to stimulate new visions, addressing not only sector technicians but also ordinary people to bring thought beyond and outside the "box" and look for new ones solutions to different social problems.
Complexity and irregularities have always fascinated Friedman throughout his career. Unpredictability and freedom of choice are the keys to his thinking and are the cornerstone of the improvisation technique in architecture he both professes and uses.
Since 2009 Yona Friedman has developed a “Mobile Architecture” to redefine museum spaces. Iconostasis are structures made using a series of circles welded together which, according to display requirements, can change both shape and size, becoming an architectural space in continuous development and change. The circles are the frame in which objects to be exhibited are inserted, which can be works of art in the case of museums of contemporary art, or a vineyard in the case of the Vigne Museum.
