Esterno-Notte, exhibition of 3 architects
On the occasion of the Architecture Biennale, this group exhibition brings together three of our artist-architects around a motif as banal as it is inexhaustible: the window.
Vanishing point, viewpoint, passage, threshold, or frame, the window has always embodied, in the history of art, a site of tension between inside and outside, reality and imagination, protection and openness. The title of the exhibition, Night Exterior, echoes this duality: it refers to the outdoor space plunged in darkness, a world seen through the frame of a window, while also evoking a cinematic gaze that unfolds through both architecture and visual arts.
This reflection on space, perspective, and storytelling is explored through the works of three artists whose practices are very different yet complementary.
On one hand, Emmanuel Di Giacomo imagines utopian territories where architecture becomes a speculative language. Through his compositions, he projects future cities, not as responses to current needs, but as alternative scenarios that blend manifesto and fiction. His windows do not merely open onto existing landscapes but onto narratives of tomorrow, where urbanism becomes a form of prospective storytelling.
Federica Scalise explores architecture and materiality through layered collages, combining wood, paper, and digital elements. In her five-part series, each frame presents a floating scene where the narrative remains ambiguous, blending presence and absence. Much like the paradox of the Ship of Theseus, whose parts are replaced one by one until none of the original remains, yet it still claims to be the same, her compositions question the continuity of identity through transformation.
Finally, Paul Spriet offers a more intimate vision of the window. Through a series of ink and watercolor works, he transforms the window into a visual and poetic rhythm. By repeating motifs and subtly playing with contrast, his pieces capture those suspended moments where interior light pierces the darkness of evening. His delicate, silent images evoke the memory of places passed through and the gentle presence of inhabited landscapes.
The exhibition also takes on a cinematic dimension, drawing inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rear Window (1954). In the film, the window becomes a screen, a frame through which the protagonist (and the viewer) observes, interprets, and fantasizes. By choosing to project this film in the gallery’s own “window,” we echo this dynamic: the film can be seen from both inside and outside, turning the street into a set and the passerby into a voyeur.
Thus, the exhibition is built around this dual opening, both physical and symbolic. By playing on the fluid boundary between architectural and cinematic gazes, Night Exterior becomes itself an open window onto other worlds: tangible or dreamed, constructed or imagined.