Andrea Branzi: E=mc2: The Project in the Age of Relativity

Starting from the Radical research to contemporary design, the book collects Andrea Branzi's work about the relationship city-design.

The publication begins from the Andrea Branzi’s reflection on the relationship civility-design, from the Radical's research on mass-production civilization to the "infinite territories", proposing new territories able to interpret and anticipate the new dynamics of society.

In particular, if the first chapters review the historical/critical works of Andrea Branzi and of Radical Movement, the last opens a new parenthesis of research, right now never expressed: the issues ignored by Modernity, like life, death, destiny and the sacred: themes which underline the new drama and the fracture between tragedy and normality, between consumerism and death, between theology and technology, between the silence of reason and the voice of an irrational reality.

Andrea Branzi lives and works in Milan. Protagonist and theorist of Radical Movement Archizoom, he is dedicated to theoretical research and to the promotion of culture. He's author of numerous theoretical and historical books. Since 1982, he's the Cultural Director of Domus Academy and the magazine MODO, and consultant to the Triennale Design Museum in Milan. In 1984 he received the Compasso d'Oro award for Lifetime Achievement. Professor at Polytechnic of Milan, he has an honorary Degree from the University of Sapienza of Rome. He is Honorary Member of the Royal Design for Industry in London. His projects are collected at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Design Museum Gent, MOMA NY, Brooklyn Museum in NY, Denver Museum of Art in Denver, Fondation Cartier in Paris, Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, FRAC Orleans, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montreal, Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, London Victoria & Albert Museumdi, Vitra Design Museum in Germany, and the MAK in Vienna.

Elisa Cristiana Cattaneo researches experimental ecological design and its theoretical implications, to generate new territories of imagination. In particular, considering the design as a “weak” field evolvable and renewable through new transdisciplinary approaches. She has developed the definition of Technonature as an experimental concept to qualify a non dichotomic idea of Nature as technology, able of forming an experimental space between art and sciences. She was Graham Foundation Grant Recipient in 2014 and in 2015 she was selected and invited candidate for the Wheel Wright Prize, award of the Graduate School of Design to architects who have demonstrated exceptional design talent inside the international panorama of Design. Ph.D Architect with merit, she was Visiting Scholar at the M.I.T. (2010-11) and at the GSD, Harvard University (2011-2012).