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The Teatro dell’architettura Mendrisio (TAM) of the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) will host, from May 8 to December 20, 2026, three new exhibitions promoted by the Academy of Architecture: “The Construction of Architecture in Ticino, 1939–1996. Materiality and Tectonics,” curated by Franz Graf; “Pino Musi. Continuum,” curated by Michael Jakob; and the installation “Sleipnir and the Labyrinth of Doors,” conceived by the students of Atelier Forte. The opening, free and open to the public, will take place on Thursday, May 7 at 6:30 pm.
The exhibition curated by Franz Graf, with Britta Buzzi, Carlo Dusi, Alessandro Bonizzoni and Sebastiano Verga, installed on the first floor, offers a reinterpretation of more than half a century of architecture in Ticino through one hundred buildings selected for their constructive significance. Drawings, models, photographs and archival materials become lenses through which to investigate the physical dimension of architecture—where materials, techniques and structural systems are transformed into language, and tectonics emerges as the concrete expression of a poetic vision.
The project stems from extensive research developed over twenty years within the Construction and Technology area of the USI Academy of Architecture. Over time, this research has led to the creation of a catalogue of modern architecture in Ticino, highlighting its constructive value and pedagogical potential.
Organized chronologically, the exhibition path guides visitors through a progressive immersion focused on twelve emblematic works, explored in depth through publications gathering critical texts, testimonies and scholarly contributions. Complementing the exhibition, reports by Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana and photographs taken by Roberto Conte in 2025 introduce an additional level of interpretation: that of the present time.
Hyperbole, former municipal slaughterhouse, repurposed into a multimedia centre. Shanghai, 2023 © Pino Musi
Continuing on the second floor, the exhibition “Pino Musi. Continuum,” curated by Michael Jakob, takes shape as a conceptual device unfolding in space and time, inviting visitors to abandon any distracted approach to images. Here, photography - through the work of Pino Musi - ceases to be mere documentation or representation and becomes a tool of knowledge, a critical exercise of vision.
The site-specific installation, conceived in dialogue with the circular form of the Theatre, becomes a narrative structured into six thematic sections - Origin, Metonymy, Hyperbole, Surface, Transition, Incompleteness - presented through a continuous sequence of images.
In the Origin section, the ruin paradoxically reveals itself as a place of birth: degraded matter becomes trace, memory, and archaeology of the built environment. Musi seems to suggest that every photograph is, ultimately, an archaeological act. Metonymy and Hyperbole shift the focus to dwelling, questioning an architecture that at times appears hostile, almost built “against” the human. Particularly significant is the Surface section, where an implicit reference to Friedrich Nietzsche opens a reflection on the aestheticization of reality: the skin of architecture becomes both seduction and limit, an obsessive search for aesthetic perfection. The Transition chapter reminds us that the deep, real meaning of any architecture depends on the possibility of inhabiting and thus traversing it. Incompleteness, on the other hand, conceives architecture as unfinished and unresolved, evoking a kind of polyphonic listening, a counterpoint typical of musical notation.
Completing the exhibition are three large-format works dedicated to the recent restoration of Notre-Dame and a series of display cases containing a selection of the photographer’s publications.
In the atrium, visitors can experience the installation “Sleipnir and the Labyrinth of Doors,” curated by Duilio Forte in collaboration with Simon Fikstvedt and Barbara Stallone. Within a labyrinth of doors - designed and built by the students of Atelier Forte at the Academy of Architecture - the sculpture Sleipnir is inserted, transforming the space into a symbolic and architectural journey that explores the relationship between human beings, space, and the design process.
The doors, conceived as symbolic and architectural thresholds, form a labyrinth - a metaphor for the design process - that leads to “Sleipnir,” a symbol of exploration and of the relationship between humans and space. The work presents to the public the outcome of a collective experience, transforming the space of the Theatre.
Cover image: Livio Vacchini, Middle School, Losone, 1974 © Roberto Conte
All images courtesy of TAM
