The lecture will focus on the figure of the highway, as it appears in the projects and research of Studio Muoto. It will highlight how this obsessive subject, which the firm explored in a book titled Holy Highway published in 2023, shapes both its imagination and its unconscious.
Today, the highway has become a divisive figure, provoking as much hatred as fascination. It reflects our ambivalent relationship with modernity and the way we attempt to manage its legacy. How can we reconcile its continuation with its criticism? How can we navigate such contradictory feelings as our desire for progress and our nostalgia for a time we never experienced? How can these emotions inform a body of work and a project-oriented approach?
To address these questions, the lecture will revisit several familiar elements commonly found along highways – such as totems, retaining walls, interchange hollows, or deserted parking lots – and propose to assign them architectural value, interpreting them as if they were found objects. Considering these four figures, the aim will be to highlight a specific field of exploration that lies midway between architecture and infrastructure, between architectural practice and academic research on the large-scale technical objects that shape our cities and territories.