In the heart of Piazza San Marco, Negozio Olivetti presents a new chapter in Formafantasma’s ongoing research with The Shape of Things to Come, an exhibition curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi for the 2025 Architecture Biennale.
Building on their 2017 project Ore Streams, the show revisits the global electronics supply chain, tracing its environmental, economic, and social implications.
Through video, animation, and designed objects, the duo investigates the physical and often overlooked dimensions of technology, raising urgent questions about raw materials, waste, production cycles, and shared responsibility. Far from the abstraction of the digital realm, this visual narrative brings attention back to its material reality, shaped by extraction, labor, and environmental cost.
The setting is not neutral. The space, designed by Carlo Scarpa for Olivetti between 1957 and 1958, becomes part of the story. Here, where every architectural detail was conceived to endure, the exhibition reflects on the programmed obsolescence of contemporary objects. Obsolescence is not just a technical flaw but a symptom of a system that favors rapid turnover at the expense of quality and collective memory.
Scarpa’s store, with its suspended geometries, refined materials, and calibrated transparencies, becomes a quiet yet eloquent manifesto for a different way of designing. The Shape of Things to Come enters into this dialogue across time and vision, proposing a form of design that does not merely reflect the present but seeks to transform it.
There is no spectacle, only a narrative clarity that lets materials and processes speak, revealing the complexity behind what is usually unseen. The reference to H.G. Wells in the title is no coincidence. The exhibition looks ahead, but does so by delving deeply into the present. Formafantasma’s approach is clear-eyed and critical, never didactic, and builds a trajectory that moves through ethics, aesthetics, and design practice.
In a context like the Biennale, often marked by dramatic gestures, this exhibition stands out for its ability to hold together thought and matter, time and responsibility. In doing so, it reaffirms design’s role as a cultural practice, capable of engaging with reality through awareness and vision.
Negozio Olivetti in Piazza San Marco
Commissioned by Adriano Olivetti and designed by Carlo Scarpa, the Olivetti Store is a masterpiece of precision and refinement, tucked beneath the arcades of the Procuratie Vecchie.
Completed between 1957 and 1958, the space reflects an architectural vision that brings together function and beauty, craftsmanship and innovation. Scarpa works with marble, glass, brass, and wood, composing them in a careful balance of lines, surfaces, and light.
Every detail is considered. Staircases appear to float, display cases act as frames, and pathways draw the eye. More than a retail space, the store is a poetic machine for presenting products that embody a forward-thinking industrial philosophy. Today, thanks to the work of FAI, the space once again hosts exhibitions and installations, continuing to serve as a place where memory, culture, and design meet.
