The Shape of Things to Come
FAI, 2025
On the occasion of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, FAI – the Italian National Trust – presented the exhibition “The Shape of Things to Come” by Formafantasma, curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi and hosted at the Negozio Olivetti in Piazza San Marco, Venice.
The exhibition is closely intertwined with the space designed by Carlo Scarpa – a masterpiece of modern architecture – and with the history of Olivetti, a company symbolic of technological innovation, cutting-edge design, and social commitment.
The starting point for the Venice exhibition is Ore Streams, a project launched by Formafantasma in 2017, focused on recycling waste from the electronics industry, now revisited and expanded in a new chapter. Through a series of design objects, documentary videos, and 3D animations, the exhibition addresses the environmental impact of the tech sector from multiple perspectives, emphasizing the role of design as a tool for transformation and awareness.
The starting point for the Venice exhibition is Ore Streams, a project launched by Formafantasma in 2017, focused on recycling waste from the electronics industry, now revisited and expanded in a new chapter. Through a series of design objects, documentary videos, and 3D animations, the exhibition addresses the environmental impact of the tech sector from multiple perspectives, emphasizing the role of design as a tool for transformation and awareness.
One of the key themes of the exhibition is planned obsolescence – a strategy that intentionally limits a product’s lifespan to encourage replacement, often at the expense of the consumer.
First formalised during the economic crisis of the 1930s, planned obsolescence is both paradoxical and emblematic of the contradictions inherent in consumer capitalism. While human physical needs remain finite and largely unchanging, market dynamics rely on an artificially sustained cycle of production, consumption, and disposal.
This phenomenon, now dominant in the electronics sector, contrasts sharply with Olivetti’s design philosophy, which has always promoted quality, durability, and the cultural value of objects. The Olivetti Store thus becomes an ideal place to reflect on this dichotomy, embodying an alternative vision in which design is conceived to withstand the test of time.
First formalised during the economic crisis of the 1930s, planned obsolescence is both paradoxical and emblematic of the contradictions inherent in consumer capitalism. While human physical needs remain finite and largely unchanging, market dynamics rely on an artificially sustained cycle of production, consumption, and disposal.
This phenomenon, now dominant in the electronics sector, contrasts sharply with Olivetti’s design philosophy, which has always promoted quality, durability, and the cultural value of objects. The Olivetti Store thus becomes an ideal place to reflect on this dichotomy, embodying an alternative vision in which design is conceived to withstand the test of time.
For the Venice exhibition, Ore Streams has been expanded with a chapter focusing on planned obsolescence, and its systemic implications of within contemporary industrial design.
The installation interrogates this logic of temporality not only through material and process but also through modes of display. Porcelain pedestals draw upon typologies found in ancient Mediterranean ceramics—forms that have endured across cultures and centuries. This formal lineage, based on archaeological finds from Athens, Rome, Siracusa, and Istanbul, foregrounds a vision of design based on continuity, resilience, and the persistence of aesthetic archetypes.
The installation interrogates this logic of temporality not only through material and process but also through modes of display. Porcelain pedestals draw upon typologies found in ancient Mediterranean ceramics—forms that have endured across cultures and centuries. This formal lineage, based on archaeological finds from Athens, Rome, Siracusa, and Istanbul, foregrounds a vision of design based on continuity, resilience, and the persistence of aesthetic archetypes.
By overlapping these classical forms with fragments of objects specifically engineered to perform obsolescence—in a selection of electronic products—the installation proposes a critical juxtaposition between permanence and disposability. A key detail is the use of gold—sourced from electronic recycling—as both a symbolic and literal material. Gold, while historically associated with luxury and permanence, now plays a central role in the global recycling economy due to its conductivity and recoverability. Here, gold serves not as ornament but as narrative material—linking the economic histories of value, the environmental politics of resource extraction, and design temporality.
