Massimo Mariani. Progetti 1980-2005

Massimo Mariani is a unique, not easily classified architect who has developed his architectural ideas autonomously, generating them from a combination of his knowledge and intuition of space and his ability to translate an architectural object (specifically, his public architecture) into a kind of unique prototype or a high-tech work, like a spaceship.
He has always carried forward the same design formulas. The principles he followed to make his entries into the first competitions he participated in are the same principles he used to realize his first bank, remembered by Cecilia Barbieri in her attentive and affectionate contribution to this volume as a kind of "technological angel-machine," a metropolitan angel "landed in an unknown and perhaps hostile territory, from which it apparently wishes to defend itself." His works, nearly always set in a banal suburban contexts, attempt to redeem themselves by their likeness to Las Vegas, particularly in the evening when the architect's use of dazzling colors and brilliant signage comes to life. At night Mariani's creations demonstrate their full diversity, block shapes clad with light materials give the impression that a treasure is protected within. Mariani's interiors upset the initial conception that his structures are governed by a single theme (the bank as a stronghold) by creating interior spaces with urban characteristics, evoking the idea of a square, and his use of small windows and terraces whose luminosity during the daytime is reversed at night, rendering the hidden treasure inside accessible and perhaps even within reach.
- Lara-Vinca Masini