Postcards from Growing By Numbers

Within the collective exhibition "Traces of Centuries and Future Steps" at Palazzo Bembo, Paolo Cesaretti and Antonella Dedini present a work that rises questions about the nature of the cities and the cognitive relationship involving citizens with the urban space.
Postcards from Growing By Numbers is a light-box triptych that, through photographs and video, documents Growing By Numbers a project which involved the city of Milan between December 2010 and April 2011. Taking inspiration from the game “Drawing By Numbers – joining with a pencil line some numbered points slowly disclosing a hidden image - and turning drawing in growing, the group of Architettura Attuale conceived a playful imaginative project where the main protagonists were the towers of Milano from the historical ones to those still under construction. On top of each of them the architects placed digits from 0 to 9, nine meters high made up of low-emission rgb led lights. The big numbers which light up in red at sunset have become familiar in the metropolitan skyline, transforming the shapes of the towers into enigmatic appearances.
Milano was - and still is - at a crucial stage, under a boost of acceleration that will change its face involving the life of its inhabitants. According to the principle that reality provides data to imagination, the designers of Architettura Attuale wanted to linger on the communicative and symbolic meaning that the growth of the towers has for the inhabitants of Milano. The upcoming city is made evident from the imaginary line draw by the sequence of numbers that during the night seem to hover in the dark, establishing a wordless dialogue with those who observe them." (excerpts adapted from: Antonella Galli, Growing By Numbers, Interni 610, April 2011).