The curators
IRENE RIZZOLI
She represents the fourth generation of fish canning entrepreneurs.
After graduating from the University of Parma with a degree in Economics and Business, she immediately began working in the company; today she is in charge of control, finance and sustainability.
An open and curious personality who ranges from writing books (“Alice or Anchovy?” published by Mondadori) to extreme sports: she was an aerobatics champion. In addition to corporate positions, she holds institutional roles on the boards of the European College of Parma, School for Europe of Parma, CEA (Environmental Ethics Center), Mister Smart Innovation, and Fondazione Banca Monte Parma. She’s a member of the General Council of ANCIT (National Association of Fish Canning) and the General Council of Confindustria. She’s also president of Cisita, a training and service company. She collaborates with the University of Parma by participating in the steering committee of the three-year degree course “Food System – sustainability management and technology.”
Dario costi
Dario is trained as a PhD architect between Milan and Turin and carries out research and design experimentation on many levels: on the professional level with particular attention to the themes of Museums and Exhibitions, urban design, public space and building, and living in the landscape, and in the university level on theoretical reflection on the role of architecture with respect to the relationships it interprets and through the methodology of Strategic Urban Design on urban regeneration, the re-naturation of cities and technological innovation induced by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He is Full Professor of Architectural and Urban Design at the DIA of the University of Parma. Since 2018, he has been Director of the interdisciplinary research laboratory Smart City 4.0 Sustainable LAB promoted by the Emilia Romagna Region, the public digital infrastructure company Lepida and the University of Parma with the Ferrara, Bologna, Reggio and Modena, Piacenza offices, local authorities and stakeholders. Since 2018 he has been Scientific Director of the Advanced Training Courses in Strategic Urban Design at the LUM School of Management in Bari, with which in 2021 he develops the Guidelines for Urban Regeneration of Italian Cities for the SNA National School of Administration of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic. Since 2021 he has been Scientific Director of the High Skills Program promoted by the Emilia Romagna Region The City School. Since 2023, he has been Scientific Director of the Level II University Master’s Program in Public and Innovation Management Smart City (MASIC). In 2024, he is Technical Advisor for the Superior Council of Public Works of the Ministry of Infrastructure for the Housing Plan.
MC2
Since 2001 Dario Costi and Simona Melli have been carrying out design work in Studio MC2 reasoning about the forms of life, designing space around people and putting the social dimension of architecture for small and large communities at the center of their work. Alongside Urban Regeneration and City Renaturation projects, Social Housing interventions and those on public space and building, the museum theme has always been a privileged field of application with a series of published works: the setting up of the House of Music, the House of Sound, the Toscanini Birthplace, Palazzo del Governatore, San Quirino in Parma, the project for the Sale della Laguna at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice and the one for the House of Music in Budapest in addition to numerous exhibitions held at the Parma Urban Center, public institutional venues. Work with artists has always characterized the studio’s design experience leading to significant installations such as those with Paolo Mezzadri for the exhibition Parma Città d’Oro, with Poetic Reaction Urban Objects (Parma Città d’Oro, LetteraVentidue 2021) and with the sculpture Origami and those with Simone Racheli under the curatorship of Didi Bozzini for the architectural and artistic installations for Spinazzola (White Lime, Red Murgia, Art and Architecture in Spinazzola, LetteraVentidue 2020). Projects, writings, and contributions by the authors on architectural topics have appeared in leading architectural journals such as Area, Casabella, d’Architettura, Domus, The Construction Industry, among others. Monographic books document the intervention on urban regeneration for the Parma electric tramway complex in Barriera Bixio for Officina, Art and Architecture Series, in 2012 and that of the House in the Three Landscapes published in 2017 for LetteraVentidue while the recent books Architecture of Relationships collect 20 years of design work and the theoretical reflections that motivate it (MC2 2001 – 2021 Architecture of Relationships, Notes and Works and Projects, LetteraVentidue 2023).
