Ephemera come Architettura: il caso Giorgio Wenter Marini

Ephemera is a category of artifacts that is still largely underestimated, by research as well as by institutions. Little is the literature on the subject, and the issue of their cataloging and preservation within archives and collections is still unresolved. Because of their nature, their size, their low economic value, their being multiple objects or their temporal function, there is a struggle to recognize the informational capital that these objects materialize, both in the short period in which they are consumed and in their “afterlife” – for research and historiography.

They are the sensitive trace of a past event, from which, through careful analysis, it is possible to reconstruct the information structure, the network, and the architecture of the context that generated them. The evolution of media, especially in the 20th century, has had an undisputed impact in the transformation of architecture and its debate, taking the core of the discourse beyond the walls of the building, embracing themes and fields outside the discipline. Given the connective nature of ephemera, and given the possibility of the rethinking that runs through the term architecture, this research aims at understanding whether it is possible to speak of ephemera as architecture and, if yes, how it functions.

Following the theoretical analysis, ephemera found in the Giorgio Wenter Marini fund at the Archivio Progetti of IUAV University of Venice are taken as case study. Wenter Marini collected and preserved a large number of ephemera, which, in light of his concern for total design, serve as interpretation key to understanding the designer’s work and life. With the selected archival material, a three-dimensional narrative on the subject is developed, intended as a study tool to understand how the architecture of these ephemera is articulated and how they are able to generate meaning.