From 2001 to 2004 Luca Molinari is appointed a member of the scientific committee of Triennale di Milano and curator of Triennale architecture section. Along this four-year engagement Luca Molinari works to present the national complex scene through a problematic perspective and several exhibitions and events that aim to understand and interact with Italian architecture, not only as a discipline for specialists, but as an active ground of exchange.
On the occasion of the 20th Triennale entitled “Memory and the Future”, three main lines are followed: the changing city as a place of debate; Italian contemporary architecture through public events and a programme of events to open up the national cultural system to the international experience.
Between 2001 and 2003 three big exhibitions focus on the making of the contemporary city. The events actively melt the exhibits’ design, graphic and communication projects with the contents: USE – Uncertain State of Europe (curated by Multiplicity); Effetti Collaterali (curated by Luca Molinari) and Asfalto (curated by Mirko Zardini).
In 2003 Molinari curates the first re-edition of Medaglia d’Oro per l’Architettura Italiana, the award that put to an halt in 1973, aims to review its latest results and promote Italian architecture in Italy and abroad as a drive for environmental quality and civil development. The Award is organized into Gold Medal for Best Work, First Work Award, Special Award for Public and Private Client and Critique.
In 2004-2005 the monthly series Cantieri aperti (Open sites) succeeds in showing the most important public projects in Italy while hosting open dialogues among involved parties: client, project designer, builder and structural engineer.
A number of important exhibitions complete Triennale exhibit programme: Olivetti. Città e architettura, Nuova Architettura Tedesca, Austria West, Città e disegno. Architettura Portoghese, Volti nuovi per teatri antichi, Passaggio al moderno. Architetture di fondazione dall’Italia all’Oltremare sided by as many lectures by European designers that are invited, sometimes for the first time, to lecture in Milan.
Molinari supports several competitions to design some exhibit spaces and exhibitions to recover the tradition of Triennale as a stage and testing ground for emerging architects. Among participants: Cliostraat, A12, Ghigos, ma0, Avatar, Fabio Novembre, Beniamino Servino, Alessandro Scandurra, nicole_frv, UFO, Molteni, PARK, 99IC.
Festa per l’architettura curated by Luca Molinari is one of the first festival in Italy to organize book presentations, guided tours, public lectures, cinema and open studios to experience architecture as a shared occasion and social matter to be discussed in a wider and a more open view.