Like a machine in motion. The modernity of the Cagliari Opera House and of the Osaka Expo Pavilion by Maurizio Sacripanti

Some moments in history are critical stages in which, for different reasons, the contemporary reality isunable to be read, makingthe world not capableofbeingprojectedin a modern way, and asking humanitywhat modernity is.This difficulty arises from an assumption: being contemporary reality continuously referred to the ceaseless transformation of the present, it is challengingto define a concept of modernitywhich is able not to become obsolete. Many designers have tried to postpone the ageing process byattempting to realise futuristic buildings. However, eventually,these buildings will necessarily become obsolete.Two designexperiences by the Roman architect Maurizio Sacripanti (the one of the Cagliari Opera House, 1965, and that of theOsaka Expo Pavilion, 1970) show that it is possible to theorize a way of modernity not only through a building, butalsothrough a design‘formula’,which gives up formal pretexts, rather embracing the way of a continuous update both in terms of formal variations and typological flexibility.