Carmelo Baglivo

Carmelo Baglivo (Rome, 30 November 1964) occupies a pivotal position in the Italian cultural landscape, where he pursues architecture and image as a single discursive field. He graduated in Architecture from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in July 1993, with 110 e lode; in 1992 he had already won first prize in the competition for Rome’s Sistema Direzionale Orientale, an early recognition that placed him firmly on the competition circuit. He subsequently worked in Berlin at Max Dudler’s office and, from 1994 to 1998, with Massimiliano Fuksas between Paris and Rome, refining a sensibility for architecture both as spatial construction and as urban narrative. In 1997 he founded IaN+, within which design is conceived as a research device. There he designed the laboratory building for the University of Rome Tor Vergata (2003), awarded in 2006 the Gold Medal for Italian Architecture for a first work at the Triennale di Milano. With the Maria Grazia Cutuli primary school in Herat (2011) he received the Prix Spécial – Catégorie Enseignants from the École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris (2011), a special mention at the Zumtobel Award (2012), and was a finalist for the Aga Khan Award (2013). In 2010 IaN+ was shortlisted for the Iakov Chernikhov International Prize, dedicated to experimental architecture. Alongside his built work, Baglivo has developed an intense graphic practice: collages and urban montages, later gathered in volumes such as Odissea digitale. Un viaggio nel Mediterraneo (2004), Disegni corsari (2014), Atlantide (2018), and Ripensare l’altra città (2022). Shown, among other venues, at MoMA in New York (2013) and the Venice Biennale (2014), these works turn drawing into a critical instrument for interrogating ruins, peripheries, and infrastructures. In 2015, together with Laura Negrini, he founded BAN, which in 2020 won the international competition for the new Piazza Transalpina between Gorizia and Nova Gorica, confirming his central role in rethinking contemporary European space. He lives and works in Rome.