ABSTRACT
At the landmark exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, Achievements and Problems of Italian Design, held at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1972 (May 26–September 11), the architect and designer Gaetano Pesce (1939–) staged an installation of a subterranean dwelling, which supposedly formed part of a small underground city. The city, located in the Alpine region of Southern Europe and dated to around 2000 AD, had been excavated by an archaeologist of the future to unearth evidence of a communal dwelling for twelve people, as well as a smaller dwelling for two (Figure 2.1). This is all that remains of a disappeared community, who had lived their last days in a series of underground caverns, which they had built first for the purpose of extracting water and mineral resources. Once hollowed out, these caverns were then inhabited by their creators, who closed themselves in from the world above ground, “hermetically sealing off the interior from the outside world” with a huge stone. Once enclosed, the community had pushed further underground, expanding their habitat with further excavation. The archaeological evidence leads to speculation on the anxious condition of twentieth-century society: although the reasons for retreat were left oblique, the site is described as belonging to “The Period of Great Contaminations,” implying, it seems, ecological disaster or nuclear apocalypse. Pesce’s analysis of his imagined site is presented in the accompanying catalogue and display notes in the form of an archaeologist’s report—field notes on the end of a civilization, projected into the future. The suggestion of a contaminated world, combined with his remark that “further study might throw additional light on the psychological effect that the term ‘the year 2000’ had on those living both before and after that date,” helps us to conclude that here was the site of a traumatic, exhausted end to a modern age, yet to come. 1 Gaetano Pesce, “The Period of Great Contaminations,” Habitat for 2 Persons, 1971, gouache, watercolour and graphite on paper https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203142721/3f14115e-4a5e-4ae9-80de-b7806af87db7/content/fig2_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
