100 disegni per 100 anni – 100 Drawings for 100 Years

Exhibition for Iuav Centenary

Opening: Thursday, 16 April 2026, 5 pm

Open from 16 April to 11 September 2026, Monday to Friday, 9.30 am–7 pm, continuously.
During August, the exhibition is open from 9.30 am to 6 pm. Closed from 8 to 16 August 2026.

An exhibition promoted by the Archivio Progetti of Università Iuav di Venezia
Curated by Gabriella Liva, Marzia Marandola and Gundula Rakowitz
With the collaboration of Giulia Bersani, Giulia Conti, Alessandro Virgilio Mosetti and Davide Zaupa

In 2026, Università Iuav di Venezia celebrates the centenary of its foundation, marking one hundred years of teaching, research and critical investigation in the fields of architecture and design disciplines. The exhibition offers a historical and cultural interpretation of this journey through drawing, understood as a tool for knowledge, a theoretical device and a foundational practice within the design process.

Venice becomes the privileged context and permanent laboratory guiding the entire exhibition, serving as both a tangible and symbolic point of reference. The role of the University within the city becomes a measure, a paradigm and an object of investigation, helping to sustain an ongoing reflection on the relationship between architecture, environment and heritage.

The drawings on display, largely original works from Iuav Archivio Progetti, document the diversity of cultural perspectives that have shaped the University's history: architects, urban planners, designers, artists, talents from the worlds of fashion, theatre and the performing arts, as well as scholars from a range of disciplines. From this perspective, drawing emerges as a space of synthesis between representation and the construction of thought, between disciplinary rigour and experimentation.

A chronology of key events, beginning in 1926, runs along the walls, while sketches, studies and projects arranged on tables form a heterogeneous graphic corpus that conveys the complexity and layered nature of the educational and design experiences developed over the course of a century. Together, they highlight continuities and discontinuities in the languages, methods and purposes of design.

In celebrating Iuav centenary, 100 Drawings for 100 Years presents a living archive, capable of bearing witness to the role of the Venetian University in shaping contemporary design education and reaffirming the value of drawing as an indispensable tool in the development of design as a cultural and scientific practice.

Detail: Drawing 2 from Carlo Scarpa's lectures, 30 January 1975
Università Iuav di Venezia, Archivio Progetti, Franca Semi Collection