After the ruins

                                            

    

    At the center of the Cortile d’Onore dell’Università degli Studi di Milano, a ring of rubble gathers into a form that feels at once deliberate and unresolved. Titled Mater, the installation by Alessandro Scandurra draws on his work rebuilding war-damaged schools in Ukraine, turning debris into a subdued meditation on reconstruction.

    Held within a metal frame, the fragments enclose a quiet interior: a circular concrete seat and a slightly raised platform give the space a tentative coherence. Nothing is concealed; the material’s fractures remain visible, its past intact.

    There is no promise of resolution here. Realized with Holcim Italia, the work lingers in the aftermath, where ruin is not erased but, briefly, made inhabitable.