Towers is the exhibition of drawings by architect Sergei Tchoban that will open on 10 November at Palazzo Lanfranchi.

With this initiative the Museo della Grafica participates in the celebrations of the 850th anniversary of the start of the construction of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Tchoban in his work as an architect and in his drawings has constantly treated the tower as an architectural typology.

There have never been so many towers as there are today. Tower building has become a challenge for architects all over the world and even those who do not find the task particularly appealing must come to terms with tower construction. For it is precisely in the architecture of towers that the latest techniques and materials are tested in order to reach and exceed aesthetic as well as physical limits.

Thanks to his studies at the Petersburg Academy, Sergei Tchoban is familiar with the history of architecture, which is reflected in his design work and drawings.

Divided into six chapters, the exhibition brings together around 90 drawings that Tchoban made during his numerous trips, especially to Italy.

Through views of various towers, visitors are invited to reflect on this architectural type, its political role and the dangers to which it is exposed.

Tchoban’s interest in the multifaceted phenomenon of tower construction is evident in the abundance of drawings in which the architect depicts these buildings, imaginary and real towers or a combination of both. Drawing, with its ability to make the imaginary as vivid as the real, proves to be the most suitable medium for the artist to express his thoughts on architecture.

The exhibition, runs from 10 November to 25 February 2024, will be accompanied by a catalogue in Italian and English.

THE ARTIST 

Sergei Tchoban is a German architect and architectural draughtsman. Tchoban studied architecture at the Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg. He has lived in Germany since 1991 and has held German citizenship since 1995. After starting at NPS Nietz – Prasch – Sigl in Hamburg in 1992, Tchoban became in 1995 managing partner of the architectural office, now known as TCHOBAN VOSS Architekten. In 2009, he established the Tchoban Foundation, which is based in the Museum for Architectural Drawing built for this purpose in 2013. Since then, numerous exhibitions have been presented there as well as in other museums worldwide, some of them in cooperation with renowned institutions such as the John Soane Museum in London, the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, the Albertina in Vienna, the Kunstbibliothek
Berlin or the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM). Tchoban’s architectural drawings are in the collection of among others the Victoria& Albert Museum in London, Akademie der Künste in Berlin, Albertina in Vienna, Museu Oscar Niemeyer in Curitiba, Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) in Frankfurt / Main, Kunstbibliothek in Berlin, Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in
Rome, Kunsthalle Rostock and in various private collections. Sergei Tchoban’s drawings have been awarded numerous international prizes.
In 2018, Sergei Tchoban was awarded the European Prize for Architecture by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design for his lifework. In 2020, he was president of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators ASAI, which he has been a member of since 1992.