A photography exhibition at the Magazzino delle Idee in Trieste from July 3 to October 12 explores a century of cross-border architecture through visual diptychs revealing connections, divergences andshared memories. The exhibition is part of the GO! 2025&Friends programme to celebrate Nova Gorica-Gorizia as European Capital of Culture in 2025.
 
An exploration of the architectural idioms that have developed in Friuli Venezia Giulia and Slovenia, territories separated by shifting borders yet united by historical, cultural and political layers, not as an in-depth presentation of architecture in the cross-border dimension, but instead a proposed visual and critical comparison between emblematic buildings, bringing out affinities, divergences and contaminations.

This is the aim of the exhibition Le Affinità di Confine. Architectures in Friuli Venezia Giulia and Slovenia,curated by Luka Skansi and Paolo Nicoloso, with photographs by Roberto Conte and Miran Kambič, which will open in the evocative space of the Magazzino delle Idee, overlooking the port of Trieste.

Developed from a proposal by Guido Comis of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Regional Cultural Heritage Authority (ERPAC), the exhibition is part of GO! 2025&Friends, the programme of events connected to GO! 2025 Nova Gorica - Gorizia European Capital of Culture.
Architecture is seen here as an expression of identity myths, powers and collective memories. The curatorshave rejected a single-theme narrative, preferring instead the diptych method, juxtaposing images of morethan fifty pairs of buildings constructed in the two countries, grouped by period, function or theme.

From the Austro-Hungarian era to socialist Yugoslavia, via the seasons of modernisms and regionalisms, tothe most recent trends, the exhibition brings out both local specific features and transnational influences,emphasising the porous nature of cultural boundaries.

The central element is the interaction between buildings that are "twins" in terms of function, yet different in terms of idiom, ideology or context. A critical and visual exercise, enriched by the expert eye of thephotographers, capable of rendering both the urban context and the material detail through the image.

The diptychs present buildings of the same type and retrace three periods: the years around the First World War, the period between the two Wars, and the decades after the Second World War up to the fall of theBerlin Wall and the birth of the Republic of Slovenia. A visual and conceptual journey entrusted to thephotographs of Roberto Conte and Miran Kambič, two masters of narrating the built environment.

Architecture is thus confirmed as a living entity, not just historical documentation but an integral part of our present, capable of impacting the landscape and the collective consciousness. The exhibition invites us toreflect on the built environment as a living testimony of cohabitation, tensions and shared identity.
The photographers were called on to rethink points of view from a comparison perspective. The exclusivenature of framing or architecture leaves room for visual dialogue, interaction between forms, materials and ideologies.

"It’s alive, it represents a physical reality," the curators explain, "which with its shape, size, spatiality, urbanor environmental relationships is a part of the present. It’s a cultural expression that is transmitted and takesroot in our minds even without us being aware of it”.

An elegant catalogue documenting the cross-border research work and printed by Gaspari Editoreaccompanies the exhibition.