Abstract
Building an exhibition means giving shape to an artificial environment in which certain meanings are transmitted. In a dialectical relationship with the visitor, objects reclaimed from the context that generated them are ordered and presented, defining situations full of new meanings and dimensions. In this context, atmosphere plays a significant role: objects and public are simultaneously in one place and, to ensure a successful communication, the emotional component takes on strategic importance. Building an architecture exhibition means giving shape to an artificial environment in which the object of the display is absent. Therefore, in some cases, the purpose of the show becomes the issue of making a spatial experience accessible to the public. Some architecture exhibitions do not define their goal as an objective presentation based on technical drawings, models and strangely uninhabited photographs but, on the contrary, they try to reconstruct a certain ‘something’ that becomes part of the object of display. If the construction of an atmosphere is of extreme importance in every form of show, which particular role does it assume in the case of exhibitions in absence – an issue that characterises the display of architecture?