On the occasion of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, CONI chose as the headquarters of Casa Italia Le Pré Catelan, the iconic building where the modern Olympic Games came into being on 23 June 1894. On that day the Comité International Olympique was founded and Baron Pierre de Coubertin presented his ambitious project: to restore the ancient Olympic Games.
And in this very building, one hundred and thirty years later, Casa Italia finds its home, with a project that showcases Italian design and contemporary art with an exhibition dedicated to iconic furniture and works by emerging artists. Among the works chosen is Sacral by Edoardo Tresoldi, an astonishing installation made using Cavatorta wire mesh.
The Casa Italia project
Founded as a Hospitality House during the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, today Casa Italia is much more than merely a residence for the team in blue. It’s a constantly-evolving journey of excellence, marked by concepts that are linked each time with the values and uniqueness of the host country. For Paris 2024, Casa Italia presents the Ensemble project, a name intended asa tribute to the third word of the French national motto: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.
It is this fraternity or brotherhood that unites the states represented by athletes in the Olympic Games. The word Ensemble thus evokes fundamental values such as friendship and dialogue, aimed at a deep shared purpose for the common good.
And Casa Italia represents all these values in an exhibition pavilion where art, culture, design and nature interact in the stunning setting of Le Pré Catelan, in the heart of the Bois de Boulogne.
Sacral by Tresoldi at Casa Italia
Visitors are greeted at the entrance to Casa Italia by Edoardo Tresoldi’s installation Sacral, displayed a few years ago at the MAR Museum in Ravenna as part of of the Dante exhibition Una Epopea POP.
The imposing structure of Materia Absente, made by shaping Cavatorta wire mesh, evokes the shape of a Renaissance baptistery that suggests the passage between the physical and material dimension and the conceptual world of contemporary art. Transparency and architectural details place Sacral outside space and time, identifying it as a portal leading to the discovery of Made in Italy excellence.
Thus, thanks to the collaboration established with Tresoldi for the construction of the Basilica of Siponto in 2016, Cavatorta has the honour of being present in Paris during the 2024 Olympic Games. A way of feeling close to our athletes, thanks to an artwork that speaks of beauty and Italian identity.
