The exhibition, promoted by the Fondazione Palazzo Magnani in collaboration with the Municipality of Reggio Emilia and the Biblioteca Panizzi and curated by architects Giordano Gasparini and Andrea Zamboni, is dedicated to the great architects who, during the twentieth century, contributed to building and transforming the city of Reggio Emilia.
Through projects, photographs, and drawings, the exhibition retraces the urban evolution of the city, offering an in-depth look at the archives left by the main protagonists of Reggio Emilia's architecture and urban planning of the last century.

The history of cities represents the events of men whose aspirations, over time, have built the places we inhabit today, interweaving architecture with the lives of individuals and the historical events that have unfolded. In particular, the twentieth century, also for Reggio Emilia, is the century that saw the birth of the modern city in a historical context where politically and economically difficult phases alternated with others of well-being and affirmation of democratic principles and freedom.

The exhibition path includes the display of projects from the archives of the Biblioteca Panizzi with original drawings by Guido Tirelli, Pietro Cavicchioni, Prospero Sorgato, Carlo Lucci, Osvaldo Piacentini, and the Cooperativa Architetti e Ingegneri and Antonio Pastorini, to which are added, thanks to the availability of the heirs, the archives of Eugenio Salvarani and Enea Manfredini.

Among the many projects reconstructed through archival materials, the rearrangement of the Hotel Posta and the Teatro Ariosto (Tirelli), the Mercato Coperto and the Cimitero Monumentale (Sorgato), Villa Ferretti (Cavicchioni), the Cinema Ambra and the Della Robbia intervention (Lucci), the Seminario, the INA Casa neighborhoods of via Wybicki and Via Bismantova (Manfredini), Coop1 and the so-called Grattacielo (Coop. Architetti e ingegneri), the Max Mara headquarters in via F.lli Cervi and Villa Galaverni (Pastorini and Salvarani).