Exploring the architectural languages developed between Friuli Venezia Giulia and Slovenia, territories separated by changing borders but united by historical, cultural, and political stratifications, not to tell an exhaustive story of architecture in the cross-border dimension, but to propose a visual and critical comparison between emblematic buildings, highlighting affinities, divergences, and contaminations.

This is the aim of the exhibition "Border Affinities. Architectures between Friuli Venezia Giulia and Slovenia," curated by Luka Skansi and Paolo Nicoloso, with photographs by Roberto Conte and Miran Kambič, which will open to the public on July 3, 2025, in the evocative space of the Magazzino delle Idee, overlooking the port of Trieste.

Developed from a proposal by Guido Comis of the Regional Institute for Cultural Heritage of Friuli Venezia Giulia (ERPAC), the exhibition is part of the "GO! 2025&Friends" program, the series of events - connected to the official program of "GO!2025 Nova Gorica - Gorizia European Capital of Culture" - involving the entire Friuli Venezia Giulia region.

Architecture is here interpreted as an expression of identity myths, powers, and collective memories. The curators reject a single narrative: they prefer the diptych method, juxtaposing over fifty pairs of buildings constructed in the two countries, grouped by era, function, or theme.

From the Austro-Hungarian era to socialist Yugoslavia, passing through the seasons of modernisms and regionalisms, up to the most recent trends, the exhibition highlights both local specificities and transnational influences, emphasizing the porousness of cultural boundaries.

Central to the exhibition is the dialectic between "twin" buildings in function, but different in language, ideology, or context. A critical and visual exercise, enriched by the expert gaze of the photographers, capable of capturing both the urban context and material details through the image.

The diptychs feature buildings of the same typology and cover three periods: the years leading up to World War I, the interwar period, and the decades from the post-World War II era to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the birth of the Republic of Slovenia. A visual and conceptual journey entrusted to the photographs of Roberto Conte and Miran Kambič, two masters in narrating built space.

Architecture is thus reaffirmed as a living fact: not just a historical document, but an integral part of our present, capable of influencing the landscape and collective consciousness. The exhibition invites reflection on the built environment as a living testimony of coexistence, tensions, and shared identities.

The photographers were tasked with reconsidering perspectives in the context of comparison. The exclusivity of framing or architecture gives way to visual dialogue, to the dialectic between forms, materials, and ideologies.