Heritage Landscapes vol.26

In November 1911, French banker Albert Kahn initiated an enterprise that was intended to document the whole of humanity. An archive that would manage to keep within itself all the differences of a world that-so Kahn perceived-would disappear very soon. The project took the name Archives de la Planète.

In 1911 Kahn assembled a team of photographers and filmmakers to discover and investigate the cultures and customs of the “whole world.” This team put together, over the course of three decades, more than 100 hours of film and more than 72,000 autochromes, a color photography process based on additive synthesis, patented in 1903 by the Lumière brothers. It was 1908 when, in a Europe on the brink of change, he conceived the Archives de la Planète project.

It contained scenes of daily life in Japanese villages, rituals in West Africa, vibrant markets in the Balkans and industrial suburbs in Europe-a mosaic of humanity captured with a poetic and scientific gaze. It was not just an archive, but an almost desperate attempt to stop time, to preserve cultures destined to change under the pressures of modernity. For Kahn, these images were a bridge, a universal language capable of telling stories of tolerance and connection.

This incredible collection, which can now also be viewed online, is made available by the Musée Départemental Albert-Kahn, in Boulogne-Billancourt, just outside Paris, the very place where Kahn stopped to live; and it is surrounded by a wonderful garden, the result of the same curious way of thinking about knowledge, sharing, creating harmonies and discovering the world through a subtle balance between aesthetics and science.

Starting January 15, the Nokia Design Archive, launched by Aalto University in Helsinki, will go online. It will be a digital archive tracing the history of the legendary Finnish cell phone company, as famous in its day as Apple or Samsung today. The portal will include unpublished sketches, sketches, and marketing material on some of the most nostalgic, legendary, and enduring electronic devices of recent decades-more than 700 pieces ranging from the early 1990s to 2017.

In 2024, the Egyptian Museum in Turin celebrated two centuries of history. To mark the occasion, it was decided to celebrate in a big way: workshops, speed lectures, performances, contemporary art exhibitions, lectures, and from Nov. 20, it is also possible to visit the new layout of the Gallery of the Kings: famous for its previous dark and scenic look done by Oscar winner Dante Ferretti. Now, however, the series of statues found in the temple complex of Karnak at Thebes are filled with light by the new installation by architecture firm OMA. Also new is the permanent exhibit “Matter. Shape of Time,” which brings together more than 6,000 artifacts including wood, vases and pigments from the repositories.

At MAUTO in Turin, until May 4, 2025, the exhibition “125 VOLTE FIAT. Modernity through the FIAT Imaginary.” To mark 125 years since its founding, the National Automobile Museum traces the history of FIAT through photos, audio, graphic materials, posters, sketches and documents. The exhibition project, curated by Giuliano Sergio and realized in collaboration with Centro Storico FIAT and Heritage HUB, recounts more than a century of history and experimentation through materials, creating an astonishing viewpoint not only on the changes of the automomoiblistica company, but of the entire country.

Credits: Nokia Design Archive, Wallpaper*; Artribune, Claudia Giraud, Museo Egizio; MAUTO, FIAT

On November 12, there was a press conference of ARCHIVISSIMA25 - The Festival and Night of Archives conceived by Promemoria Group and organized by the cultural association Archivissima APS.

At Gallerie d'Italia - Turin, festival director Manuela Iannetti presented the theme of 2025, #fromthefuture, under the banner of possible and (im)possible worlds, and the idea of the future we want to build.
The Festival will be held June 5-8, 2025, while Archives Night will be June 6, reaching its 10th anniversary as the beating heart of the whole event.

Among the guests at the press conference was Antonio Damasco, who embarked on a special journey during the year with the narration of The Imaginative Story of Espérer, produced by the Theatre of Forms, a partner of the Festival.

We look forward to returning to give space to the archives, their materials and their incredible stories. In the meantime, you can review the press conference: