It’s impossible to imagine the contemporary built environment without considering the impact of street art and graffiti has had on not only city dwellers but our city’s designers and architects. While previous generations may have dismissed incorporating painting techniques beyond traditional frescoes or murals, the new generation considers it their birthright to bring modern art movement influences, including Optical Art, Kinetic Art, and straight-up tape art often used on the street.

Rome-based architect/designers Lorenzo Pagliara and Gianmaria Zonfrillo consider themselves a street art duo as well – creating under the moniker Motorefisico. Working on city walls for them is simply an extension of their interior/exterior design interests along with video art and installation art as well. In their recent façade-painting project in Santa Croce di Magliano, Italy, Motoresfisico says they employed stencil techniques sometimes used by street artists to create exacting lines and illusionist effects to enhance the architectural feature of this building with two facades.

“We developed our geometric composition directly on the surface by creating a huge stencil with tape,” they say, “This allowed us to create shapes perfectly adapted.” Monochromatic and modernist, the composition pops with a kinetic three-dimensional effect. Suddenly a white box boasts a pedestrian-stopping display of intelligent design, something that is not always apparent on city streets and even less often has it been achieved with simple stencil technique.

Naming their architectural installation “The Slash”, the artistic duo completed it in conjunction with the 8th edition of the Antonio Giordano urban art award (Premio Antonio Giordano).

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