Here’s a little color to put some wind into your Friday afternoon sails—literally. Renzo Piano, the 1998 Pritzker Prize-winning, Italian-born Paris-based architect, and Rome-based Alvisi Kirimoto + Partners have teamed up to create an installation of bright-hued, retracting sails in the Piazza Faber in Tempio Pausania, a small town located on the island of Sardinia.
The public art work comprises 12 fabric sails in vibrant colors that are suspended amid and attached to the historic stone buildings surrounding the plaza by a series of wires and cables. The sails are opened and closed through a motorized system used in sailing. When open, their geometric shapes leave a dance of triangular shadows on the ground and walls, and thin lines and "pencil" shapes when closed.
Though the installation is dedicated to late Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio de André, who had a close friendship with Piano, it is also meant to bring attention to small Italian towns. Take a look below, and head on over to Designboom for the full story.