The developments of Simon Benetton’s research are better understood when considering the close relationship created between the artwork and its surrounding environment. There are several studies and sketches for macro-sculptures, monumental structures installed in the environment that establish a harmonious dialogue with the urban or natural context. In this sense, sculpture acquires an architectural function, as an active sign within the city context.

In the 1990s, Simon Benetton elaborated drawings and sketches focusing on the study of details and single formal motifs that recur several times in the complex of different macro-sculptures.

The rotary movement and the twists that characterised the works of the previous years dissolve, the linear structure of the sheet seems to reassemble, and the dynamics of the cuts seems to reduce according to a new geometry. References to archetypal forms such as the square, the circle, and the triangle come into light, thanks to the precise and linear articulation of the cuts and the clear scanning of the flat surfaces.

This formal rigour takes on a symbolic value, becoming an expression of the human willpower to continuously discover the mysteries of the world and acquire knowledge to culturally develop the new civilisation.

The artworks of this period include Il giardino dei filosofi (1990) and the Macroscultura Icarus (1993), in which the forms, with totemic and immobile appearance, rise isolated in space as spiritual entities.

In those years, another series of artwork denoted a particular moment in the artwork of Simon Benetton, characterised by the threadlike winding and unwinding of iron. The continuous and articulated development of a linear structure characterised works such as Percorso (1995-96) and La porta del sole (1997).

A labyrinthine path comes into light, with its design aiming for vast open spaces where the artist’s mark is capable of establishing a dialogue with the surrounding environment. Noteworthy is the ambitious, but never realised project of the artwork La porta del sole, a macro-sculpture that was supposed to involve and redevelop a large area of the Municipality of Jesolo with the creation of a park characterised by the continuous articulation of the iron tubular structure.

In the works of this period, the linear development becomes a metaphor for the journey as an itinerary of research, an initiatory path to self-discovery, and a never-fulfilled labyrinthine approach to knowledge. The evolution of the line unites horizontality and verticality through the articulation of intersection points, symbolising the different stages of existence.

The continuous line dwells on particular tensions, on compositional balances and on circular developments. In this context, the motif of the spiral returns several times, as a symbolic image of cyclic nature and continuity of existence.