Architects always want to say something
Architects of “Archigram” group, in their magazine, used to propose provocative examples of impossible architectures, of unattainable hopes trying to convey the message of temporariness and event. The Smithsons in their set-up called “house of the future” imagined how life according to their vision could have been. Mies Van der Rohe, in 1929, while building […]
San Gimignano, Tuscany – Where an architect has much to learn
San Gimignano, Tuscany, is a medieval village that has been declared “world heritage site” by Unesco and his urban structure goes back to a time lapse between the XI and the XII century. To get to San Gimignano is an engaging experience under different points of view. As all the historical cities, it has developed […]
Freedom or Order? A theory around the philarmonic of Hans Scharoun in Berlin
In the night of the 13th of August 1961, Berlin was marked by something that still represents a scar on its face- the wall. The main reason why it was built was a geographical division of the city, but the final result was a clear contrast between the western life style and the Urss one. […]
The human being fears the wild nature
Taking care of the landscape. An artificial care, undertaken to the extreme. Everyone takes part to this process, as we can see from the “high line” case, where citizens stopped the demolition because that place was part of their usual. The human being feels the need to modify the landscape and to know what surrounds […]
Piazza Gae Aulenti – Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
The redevelopment of Porta Nuova in Milan, to which Piazza Gae Aulenti belongs is an urban intervention among the largest in Europe, certainly one of the most important theme in the transformation and upgrading of urban parts, a master plan that involves 20 architectural firms of eight different nationalities, a park of 150,000 square meters and the […]
50 Atmospheres of Architectural environments
This year, for the first time, Politecnico di Milano, hosted in Leonardo an exhibition for the occasion of DesignWeek14. “Finally” told students and citizens who could not stand anymore the immobility of the faculty during such events. So the school of architecture was enough to launch a call to action via email and students poured […]
Learning from Las Vegas – Venturi, Scott Brown, Izenour
Learning from Las Vegas is the title of a brave book that has been written by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour and published in 1972. As you can imagine this book caused since the beginning many controversies, starting from the title: why on earth we shoul learn from the city of sin […]
Milano DesignWeek14 – “Feeding new ideas for the City”
The city is alive , growing and evolving . This idea has led the event by Interni Magazine for Fuorisalone DesignWeek14. During this week we saw a series of meetings , ideas, visions and architectures by various designers supported by the largest companies in the industry . The facilities provided by Interiors magazine take place […]
Architecture is space not Art
Too often buildings are judged as paintings or canvases. They are defined beautiful or awful, on the basis of their superficial features, superficial meaning what appears on the surface, on the exterior. Until this confusion is made by “common people”, that only have a common educational ground, damages are limited (the history of art is […]
The big contradiction of Le Corbusier
”Contro i vecchi pilotis, un masso straripante e squarciato; contro la facciata indipendente e le finestre a nastro, muraglie da fortificazioni trafitte da strombi sghembi e flussi arcani di colore; contro velleità cartesiane, una brama virulenta di contaminazione e di kitsch; contro una tecnologia esatta e raffinati dettagli, disprezzo per i canoni della bellezza rinascimentale […]
Spatial concepts by Lucio Fontana
“When some says: I can do it too, it means he can redo it, otherwise he would have done it before” – (Bruno Munari, “Da cosa nasce cosa”, 1981). Is there anyone that, walking through a museum, has ever thought “I can do this, too” or “this is too simple” and so on? More than one […]