mercoledì 27 gennaio 2016

Shalechet – Foglie cadute

Shalechet - Photo F. Barilari
C'è un'opera, all'interno del Jewish Museum dell'architetto Daniel Libeskind a Berlino, che è in perfetta simbiosi con quel capolavoro. Si intitola "Shalechet", "Foglie cadute", di Menashe Kadishman
Meriterebbe da sola il viaggio a Berlino.

Entrando, da sotto terra - perchè è così che l'architetto ha scelto che si entrasse in questo luogo - si comincia a sentire un rumore di catene. 
Ci sono diversi spazi vuoti nel museo, perchè è proprio il Vuoto, il tema centrale di questa incredibile architettura.
Solo dopo aver girato un angolo molto stretto, ci si trova in uno di questi Vuoti, e questo è l'unico nel quale si può accedere.  

In questo Vuoto, sul pavimento ci sono 10.000 maschere di ferro, di tutte le dimensioni. Tagliate una per una, nel ferro spesso e pesante; arrugginite e usurate.
Si è invitati a camminare in quel Vuoto, su quelle maschere, che sotto il peso dei passi producono quel suono di catene e si trasformano poco per volta in volti. 

Nel sito di Menashe Kadishman si può sentire quel suono.

Si cammina in modo instabile, perché sono volti spessi, accatastati uno sopra l'altro ma liberi di spostarsi; e l'instabilità che procura camminare su quei volti o maschere, non è solo fisica.
Difficile spiegare quanto faccia sentire pesante ogni passo che si fa. E' un'opera che va vissuta personalmente. 

Si cominciano a notare i volti più piccoli, quelli con un'espressione più sofferente, si cominciano a notare i dettagli, e si sente la voglia di uscire dalla sala presto.

F. Barilari - The Axis of Continuity

Proseguendo lungo uno dei tre assi principali del museo, si arriva alla Torre dell'Olocausto. In questo ambiente, spiegò Libeskind, bisognava entrare spostando una porta pesante in ferro e quello spazio doveva restare cieco: la Torre doveva far entrare il freddo o il caldo e i rumori dall'esterno, ma impedendone la vista.

Ho visitato più volte questo edificio ma nell'ultima occasione mi sono trovato li verso il tramonto e ho notato per la prima volta quest'ombra che si muoveva, proveniente dagli alberi che circondano la Torre all'esterno.
Si allungava progressivamente e in poco tempo è scomparsa, ma in quel breve lasso di tempo, questo dettaglio ha cambiato radicalmente la mia percezione di quello spazio.

Ho letto dopo, che fu solo a lavori iniziati che Libeskind pensò di aggiungere una piccolissima fenditura proprio in cima, sulla base del racconto di una persona che visse quella condizione.

Jewish Museum - Photo F. Barilari

F. Barilari - The Jewish Museum in Berlin: Sketches


Jewish Museum - Berlin

BETWEEN THE LINES _ Daniel Libeskind project brief 

"The official name of the project is the 'Extension of the Berlin Museum with the Jewish Museum Department," but I have called it 'Between the Lines.'

I call it this because it is a project about two lines of thinking, organization and relationship. One is a straight line, but broken into many fragments; the other is a tortuous line, but continuing infinitely. These two lines develop architecturally and programmatically through a limited but definite dialogue. They also fall apart, become disengaged, and are seen as separated. In this way, they expose a void that runs through this museum and through architecture, a discontinuous void.

The site is the center of the old city of Berlin on Lindenstrasse near the famous baroque intersection of Wilhelmstraße, Friedrichstraße and Lindenstraße. At the same time, I felt that the physical trace of Berlin was not the only trace, but rather that there was an invisible matrix or anamnesis of connections in relationship. I found this connection between figures of Germans and Jews: between the particular history of Berlin, and between the Jewish history of Germany and of Berlin. I felt that certain people and particularly certain writers, scientists, composers, artists and poets formed the link between Jewish tradition and German culture. So I found this connection and I plotted an irrational matrix which was in the form of a system of squared triangles which would yield some reference to the emblematics of a compressed and distorted star: the yellow star that was so frequently worn on this very site. I looked for addresses of where these people lived or where they worked, for example someone like Rachel Varnhagen I connected to Friedrich Schleiermacher, and Paul Celan to someone like Mies van der Rohe and so on, and I was quite surprised that it was not so difficult to hear and plot the address that these people made: That they formed a particular urban and cultural constellation of Universal History. So that is one aspect of the project.

Another aspect was Arnold Schönberg. I was always interested in the music of Schönberg and in particular his period in Berlin. His greatest work is an opera called 'Moses and Aaron' which he could not complete. For some reason the logic of the text, which was the relationship between Moses and Aaron, between, one can say, the revealed and unimaginable truth and the spoken and mass-produced people's truth led to an impasse in which the music, the text written by Schönberg could not be completed. In the end, Moses doesn't sing, he just speaks "oh word, thou word" and one can understand it actually as a text as opposed to the norm of opera whose performance usually obliterates the text. When there is singing one cannot understand the words, but when there is no more singing, one can understand very well the missing word which is uttered by Moses, which is the call for the deed. So that was the second aspect. 

I did a third thing. I was interested in the names of those people who were deported from Berlin during the fatal years, the Holocaust, that one knows only historically. I received from Bonn two very large volumes called 'Gedenkbuch' - they are incredibly impressive because all they contain are names, just names, dates of birth, dates of deportation and presumed places where these people were murdered. So I looked for the names of all the Berliners and where they had died - in Riga, in Lodz, in all the concentration camps. So this was the third aspect. 

The 4th aspect of the project is formed by Walter Benjamin's One Way Street. This aspect is incorporated into the continuous sequence of 60 sections along the zig-zag, each of which represents one of the 'Stations of the Star' described in the text of Walter Benjamin's apocalypse of Berlin.

To summarize this four-fold structure: The first aspect is the invisible and irrationally connected star which shines with absent light of individual address. The second one is the cut of Act 2 of Moses and Aaron which has to do with the not-musical fulfillment of the word. The third aspect is that of the deported or missing Berliners, the 4th aspect is Walter Benjamin's urban apocalypse along the One Way Street.

The building goes under the existing building, crisscrosses underground and materializes itself independently on the outside. The existing building is tied to the extension Underground, preserving the contradictory autonomy of both the old building and the new building on the surface, while binding the two together in depth, underground. Out of the terminus of history, which is nothing other than the Holocaust with its concentrated space of annihilation and complete burn-out of meaningful development of the city, and of humanity - out of this event which shatters this place comes that which cannot really be given by architecture.

The past fatality of the German Jewish cultural relation in Berlin is enacted now in the realm of the invisible. (It is this remoteness which I have tried to bring to consciousness.)

The work is conceived as a museum for all Berliners, for all Citizens. Not only those of the present, but those of the future and the past who should find their heritage and hope in this particular place, which is to transcend involvement and become participation.

With its special emphasis on housing the Jewish Museum, it is an attempt to give a voice to a common fate - to the contradictions of the ordered and disordered, the chosen and not chosen, the vocal and silent.

Absence, therefore serves as a way of binding in depth, and in a totally different manner, the shared hopes of people. It is a conception which is absolutely opposed to reducing the museum or architecture to a detached memorial or to a memorable detachment. A conception, rather, which re-integrates Jewish/ Berlin History through the unhealable wound of faith, which in the words of Thomas Aquinus, is the "substance of things hoped for; proof of things invisible."

Daniel Libeskind _ Between the Lines, conceptual plan - 1989

F. Barilari - Jewish Museum

F. Barilari - Jewish Museum

F. Barilari - Jewish Museum

F. Barilari - Jewish Museum

F. Barilari - Jewish Museum

F. Barilari - Jewish Museum


F. Barilari - Jewish Museum

lunedì 18 gennaio 2016

A short, intense art history

 
Heroes / Helden _ David Bowie (*)

In the beginning, Warhol created The Factory.

Then he created the Exploding Plastic Inevitable
Then he produced first Velvet Underground album.
It was in New York, and it was 1967.

Sunday Morning was the opening act of the band.
Warhol imposed Nico on the band, and they didn't want her.
Then Lou Reed had a story with Nico.
That was after her story with Brian Jones.

And Nico acted in La Dolcevita, playing herself.
Brian Jones founded the Rolling Stones and died at the age of 27.
The slide guitar intro in No Expectations was his last testament.

Then David Bowie saved Lou Reed from self destruction.
And Bowie produced Transformer
And Lou Reed wrote Walk on the Wild Side.

David Bowie and Debbie Harry were friends.
And Blondie and Basquiat were friends as well.

Basquiat occasionally earned money as a male prostitute.
He appeared in Blondie's Rapture video, at min 1.53.
Rapture was the first rap to top the charts.
Then Basquiat founded a Noise Rock band called Gray.

Basquiat met Andy Warhol at a restaurant.
Basquiat "SAMO" and Keith Haring were both street artists and friends of Warhol.
Then Warhol made Oxidation: a denigrating urine portrait of Basquiat.
And Basquiat died at age 27 for overdose.
And then Bowie performed Andy Warhol in the film "Basquiat".

Lou Reed wrote beautiful poems about whores, transvestites and heroin.
Then he met Laurie Anderson and later became a Tai Chi master.
Then he married Laurie Anderson, for good.

Bob Dylan didn't like Warhol and The Factory.
He had a story with Warhol's muse, Edie Sedgwick.
Edie was the Factory Girl before Nico.
And inspired poems such as Like a Rolling Stone and Just like a woman,
And inspired Femme Fatale.
Then she committed suicide at age 28.

David Bowie saved Iggy Pop as well.
That was from a psychiatric hospital.
That was after The Stooges.
Then he produced his first album.
Then Iggy Pop wrote Lust for Life with his friend.
And Bowie, Iggie and Reed shared the same flat in Berlin
That was in 1976.
And Lou Reed wrote Berlin.
And Bowie wrote a german Heroes for Christiane F.

Everything started in NY in the late 60's.
And there was much more.

Then Lou Reed wrote New York.


Post Scriptum:
Later, Laurie Anderson presented Diller&Scofidio and their "Aberrant architecture".
At that time, Diller&Scofidio was the most advanced interdisciplinary design studio in NY.
And today, together with Renfro, they are transforming NY.

Post Scriptum #2 (*):
It's interesting to notice this constantly increasing level of censorship along the media, so that the powerful, beautiful, dystopian version of "Heroes" by David Bowie, coming from the multi-awarded, generational film "Christiane F", which I choose to act as the intro of this post, has been nowday considered destibilizing for our young generations.

Andy Warhol

Lou Reed and Nico

Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico at Le Bataclan

Nico

Basquiat

Basquiat and Keith Haring

Lou Reed

Debbie "Blondie" Harry and David Bowie

Basquiat

Debbie "Blondie" Harry

David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed

Iggy Pop, David Bowie and ladies

Iggy Pop and Lou Reed

Keith Haring

Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan (and Elvis)

Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed

Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan

sabato 16 gennaio 2016

Alejandro Aravena e PREVI


Nei giorni scorsi all'architetto chileno Alejandro Aravena (1967) è stato assegnato il Pritzker Prize, il premio Nobel dell'architettura. 

Aravena è un architetto che seguo da molti anni e tra i motivi del premio, figura il suo contributo a temi vicini al progetto presentato in questo video. Si tratta di un progetto pilota nato nel 1965 a Lima, in Perù, patrocinato dall'ONU (l'agenzia UN-Habitat sarebbe nata solo nel 1977) e intitolato PREVI (Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda) al quale vennero invitati a collaborare alcuni tra i più importanti architetti dell'epoca, nazionali ed internazionali, specializzati in edilizia residenziale e sociale.

Era un progetto urbano di edilizia residenziale di grande qualità, ma a bassissimo costo per il governo, che mirava a garantire i requisiti essenziali minimi ad ognuno degli alloggi e alla nuova città nel suo insieme. 
Si parla di Micro-economia.

Questo video presenta i risultati a distanza di circa 40 anni - che poi è il tempo minimo sul quale andrebbero analizzate le opere di urbanistica.

Il progetto lo trovate raccontato qui PREVI: The Metabolist Utopia

In questo processo, così come nei progetti di Aravena. sono state coinvolte le comunità nelle decisioni da prendere e sono state lasciate aperte delle possibilità ad ampliamenti, modifiche e personalizzazioni future, in funzione delle mutate esigenze, della crescita del numero dei componenti o dei miglioramenti delle condizioni economiche delle famiglie alle quali vengono assegnati gli alloggi. 

Nel caso di PREVI-Lima, si trattò di un progetto patrocinato dall'ONU mentre nel caso del progetto Elemental di Aravena, con alloggi realizzati a 7500$, si tratta di un processo locale. 
Il progetto PREVI-Lima nacque in un'epoca in cui l'agenzia dell'ONU aveva una autorevolezza ed un peso specifico che oggi ha perso per strada. Solo 12 anni più tardi, nel 1977, sarebbe nata UN-Habitat: l'agenzia dell'ONU specificamente dedicata alle questioni abitative e di sviluppo urbano.

Una considerazione personale: stiamo di fatto procedendo a vele gonfie, verso una forma di società che presenta i Faraoni con le loro piramidi iper-performanti da un lato e gommoni da recuperare in mare aperto dall'altro. 
Personalmente penso che sia anche un bene che coesistano urbanistica dal basso e impianti faraonici; edilizia spontanea e progettazione che mira al capolavoro. In fin dei conti è grazie a questo tipo di coesistenza che possiamo passeggiare per Siena o Venezia e avere l'impressione di sperimentare degli angoli di paradiso. 
L'importante è avere la consapevolezza di ciò che accade.
Sempre quest'anno, Aravena è stato nominato direttore della prossima Biennale di Venezia, nella sezione Architettura: mi sembra un bel segnale e sarà interessante vedere quali risultati porterà.

Ricordo un'ottima conferenza di un maestro, Giancarlo De Carlo, nella quale raccontava di vivere la professione dell'architetto come una professione transitoria, in attesa che le persone comuni potessero ricominciare a costruirsi le case con le proprie mani.

Elemental - Arch. A. Aravena

Elemental - Arch. A. Aravena

domenica 10 gennaio 2016

Paint it Black


Creativity walks on its own paths.

  • Paint it Black was first released on the 6 May 1966

  • There was no specific inspiration for the lyrics. When asked at the time why he wrote a song about death and depression, Jagger replied: “I don’t know. It’s been done before. It’s not an original thought by any means. It all depends on how you do it.”

  • The song's lyrics are mainly meant to describe bleakness and depression through the use of colour-based metaphors 

  • “Paint It Black” became associated with the Vietnam War due to its use in the ending credits of Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket

  • Jagger got the line “I turn my head until my darkness goes” from James Joyce’s Ulysses

  • Ronnie Wood disclosed that Keith Richards has trouble remembering how to play this song: “We always have this moment of hesitation where we don’t know if Keith’s going to get the intro right.”

  • Brian Jones, overshadowed by Jagger and Richards, meant to explore eastern instruments. A natural multi-instrumentalist, Jones was able to develop a tune from the sitar in a short amount of time, not long after a discussion with George Harrison who had recently recorded sitar in Norwegian Wood

  • “Paint It, Black” is one of the tunes they no longer control, as they sold its rights during the Sixties, to the ex-manager Allen Klein

  • Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Peter Tosh - 1978. Photo by Peter Simon