I'm dreaming of a highrise Christmas

[Venice underwater, via repubblica.it]

This Christmas the "acqua alta" (high water) in Venice reached 145 cm. above sea level, the 8th highest measured ever: it reminded me of a post I read some time ago, about a series of images by Studio Lindfors, in which we see New York and Tokyo after a catastrophic flood.


[Tokyo underwater, Acqualta, via studiolindfors.com]

Small boats cross the streets and avenues of the big apple, and Tokyo's neon lights reflect on the water surface; as Studio Lindfors puts it, in this imaginary cityscape dwellers will have to adapt to the new, liquid inhabitant of the metropolis.


[N-Y underwater, Acqualta, via studiolindfors.com]

It is amazing to see how Venice, even (or probably because) it is in danger, is the real and physical counterpart of the most extreme urban fantasies, and how danger or disaster can be a strong stimulus to the vitality of a city, even in terms of how do citizens perceive their own dwelling and therefore identity in a precarious place, opening up a wider range of experiments and relationship's nomadism. Just imagine to cut out the ground floor of all the buildings...


[Venice underwater, via repubblica.it]

Will we connect the whole Venice cutting an infinite corridor through all the buildings like a "passage"? Walter Benjamin would probably be happy.


[Constant's New Babylon, via BLDGBLOG]

More images of Venice's last acqua alta.

Strolling around Switzerland

I've done recently a wonderful tour through Ticino and Graubünden, two Swiss regions in which the density of architectural masterpieces is incredibly high: I came across, the recent Pritzker Price Peter Zumthor, Valerio Olgiati and Valentin Bearth in the Graubünden, and Aurelio Galfetti, Mario Botta, Raffaele Cavadini in Ticino. Just a few pics here.

53rd Venice Art Biennale, "Making Worlds"

[labiennale.org]

Fare Mondi. This year the Art Biennale is directed by Daniel Birnbaum, and it's a nice one. Here brief suggestions and hints: projects, artworks, pavilions worth to see.

In the Estonian pavilion Kristina Norman proposes "After-war", a complex project about identity in Tallin, based on the removal of a monumental statue of the "Bronze Soldier", wich represented for the russian minority the victory over Nazism. This led eventually to riots. The artist decided to replace a golden copy of the satue...
In the Italian pavilion the video installation by MASBEDO is just great: two screens that show in slow-motion the story of a woman always about to drown in the sea, and a man trying to get rid of a parachute in the snow...
Teresa Margolles in the Mexican pavilion collects blod of illegal immigrants and drug-traders killed along the Mexico-USA border, in order to use it to "paint", or to "clean" the floor of the pavilion. "What else could we talk about?"
The russian Pavel Pepperstein presents "Victory over the future", a collection of paintings, monuments in Europe till the year 5000. As an example there is the "Monument to the 3000 years of Christianity". Lots of irony and a rap soundtrack.
In Spain there are many works of the great Miquel Barcelò, no needs to say more...

Metropia and interview with Vincent Gallo

[atmo.se]

We saw today here at the Biennale the wonderful swedish animation movie Metropia: in 2024 the whole Europe will be connected with a high-speed metro system, an enormous subway between cities. The scenery is just great (lovely Berlin's Hauptbahnhof in decay!). Here a video.

Vincent Gallo give his voice to the main character, and today I interviewed him:

Vincent Vito Gallo (Buffalo 11.4.1961) is an American actor, director, painter, musician and model of Sicilian origin. Here at the 66^th Biennale in Venice he dubs the protagonist of Metropia, animation movie by Tarik Saleh: come half an hour late, Gallo, T-schirt, tight black trousers and leather boots, was very friendly in answering our questions.

[Vincent Gallo from last.fm]

In Metropia we face themes like environment's destruction, no hope for the future and apocalyptic human relationships: what is your own opinion about?

I would say that the film has its own view, which does not correspond to mine: if you just think that the sun is 8 and a half minutes away at the speed of light, you realize that all this things are just minor concerns, details. In the world there are lots of things that we do not even are able to imagine, so I direct my energies to a bigger goal.

How does this point of view influence your cinema?

Ma story is very simple: I come from a poor family, a tough experience for me; I started very pragmatically, elementary, without any artistic pretension or philosophy. My work was a way to earn some money, like when I used to wash dishes in restaurants, I was the best of New-York! Gradually I started to do a kind of performances, staring at the people eating in the restaurant, crying, and make them feel bad. To me it was an idea of “survival”: I started working in the cinema only when I was sure that I was going to be paid. Also in Buffalo 66 I was supposed to be only an actor, but when the producer offered me a better payment if I was also the director, I accepted. So I became director! That movie helped me to have a better relationship with girls too...

Do you like Italian cinema?

Years ago I used to watch many Italian, mainly in TV: after I became interested in B-movies, I like the camera movements, the photography. The problem with Italian cinema were financial aids: these work against the idea of “survival” as I said before; you have to really get involved in your movie. I took part in some Italian productions, but they lacked the genius...

Do you make music in the same way in which you make movies?

No: in the cinema everything is stressful, you have to work with a lot of professionals, lots of people; in music you can be relaxed: for instance I paint while I listen to music (Gallo was a friend of J.-M. Basquiat).

In Metropia love is a revolutionary power...

Actually I loved more things than people: for 10 years I didn't have a girlfriend, I always felt embarrassed: even now when I sleep with a girl I have the feeling that the bed does not belong entirely to me anymore, as if I couldn't reach every corner of the bed. Maybe because I had to sleep till 11 with my grandpa, who had eventually a wooden leg! So uncomfortable...

Differences in dubbing and acting?

It was easy to just give my voice to the movie: today one gives too much importance to the image, to the personal appearance; if I don't see me I cannot think “How ugly I am!”. For instance now I don't want you to take pictures because I don't like my hairstyle. (He is preparing for his next film). Anyhow I accepted Metropia because of the money they offered: even tough I never did a blockbuster, it's just because nobody offered it to me seriously.

Do you consider yourself an outsider?

We are all insiders: I would be so happy if everybody loved me: I don't know ho said that I am a difficult and hard guy...

News from Venice

[Palazzo del Cinema, image from labiennale.org]

Hi there: staying in Venice for a couple of weeks I will report news and opinions about the movies at the 66th Film Biennale. My pieces of writing will be hosted at Loudvision, together with many others.
Hope you'll enjoy.

P.S. Unfortunately everything is in italian...
P.P.S. I will also tell you something about the Art Biennale in a few days!

Olympisches Dorf, Berlin, 1936

[In the Sporthalle, Olympisches Dorf, image by Marco Capitanio]

A couple of weeks ago I went with some friends to the Olympic Village of Berlin, from the Nazi 1936 Olympic Games, the ones in which Hitler had to stand the "outrage" of seeing a black athlete, Jesse Owens, winning four gold medals in track and field.

Forgive me a bit of historical contextualization: Werner and Walter March (the former designing also the Olympiastadion, actually with some "suggestions" by Albert Speer, since Hitler did not like the original design of concrete and glass - a glass-cage) designed and built the Olympic Village between 1934 and 1936 for the Summer Games held in Berlin; the Nazis wanted to show the world their power and magnificience. The selected area layed around 10km from the city, in Dallgow-Döberitz, now Elstal: the project consisted of 140 one-storey, 5 two-storey buildings, the Hindemburg House, Kommandanten House, a sport-hall, a swimming-pool, sauna, hospital and restaurant - the House of Nations - plus kitchens. After the games in the buildings were installed a school and a militar hospital, while after the war the Soviet Army took control of the area; the Village in summer looks like a vacation-residence in Tuscany, with a number of little houses surronded by maritime pines. In fact the ground was heavily modified to create two different levels and an artificial lake was created, also bringing here some animals from the Berliner Zoo.



I found myself making comparisons with the recent Chinese Games, concerned as well on the symbiosis between power and the ways to express it through architecture: the Olympic Village of Berlin covers roughly an area of 54 hectares, while the Beijing one 66 only, if we think that the former was supposed to host 4.000 athletes, while the latter 16.000, consisting of 22 six-floor buildings and 20 nine-floor buildings, as well as a clinic, restaurants, a library, a recreation centre, gyms, swimming pools, tennis courts, basketball courts and jogging tracks.


[Beijing Olympic Village, image from inhabitat.com]

Here some pictures of the abandoned Village.

On Hitler, Hadrian, bunkers and bananas

[Look at the Brandenburger Tor and at the Reichstag: you will get the scale of the domed-hall behind. Image by Marco Capitanio]

Just in front of the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe" it is possible to visit the exhibition ]Mythos Germania[, whose main attraction is a big model of the North-South Axis designed by Albert Speer for Berlin, the supposed-to-be capital of Hitler’s Empire, Germania: I saw before a video-rendering and some images of the master plan, and honestly (considering the function of extreme monumentality) seemed to me not that bad, after all it was a boulevard connecting the stations Südkreuz and Nordbahnohf, culminating in a big domed hall; when I had a look at the model I understood I was completely wrong.
Robert Hughes titled his good documentary about Speer “Scale matters”, and this is exactly the point: apart from the “bombarding” quantity and display of architectural elements suggesting classical architecture, domination, power, from columns to eagles of stone on the rooftops, in a mixture no less than pornographic, if one looks at the Brandenburger Tor or the Reichstag, it is easy to understand why Speer’s father told him that the project completely insane. All this reminded me a passage of Richard Sennett’s marvelous book “Flesh and Stone” about the Roman Empire and Emperors’ power:

Nero bequeathed to Hadrian a cautionary tale about rulers who nakedly display their power, yet “the emperor was what the emperor did”, in the words of the historian Ferguson Millar. Making daunting, impressive buildings was among the most important of these acts, for the emperor’s own prestige and for the Empire; through their buildings, the emperors literally constructed their legitimacy in the eyes of their subjects.

Hadrian was able to built impressively but nicely, he built the Pantheon: if Hitler was able to realize Germania I suspect that he would have followed Nero’s fate, who, after building his Domus Aurea gained just the hatred and voluntary oblivion of the Romans.


[Boros-Bunker, image via architonic.com]

Near Friedrichstrasse there is one of the most famous and visible bunkers of Berlin: built in 1943, used by the DDR as deposit for bananas, since the temperature and humidity were perfect for the fruit to become ripe (I can already imagine the advertisement of the “Bunker Banana”), turned in a Club known (not so originally but effective) as “The Bunker”, with even more darkrooms than the Berghain. Because it was built so late, on the facade there are many decorative elements, in case it would be kept for further use, as actually happened. In 2003 the building was bought by Christian Boros, who appointed "Realarchitektur" to renovate and transform the building, with the idea of hosting there his private collection of contemporary art. Booking some 3 months in advance it is possible with 10 euros to visit the collection and the building with a guide, in groups of 10 people: if the works of art are not masterpieces the bunker-experience is really worth. Originally there were five floors, each 2,30 m. high, so the architect had to cut the slabs to create double heights and spaces more apt to host works of art and to mitigate the suffocating and oppressing feeling of such low ceilings. The construction of the bunker in 1943 took one year, 7 months of which were spent only to build the roof, a 3 m. thick armed-concrete slab; the transformation of the building was obviously longer and more complicated lasting something like 4 years. Another curiosity: the stairs are doubled, following a principle developed by Leonardo and employed in the Chambord Castle, in order to provide access to the double of users.