THE BRIGHT SIDE OF A MONUMENT

Seeing this BBC Video this morning about Cent Quatre in Paris I found myself thinking once again the huge subject of how preexisting pieces of art and architecture in a city can influence and be integrated in contemporary proposals of uses or interventions. Coming from a country where preexistence in Architecture often ends up being a burden, this kind of ideas in a successful form give me hope! 

But most important, the video and the city of Paris, reminded me of a great experience I had last year there. It was last February, that I had the amazing chance to be in the Musee du Louvre for the first time in my life on a Friday night, and attend  a dance performance by the Ballet National de Marseille, under the direction of Frederic Flamand, taking place in between the monuments of the Museum! Can you imagine the feeling of being able to walk in between some of the world’s greatest pieces of art, while the Museum was actually closed to the public, and at the same time watch contemporary dance performances taking place simultaneusly at different halls… The story was completed by the fact that the performaces where accompanied by a live Video session by Fabiano Spano ,a young architect from Italy and very good friend of mine. Dancers, projection and statues all at the same time. Amazing colours, music and the dynamic of bodies moving. I cannot imagine of a better way of making a monument take life!

fotos: Fabiano Spano and Sara Guerrini

and here you have a video on a previous work of Fabiano Spano combining video with dance.

Villa FAB-ulosa

One of the things children love to do is to create their personal world. That is exactly what Villa FAB-ulosa did, using high end technology. In other words… how can we make digital fabrication easy to perceive and pleasently useful in everyday life? Make children use it! And be sure that they will learn fast. A first trial of that concept was carried out on a Sunday afternoon in FAB-LAB Barcelona,   when a dozen of 11 year-old boys had the opportunity to laser cut their own press-fit houses, assemble them, and then decorate them using stencils with their names that they fabricated by themselves. The mini workshop was led by Tomas Diez with my assistance and it was a first, recyclable effort to make an inspiring interchange between heavy machinery and innocent creativity. Of course they were all very keen on listening to how the process works, and enjoyed every bit of it. By the end of the show though, the winner was once again…football !!!

Light and Geometry:case studies_Coop Himmelab(l)au+Tadao ando

Academic essay
NTUA 2006
Tutor: Andreas Kourkoulas

The comparative study of two buildings from important contemporary architects, The Church Of The Light by Tadao Ando and the UFA Cinema Center by Coop Himmelb(l)au, in relation to the use of light, gives us the opportunity to understand how they conceive the interaction of geometry with light and in what way do their buildings materialize it.
Tadao Ando in his Church creates a “Magic Box” of concrete where with only three main gestures he preserves dim light in the building and at the same time reveals the different qualities of light and shadow from non-material to absolute materiality. That way, through the bursting and dimming of light, he re-invents the substantial ingredients of the relation of man to God and he gives us a space rich in symbolism that transports the user to a transcending reality.
Coop Himmelb(l)au, in their Cinema Center, through the use of complicated geometries create a building that, like a deformed diamond, changes form and gives different shadows in relation to the passing of time and the viewer’s position, just like a real kaleidoscope. The result is a building which, due to its deliberate lack of order, “plays” with the light without forming clear limits and it inserts the user in an environment somewhere between reality and illusion.

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