The ThinkND Podcast
The ThinkND Podcast
Restoring Reason, Beauty, and Trust in Architecture, Part 12: Words and Images
Arduino Cantàfora, born in Milan in 1945, is a renowned painter and architect whose work bridges the realms of art and architecture. Initially trained as a copyist of Caravaggio, Cantàfora mastered the technical aspects of oil painting, blending his fascination with anatomy and organic forms with his architectural studies at the Politecnico of Milan. His career highlights include his participation in La Tendenza, an architectural movement that reintroduced 20th-century rationalism, and his exhibitions at major international venues such as the Triennale di Milano, Biennale di Venezia, and Centre Pompidou. Cantàfora’s creations span from large-scale paintings to stage designs for prestigious opera houses, and his academic contributions include teaching positions at IUAV in Venice, Mendrisio, and EPFL in Lausanne, where he held the chair of visual expression. His work continues to inspire with its distinct Caravaggesque influences and imaginative architectural representations.
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Good evening everybody. It is my pleasure and honor to welcome and give a short introduction to our distinguished lecturer. Aino can an architect, painter, educator, and poet who traveled not only from another continent, but from another world, a poetical, mythical universe of imaginary places of memory, silence, and resilience. Depicted, insisting and beautiful in his magnificent paintings. Arduino Canals work has become to be forever present on my mind. It has stirred up ideas and feelings and the deep craving for the antique since my early days as an architecture student. Let me, however, note here, to not be misunderstood. Of the antique is neither an archeological nor an art collector's one, but as suggested in Italian language, a time beyond temporal time, a medical time spanning through history and beyond, through history and beyond an antique timelessness forever present in the collective memory of humanity. I like to also to call it an imaginary antiquity. Arduino canta for drawings and paintings have indeed had an in obsessive ri apni. I discovered with all the intense poet affinity with this architecture of emotional reason, which has become a constant aspiration and inspiration in my own work and those of many of my colleagues. I came across Reno's work quite serendipitously by chance or by accident. In a moment of great cultural confusion, both profession and academy apparently lost interest in architecture as an arts and traditional, classical and modern masters and masterworks had equally been evicted from academia. There was no role model nor master, no inspirational star architect. Even we could reach out as students for consolation or guidance. There were libraries, however, and the pleura of excellent magazines evidently read by students. It is there where I came across the Italian za, a movement which took much inspiration from historical precedence and the intelligence of architecture, topology and urban morphology. Arrived from the tangible time tested and experienceable reality of surviving historical cities, a deser where many new voices and talents emerged out of a wide and diverse movement, appealing to both practical reason and the refreshed sense of the antique, spearheaded by architects like Aldo, Giorgio Grassi, Massimo Coi, as well as Rob and cle and Arduino. KRA was among this group of early pioneers of awakening from the D of Postwar postwar modernism. I only met Awin can very recently in Milan, however, more than four years later to enjoy a private tour of his exhibition at the Caia. Cons. I finally got to see the original draft of the fabulous and legendary Chita Anga of the 15th of Milano. Organized by and Aino can was so gracious to offer a copy of this painting as a gift, which you can see in our, exhibition space. This all happened so serendipitously logically necessarily, and naturally. Thanks to the gracious and elegant logistical choreography of Ana Kra who presides over her father's remarkable culture and artistical leg legacy. I can still vividly record the moment when I saw first saw drawings by never imagining in my life I would have a chance of meeting him in person. And I truly believe it's to be it to be a miracle that adrenal can for sitting right. In front of us, eager to have his lecture presented. we have a wonderful grad student, John Glisen, who will, read the lecture and, we, we will, take question afterwards and translate if that's necessary. If the body language is not enough, please join me to welcome a our distinguished lecture. Thank you.
3:Good morning everyone. It is a great honor for me to be here today at University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dean Stefanos, to associate Dean Samir Unes for invite, inviting me to give this lecture to Lucian style, the driving force behind this heaven for the friendship that binds us, and to Carrie Ley, David Slen and Jane, us and John Gleason. A meeting for which I have the desire, especially since I am addressing students to briefly recount the journey of a life my life. I find what happens behind the scenes. It is interesting to understand what helps to build how framework or references and mental infrastructure that enables certain choices. I do not intend to give you recipes, but two, emphasize the importance of consistency in choices and following a guide tree. It's important to know our references and have a supportive and to, and now John Gleason kindly take my plight place and becomes my voice in English. Thank you, Joan. Thank you. Thank you very much, so much.
4:It's a privilege.
5:I'll begin right where our distinguished guest left off, and again, it's my privilege to present your, your pre-prepared remarks this evening. I would like to ask this evening together with you to summon four words and ask them for the etymological meaning they contain because they are very, very important to us. I start with a little provocation for this. Behind the scenes game. I take a shell, I. Olivia porphyria, Olivia for its shape and porphyria because it bears red. Nature surprises us with the Fibonacci sequence and the Edan spiral. The same laws that apply from shells to galaxies. It is extraordinary that this principle exists. The shell is full of triangles as if drawn by a plotter, and each shell has its unique code. It lives in deep waters between the Gulf of California and Peru, and its pattern tell its life and its patterns tell its life story, a mystery that connects us to nature. This is a fundamental aspect. Nature keeps us on our toes, allowing us to make hypotheses without ever revealing everything. Now, a very brief reading from The Souls Code by James Hillman. In the fifth chapter of Memories, dreams, reflections, Yung speaks of a dream he had during a trip to the United States with Freud in 1909, known as the dream of the two skulls. This dream marked his separation from Freud and shows his house with two floors, the upper floor in Rococo style, the lower floor in Renaissance and medieval style, and then a cave with archaic remains, and two human skulls for you. The dream represented the word, the world of the image, the dream represented, excuse me, the history of civilization in the human psyche, highlighting the existence of a collective apriori and archetypes. I find this passage fundamental. We are a mixture of voluntary and involuntary forms. The archetypes are behind us with us and structure much of our communication. In this sense, everything is image. It goes from the word, the term to the sign. The drawing in Latin image is imago. It is always good to delve into etymologies of Greek and Latin languages to grasp their deeper meaning. Unfortunately, we cannot go back to when a mirror tilt to the head a breath was enough to something. That was the beginning of this desire to communicate with each other. I once read something very beautiful that said that everything related to heights is expressed with a sibilant language. Like for example, the sky. While everything that belongs to the problematic depths, like the enigma takes shape in guttural sounds. From here, evidently, a whole world opens around the meaning of sounds at the origins in the Acadian language, one of the foundational languages of Indo-European roots with Sumerian in the geographical district between the induce and the Euphrates. IMU means drawing ITU contour, nu new seal, image symbol allegory. The image is something that certifies, it has the power to give us indications. The image of myself through which I can cross borders is my passport. It is not me. It is what I can claim today. I am according to an image that certifies with respect to a state what the state has defined, that I must be the world of the image is this. It is not the thing in itself. It is not the shell, but it is the image of the shell. With the image of the shell, I can allow myself to imagine just by pronouncing its name or drawing a picture of it. According to my culture, my way of being, I can invent a whole story around the meaning of the shell and everything that follows Magee's. 1934 Painting expresses this concept well, indeed, we are not looking at a pipe, but its image. Incidentally, our brain is not capable of thinking in the negative, but it's compelled to refer to the thing itself as soon as we think of it. In this specific case, I cannot think of a non pipe, and this applies to everything or ego. First we saw Imago, and now we find Orgo regarding archetypes. Orgo font. The origin is the spring that gushes from the rock isn't an extraordinary image. The origin signifies the act of coming to life and is represented by the primordial gushing that history of sum that continue, excuse me. The origin signifies the act of coming to life and is represented by the primordial gushing that continues to repeat itself. The original act is not relegated to a distant time. It is always present and always identical to itself. Water. The vital force goes together with the verb that shapes the word. The verb is to rise. We orient ourselves in life and the east is the gaze towards the cardinal point of the east where the sun rises. Oreo and Origo are present in our thoughts and actions. An example is Rafael's School of Athens, where Plato holds the tenus in one hand and with the other points, his index finger upwards, symbolizing metaphysical concepts, the index finger so-called because it derives from the Mesopotamian prefects. Deak is the finger that points and communicates from which the Greek verb demi to show and decay justice originate from this verbs like to say, indicate and dedicate even the German word deum, poetry, associates poetry with a song speech linked to justice and truth. Aristotle, on the other hand, holds the ethics in one hand and points towards the ground with the other where ethics materializes in human behavior. And here is DK Justice. I like to remember the verb to fame, which comes from the Latin fre. Today it means to stimulate, but originally it meant to shape like building a wall of clay with your hands. Perhaps finger derives from this primitive meaning even hand might derive from an archaic Latin term. Preceding Manus, the beginning of bottle air's poem the albatross, often for amusement sailors, apprehend albatrosses seems strange to me that it was not capture, but it is pre. Meaning with hands, our expressions are linked to ancient times. This makes me feel part of a vast world aware of being a small thing formed by all that has preceded us. Renee Mag's 1934 Painting, ion Humane very effectively expresses this interplay of images. The image in the painting, one multiplies, multiplies, simulating an exterior, and two, in contrast to an interior three in which a painting four depicted on a canvas represents the portion of the landscape hidden by the painting on the easel. The whole piece speaks to the human condition, which is compelled in order to understand, to continually refer to the dimension of images, whether drawn or written. Read or spoken or all of these combined. This is a land art installation installation by Richard Long from 1974. A line made by walking a path created by walking back and forth. The round trip is the existential journey in which if I keep to the trace, I know where I'm going. If I stray from the path, something will disintegrate and I will get lost. In short, I can lose myself in labyrinth. Drawing nature like Albert Dur in this extraordinary watercolor is remarkable. In the early 15 hundreds, the tuft of grass depicts dandelion Kentucky bluegrass. Plantain plantago major and grasses in this humble fragment of earth dur can conveys the complexity of nature With love today, a photograph could replace it, but dedicating time to drawing helps when understand better. Imagine juror while doing it just as when he draws the stag beetle in combat. As we see here, the same analytical intensity is found in Leonardo da Vinci's drawings from that period, another dandelion can be seen in this image. It's a photo I took in Luon in a place where nature doesn't care about the context, it grows regardless, as long as there is a bit of water, even next to a bottle. Cigarette butts and squala disorder. It must exist that tiny seed must germinate, must assert its indispensable, vital impulse. This is nature as the world suggests. It belongs to the world of the born, another tenacious and resilient plant. The AC canthus. There are seven species in nature like the dandelion. It is an energetic and vital leaf, and in particular, among the seven one a canthus osis involuntarily performs a small, great miracle. Here we see it transformed into an architectural form in the Corinthian capital. In a Roman temple of Maison Re in memes, France. It becomes marble. It becomes an architectural form. It does so because behind every object, every formed shape, there are wonderful stories. There are tales, there are fables, there are myths. And one of these concerns, the AC Canthus in the fourth book of Vitruvius, the birth of the Corinthian capital is narrated a story of love and respect. A young girl who died prematurely is visited by her nurse who leaves a basket with her cherished items on the grave, covering it with a tile to protect it, and a cantus seed grows around the basket. The sculptor Kama seeing the scene, sketches it, creating the Corinthian capital associated with the female figure legends give meaning to forms. The ionic capital recalls the elegant Athenian hairstyle, while the Doric evokes the male body, creating a structural grid with defined roles. The shape of the AC canthus leaf will be found in various forms throughout the centuries. One just needs to observe carefully. Here I am with my cousin at the age of 18 months. It's a detail of the house where I was born. I wasn't aware of it at the moment, but behind me, there's something that recaptures the harmony of the ac canthus leaf. It's true. The world is a vast thing and very complex. We are like in deco's painting the two archeologists, a sort of mee mee, few of layers of conflicts in an intricate existential complexity. Another great architect, an engraver of the 18th century, always signed himself as a Venetian architect and gave a modern meaning to ruins. He revived the image of the Imago Orbi or form Orbi within the P intra of Rome, creating during the of Septus Severus from 2 0 3 to two 11 ad a large map of the city engraved on marble slabs. Originally, it measured 13 by 18 meters and consisted of 150 slabs, but only a 10th remains fragmented into about 1,270 pieces. Pi etchings emphasize the fragmented and disperse nature of the work where the voids are as significant as the filled spaces. His vision suggests that the void is an important. Is as important as the filled space and is up to, and it is up to us to reconstruct it and give it new meaning. Our history, human history makes me think of other times, other cataclysms, similar to the geological history seen in the formation of bretches. These are composed of volcanic fragments, immobilized in calcium carbonate sediment sediments, creating new and unpredictable geometries here too. Fragments of older broken units come together. We had discussed the image in a general sense. Up until now. We'll now focus on two types of images specific to the world of representation, the shadow and the mirror. In fact, they're the very foundation of it. larva anima anus. Psyche monic support makes the memory of the absent present resemblance and verticality ilon colossus, ghost head, white shadow soul statue dead black shadow the double severance of light reflection in painting Umbra spectrum speculum spect to look. The etymological link between the shadow and viewing the reflected image is evident and constructs the insoluble binomial that exists between the two. Speaking of one indirectly evokes the other. Every representation refers to this. The gaze is the staring point that holds them. The gaze is something extremely complex, which involves not only the eyes, but also encompasses an entire sensory sensitivity that converges there. In a certain sense, sometimes we see more with our nose and ears than with our eyes. It is no coincidence that sometimes we see much more with our eyes closed than with our eyes open. I really like this image by Robert Flood, a 17th century intellectual and member of the, IANS born in 1574. Flood was a physician, alchemist and astrologer influenced by f Fino. And Para. In 1617 in his work Historia, he presents an image symbolizing the darkness of interstellar spaces and inter depths enclosed in a small square with the inscription at seek in infinitum, and so on to infinity. This representation synthesizes the mystery of the macro and the microcosmos illustrated With a copper engraving light, traveling at 300,000 kilometers a second is visible only when it hits reflective particles allowing life on earth. The shadow has symbolic importance as Plato shows us in the allegory of the cave. Humanity is chained in a cave, seeing only shadows projected on a wall, and believing them to be reality. We are slaves to these projections, unable to recognize the deception, the icon of foray project, the shadows. But if we have the courage to go beyond these conventions, we can see the light behind them. However, to reach the true truth, we must leave the cave and its systems. This idea is beautifully represented in an engraving by Peter s Roddam, a 17th century Dutch painter, known for his paintings of post reformation Protestant temples. Here is a key image that tells the myth of the bird of drawing and sculpture, the legend of the projected shadow, a symbol of presence and memory of an absence. The 25th book of Natural History. Pliny tells the daughter of a potter bot, who in trance, who trance the shadow of a sleeping young man on the wall to preserve his memory, trace the shadow of a sleeping young man on the wall to preserve his memory, excuse me, as illustrated in a painting by right of derby, the light of a fireplace illuminated the scene. Imagining what followed the potter, covered the outline with clay, fired it and brought it to the temple as a remembrance of a hero, the stick and the dog are clues to the sacrifice of the young man. Thus, a personal memory becomes a collective memory. In the temple, the Greek colossus, an act of love, marks the mythical origin of drawing. Here's the story depicted in a painting by Marillo. A slight variation in which an artist is tracing the profile of the shadow, A shadow that he himself is projecting. It's yet another repetition of the myth because it is important to remember things, so it is necessary to repeat them. We do not waste our time by repeating here it is again. However, it's a girl who does it in a completely different context. Here is a radical change in the meaning of a projected shadow represented by Martin Emre, a 16th century Dutch painter. In 1533, Emre paints St. Luke depicting the Virgin Mary with child in a classical context with architecture and sculptures in perspective. Traditionally sacred images were RK ton not made by human hands, but inspired by divine love. Here. However, the painter's hand projects its shadow on the painting, claiming the creative act as his own. This marks a change in the status of a painter who asserts himself as creator no longer excluded from the major arts of the trivium and quadrivium, the room of Vasari's house in Florence. In the room of Vasari's house in Florence, one can see even more Wow. In the room of Vassar, of Vasari's house in Florence, one can see even more. Vasari, as you know, is not only a painter, but also the theorist who in a certain sense inaugurated art history as we understand it today. The one who made the classification from Otto to Michelangelo. Michelangelo, of course, is at the top of the scale and here in the Fresco, Vasari himself depicts the artist tracing his own shadow on the wall. The trace of an external hand. The hand of the potter's daughter has become the hand of the artist, aware of his own art. The mirror and the double. The one who looks can now look at himself. Gaze, mirror, image, reflected. Body, soul, psyche, time form, death, aeros, thanatos, language, time being other, and self difference in identity. Relationship with appearance,
4:image, origin, shadow.
5:Alice crosses the mirror, which carries significant myths in our culture such as that of ssis. Of Reus. The Titans deceived ionis with gifts, including a mirror seeing himself reflected with his face covered in white powder. Dionisis recognizes himself and at that moment the titans tear him apart and scatter him. Zeus in grief orders a polish to recover his brother's pieces, the SEMA of his brother, and to recompose the soma in the SEMA of the tomb, the place of memory and the birth of architecture. This mythical event symbolizes knowledge and identification with a context to acquire belonging to the ORIC tradition of the Ellucian Mysteries. Another fundamental mythical episode for understanding the importance of mirrors is the death of Medusa narrated in AVID's metamorphosis. Perseus, the Athenian hero confronts Medusa, whose hair is made of snakes and whose gaze turns people to stone. Perseus avoids looking at her directly and uses the reflection of his shiny shield to locate her position and decapitate her. Medusa represents death, and in Greek literature, the sun and death are the two things that cannot be looked at directly without blinding oneself or going mad. We have narcissus. The myth of narcissus told by vid in the metamorphosis is one of the most beautiful PA pages in literature. Narcissus is a handsome and lively young man, unaware of his own beauty. He ignores the love of echo, reducing her to a mere voice. SIUs had predicted that Narcissus would live until he recognized himself one day, arriving at an untouched spring, Narcissus sees his reflection in the clear water and as in the car of Argi, painting falls in love with it. Without knowing it as his own image trying to grasp it, he wastes away and finally realizes the truth, saying, this is me. He lets himself go until death. The myth reflects the unattainability of our reflected image, a theme of self-knowledge and introspection. When narcissist dies, the mourning nymphs prepare. Prepare to cremate him. The nymphs, having gone to gather wood for narcissist, funeral pyre returned to find a flower in place of the young man, the narciss with white petals and a yellow corona. Like the Corinthian capital. This fable gives meaning to the world around us. Classical, cultural constructed stories from observable realities. The narcissist flower, which reflects the water. This is the meaning of Narciso descending from nar, a Semitic term naru, an Acadian term gso. The shrub quiso is the leaf stem, and in Greek it becomes Zos in whose root. There is also na, which still signifies a loss that of consciousness as still found in the same root narc for the word ssis. In this refined painting by George Friedrich Kering from 1827 entitled at the Mirror. We approach the complexity of our relationship with our own reflected image through a simple daily act that of the character combing their hair. We know that every morning a whole new world opens up. The value of this painting lies precisely and its ability to remind us of the disarmingly. Repetitive yet equally profound banality of everyday life. And here I present you a painting that has long sparked great debate Las Menina by Diego Velazquez. It is a 1656 painting of large dimensions, 318 by 276 centimeters. Theophile Gaer in the 19th century question the meaning of the work, seeing only a moment of life captured in an instant interest in Velasquez's. Laina increased in the second half of the last century. Thanks to Mikko, who in his book the Order of Things. Revived Carl Tis 1888. Interpretation of the painting OU Places the two characters reflected in the mirror as external presences to the painting, thereby defining the role of the spectator. The painting is set in Velasquez's studio at the Al Kazar of Madrid, where the artist, the official painter of the Spanish court, depicts the scene at the center. Infanta Margarita is surrounded by her entourage, Donna Maria Augustina. Isabella de Velasco, Jose Nieto, a dog. In the background, there are two paintings from Ovid's Metamorphosis and a mirror reflecting the king and queen. Painting reflecting the king and queen, and a scene from OTSIs there in the background. I believe the question, where is the spectator? Velasquez's position suggests that the fourth wall is a mirror projecting us inside the painting. From the painter's point of view, the reflected king and queen are what Velasquez is Painting. Las Menina makes us participate in the genesis of a work evoking. The relationship with the mirror already described by Leonardo Velasquez involves us in the creative process, drawing us into the painting. Even with this Venus pose from behind, Velasquez showed us her face by utilizing the projection in the mirror. Here is something that concerns us closely. The intriguing eye of Ladue with the pupil projecting An imagined design represents the famous theater of Besancon. This theater designed in the ancient style with a colon aid and without boxes makes the spectators democratically equal an idea that bole might also have conceived. The vision of the idea is identified with the pupil called Re. In Greek, like the maiden abducted by Hades Re, daughter of Persephone ces for the Latins is also to return to earth for half of the year. While she spends the other half in Hades, according to the pomegranate seed, she has eaten. The people represents both the girl and the origin of sight, evoking introspection and external observation. Lados Engraving of the Besancon Theater captures this complexity at this point is worth saying a few words about my relationship with both freehand and instrument aided drawing. This relationship is linked to the visualization of thought or ideas. The hand translates these ideas into form following its own logic and reacting to circumstances. The hand is never the same each day. Sometimes it anticipates, other times it struggles to keep up. Drawing is an act of love towards the idea or object, a process of knowledge and appropriation. Manual drawing is unique and personal with strokes that reflect the drafter state of mind. Every drawing from the earliest childhood ones onward is an authentic code of personality. Drawing with a pencil is an intimate experience involving the wrist and the arm, and it provides satisfaction similar to that of playing similar to that of playing. Modern technologies are useful, but they cannot replace the personal component of manual drafting. Each design phase has its ideal tool, and hand drawing remains irreplaceable for certain expressions. The imperfections in manual drawings add quality and uniqueness. The hand is a wonderful tool refined over millennia ri folk long in his text, the praise of the hand contained the life of forms contained in his work. The life it forms perfectly expresses the importance and delicacy of the hand in the creative prophe. Now I begin to show you some of my work done over the span of 50 years, starting in 1980 with a 1984 sketch on the theme of projects for Venice conceived over the centuries, but never realized. This is as ladu an image where I imagine myself as a spectator on a virtual shore of a mentally plausible, but non-existent Venice from GI Antonio's, John Antonio Silva's Baths on the left to right's building for the Grand Canal on the far right, it is an image from which as we will see, I developed an oil painting as an introduction to an exhibition for the EO Corre in Venice, whose title was indeed Leia. Now, these are three frames of me working on La Chita an. This is the, la, the full painting,
2:the name of the painting. I apologize.
5:In the early months of 1973, Aldo Rossi became responsible for the 15th Tri de Milano aiming to create an exhibition that narrates the historical formation of the city through concrete examples. Following the principle of his 1965 book, the Architecture of the City. This concept emphasizes the value of formal choices in urban construction, as indicated by Leon Batista Alberti. Two years after my last contact with Rossi during my graduation on November 8th, 1971, he proposed that I create an introductory painting for the exhibition. Since synthesizing the sense of historical continuity in architecture, the painting initially on title became known as La Chita Alga. The study of the painting began on three copper plates. At a scale of one 10th etching. The paintings would then be on three, two by seven meter oil canvases and represents a vision of an imaginary city by assembling existing buildings in a purely mental operation, developing the thread of the architecture of reason from the pantheon to the present day. This is an image taken at night just before the inauguration with some of the participants of the tri portrayed against the backdrop of my painting. Among them, Aldo Rossi can be recognized by my side, along with the American architects, Richard Meyer and Michael Graves. An image that clearly has a foundational debt to the Renaissance ideal cities, particularly that of Orino. In truth, it wasn't a direct choice, but rather an unconscious suggestion that I realized only in hindsight. The other inspiring image is the tro oly Co. In Vicenza by Palladio. With the installation of the buildings in perspective by Vin Vincent Vincenzo, excuse me. The actors can move only on the pers, as in Greek and Roman theaters, avoiding approaching the buildings beyond the arches to not reveal the accelerated perspective, which creates the illusion of depth. This device is widely used in theater in Milan. Donato Brae first adopted this artifice in the Church of Santa Maria, preso San Satero in the 16th century, not having enough space for the apps, brae created a perspective illusion by converging walls and ceiling towards a point on a virtual horizon. Up close the depth is only 2.5 meters, but from a certain distance, it appears as a deep S of a Latin cross. This perspective effect has become very popular in theater. Sebastiano Cillo with his three scenes tragic and comic based on an urban structure, is fundamental for the connection between Italy and France. A pupil of Rafael, he came to Rome in 1527 during the sack of the city. Many artists who collaborated with Rafael dispersed Julia Romano went to Mantua Sun, sun Sino to Venice. Selio began his important architectural treatise in Venice and completed it in France, becoming a bridge between Italian classicism and French architecture. Bert Delo me, a key architect of this period, would be very close to Selio. Here I am, it's 1985, and I am engraving with Paul Vires for the cover of Paolo Portugese Magazines. Ichi Pro Ma Souvenirs is the inscription I am pretending to carve, taken from the dialogue between the architect Enos and Socrates in the realm of the dad. This inscription has, in a sense, become the guiding principle
4:of my approach.
5:Here we have juxtaposed La Chitale and La Chita Anga. It was very familiar Rome. This is also a rather important painting measuring two by four meters in which I worked on three phases of the city. The city is a collection of vestiges of memories, the city of history, which is both historical and contemporary at the same time, featuring the period of CAAs SIUs, a block in the, gar patella district, the beautiful Casa de Cavalier di Malta on the ine Hill, a historic suburb and a more contemporary city at the center. All of this is combined in the Dia, chronic and syn complexity of. There is also a great debt to a painting housed in the Louvre, which is this one. This refers to the painting of Giovanni Paolo Panini, which presents a very complex vision of what an art collector might have encountered when visiting his Roman studio. Panini, besides being a great painter, was also a prominent art dealer. This is the installation of the painting Roma at the Venice Biennale. I had placed myself, I, I had had placed it as if in a waiting room. I love playing in waiting rooms. I don't know why not. Everything can be explained. Some things happen because they are part of us. These are the two canvases currently owned by the Podo in Paris, and there are two Berlin paintings each measuring six meters by 10 meters. They were conceived as a panoramic structure created in 1984. On the occasion of the conclusion of the IBA operation in Berlin, west Berlin, and Island within the communist DDR did everything possible until 1989 to foster culture and construction in every way. And through the IBA, initiated a series of projects by inviting architects from all over the world to invigorate the reconstruction of Berlin architecture. The organizers of an exhibition on the history of Berlin and the IBA operation had asked me if I wanted to contribute something. Accepting the invitation. I chose to work on a foreground with the idea of a canal, the land war canal, or the might SC rental barracks and place the structures of the IBA realizations in the background.
2:This is during the execution of the paintings in 1984, and
4:these are some preliminary studies of the same painting
5:here When the two canvases arrived in Milano in 1987. For In addition of the Triana de Milano in 1987, I created these two sketches of the different conceptions of the city in the 19th and 20th centuries. These two sketches were then translated into volumetric McKays for public exhibition. The concepts characterizing them are for the 19th century vision, the port of code structure with which rhythmically punctuates the spatiality. While for the 20th century city, it is the RA in horizontal window. Forgive my pronunciation, and Ellucian smears having a heart attack up here as,
4:It's the 20th century vision and the 19th century vision.
5:This painting extends the rhythm, modifies and per perceived character, extends the rhythm and modifies the perceived character of the places the experimental Weissen Hof District and Stuttgart is recognizable in the upper left-hand corner. This was a theme I enjoyed a lot, starting from a beautiful concept by Leon Batista, Alberti, the City as a large house, and the house as a small city. This equivalence of value between one's domestic space and the city is wonderful. It's not just my home when I close the door, but my home is also the way I inhabit the city. In this sense, an exemplary city is also due to objective conditions. Venice is a city where the boundary between inside and outside is so permeable that I always feel at ease both inside and outside. So I thought of this painting a large triptych with a 12 meter base. It is called Cheetah Kme Casa, dedicated to the city of Ravenna. And I thought of representing the remnants of the past, the presence of the modern, such as the wall that becomes the sky, where I see the mausoleum of Theodore. And now there are also fragments of the contemporary city all mixed together like a theatrical scene. Until at the end, the city just fades and vanishes, and there in the distance is only the presence of the bell tower of the basilica sent of pore. In Classe. I returned to the theme with which I began the presentation in my works. Laia Pli. The Palladian Capriccio by Kato, created around 1735, gave me a sense of what I was doing. CTO takes the Rialto Bridge in Venice and replaces the building bridge with palates. Design replaces the built bridge with Pilates design, which had lost the competition to Antonio Ponte. Additionally, he includes the basilica of Vicenza, and Palazzo ate creating a different Venice. This approach inspired Aldo Rossi for his cheetah. Anga Canaletto's experiments promoted the debate on the revival of Palladian theory, supported also by Joseph Smith, the British Ambassador for Neo Palladian architectural projects in the colonies. I believe I have started to provide some insight into my way of working, so we can proceed by quickly going through these images without too many comments. These are for my stay in Berlin. These are the interiors that I love very much. There's a whole psychological play involved, so a theater. These are urban scenes within a theatrical space, but not just that. Here I'm playing again with a piece of that painting We discussed live in Etsy, in a situation where. DUI in fil Rete are in comparison. This is Las Salu and its relationship with water, which fascinates me greatly.
2:And finally, a few interiors.
5:In 1851, Fuko demonstrated that the Earth's rotation, the. Fuko demonstrated the Earth's rotation using a 32 kilogram pendulum suspended from the dome of the Pantheon in Paris. As it swung, the pendulum maintained a fixed plane of oscillation showing a change of 12 degrees per hour at the latitude of Paris. This demonstration was later repeated at the Paris Observatory, and finally at the Pantheon confirming that the earth moves. The experiment began by burning the pendulum string with a lighter. Despite the movements of the earth and the universe, the pendulum's plane of oscillation remains constant, A phenomenon confirmed by using magnets to sustain the oscillation. This phenomenon represents a mystery of physics as the pendulum appears unperturbed by cosmic movements.
2:Here is
5:time. The house of time,
2:excuse me, the house of ours.
5:And then these paintings are less than a year old, and light is becoming increasingly important and prominent and sparsely furnished interiors. And with this full Moon, I think it's time for us to say goodbye. Thank you.
1:Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, John. if anybody has questions, commands.
2:Okay.
1:All right. Thank you. Oh, yeah, please. Oh yeah. So do you need the.
7:Thank you so much for that beautiful presentation and overview of your work and the philosophy of, your approach to your art. I was particularly struck by the stillness of your paintings and the quiet, the, the void. If you, as, as you may have put it, could you say something about that emotional tone of your paintings, one might even say melancholy of your scenes, that seems to be a consistent theme across many decades of your work. But, you know, your, your paintings don't include figures or movement, right? I wanted to be, I wanted to ask about that, that emotional tone. The, the still and the quiet.
1:Melan, Melan Melan. Melan. Malcho is an, is a given fact. You know, there are people who are born melancholic and people become melancholic.
3:The history of melancholia is very long, very long and complex. You know, alto physiological qui prop.
1:Okay. yeah. So, is referring to like, the, the kind of medical conditions and already kind of. Explain in anti times, like the various humors, you know, like the, and. And, and so, saying that, you know, the, this figure, by Leonard DaVinci, I'm also Proportion, proportion, is kind of in, encompasses the four for Yomo. And that's the reason why he's kind of, I balance. Okay. So, AB was saying also before was, that's, that's the part I forgot to, to say that the artist in some way is kind of, kind of, would say consistent with melancholy. And he was also saying that, in, already during Renaissance time, the artist was kind of moving from a balance to a kind of edge situation where he lost his kind of equilibrium and attending tos, melancholia. And he was mentioning that some of the was that ju painting by ju where the artist already kind of starts suffering and expressing this melancholic suffering, you know, as a conditioned artist, you're right. You see,
3:and in the romantic, movement. Yeah. Bud Melancholy, absolutely total. Also, the, is in, 90 century is also very, very important. It is a condition, involuntary, but, it, for me, it's, I'm, I'm born eight, no, November. It's a, since the season Arduino is a, is a convinced
1:Oh yeah. He's a convinced
3:Melan colleague. Yeah, but also, but also the but is not possible. It
1:would like to be a happier person. It's a possible. You're challenge, you're challenging me here with of translation, so did you understand? Understand? Yeah. You see, man? Yeah. I, I was, I, I actually had, prepared something to read at the beginning about actually, exactly the question you were asking, because that's something also when I, that's what attracted me in, Arduino's work, but also what I kind of found very intriguing and, and the, the ZA architects and artists, they like to present their work as an work of absence and in some way I never SI saw that it's even the void. I never kind of understood it as absent as a kind. I thought there was a, a presence, a very intense presence, even without person. So that's something really, which I found so fascinating in the, in, in your, oh. You want no
8:questions? I have many questions. can I ask two. The first question is the silence of the work. The silence, the melancholy of the work is in stark contrast with the nature of our society, which is in constant motion in one form or another. It's actually incapable of stasis, and your work freezes it, and I'm wonder what the intention behind it is.
1:so two, main concerns. The one is the,
3:the image of the city. The city, and, and the structure of the city and history of the city. And other one is, the space of silence, the space, my soul, interior. Interior. Oh, okay. And I have two do a per course, per course.
1:Yeah. So there are two, kind of journeys, if you like, one, which is a public one, which is the, the centralization of the kind of city and the, and the private one. And, and, and the private. Is
3:the space intimate? Yeah. Okay, so, yeah.
1:Okay. So I think this, I, so just to kind of capture, to kind church, you know, like I think, what, saying is this kind of dialogue between a kind of intimate inner space and the kind of public real of the city, which is always kind of celebrated in a kind of as a theater and even, even without people, because in some way it's the person who looks at the painting becomes inhabits the painting. So there's an invitation to enter into the world. Suppose of the kind of civic world and the intimate world of the, of the painter. And also he is also saying that more, more and more he gets kind of intrigued or fascinated by, like, like very minimal spaces, you know, where you, you know, where kind of silent is even more intensified. That when you kind of start where you, that's something also you saw in the paintings, the light and the shades and shadows, how they speak to you. So there's very, there are corners and, you know, window, window piece light falling in, and then all the, the poet, it's kind of the poetry of, of these moments, which I think Duino is capturing in his more recent painting.
8:My second question has something to do, with, Le Naga and as, as Dean, I, I would like to thank you profusely with great gratitude. Having gifted us this painting, I think that's a, as, as immeasurable a gift that that will be there for all time. We thank you very much for that. But you did call it a copy, and I want to ask the question of you about how you think about the idea of authenticity in your work. this, this, this, painting is, is, is, is drawn and painted 50 years after the original. It's half the size. I'm not sure how close the materials are. You buy the materials every day, I'm sure. I dunno what your state of mind was and is. this one has traveled across the ocean. there are many, many, many, many, many, many different produced at different time for two different audiences, wise. One a copy and one an original. Mm-hmm.
3:So the
1:original, so the, this is a reduction and the. A trace and then he kind of repaint it on the trace of kind of, that's why what he calls it, the copy.
3:But is it original? Because it's other, one other dimension and
1:yeah. So it is original. It is another dimension and it's painted by hand again, even if there was an outline. So, but, but it
3:is not the first,
1:it's
3:not
1:the
3:first
1:copy.
3:It's your
1:original in some way.
3:It's other original, or if you want,
1:because also what you say when you talk about the origin, you say the origin is ever present. Mm-hmm. So in some way it's a kind of process which is always actual and renewing itself. So in the history of painting, the, the, the fact that if a painting is very successful or, or has a kind of intensity and, you know, so he tap and said there are many, many copies. There's one famous example, the island of Test by Brooklyn, Alfred, Brooklyn, where there are at least four copy, four originals, or four copies or whatever you call it. But this site variation, so. And I think the same happened. The, the ki did. Many, many,
6:he even falsified some of his things. Exactly.
3:In the last period of this life is commercial. It just produced it at a, so there are many volts. Okay,
8:one more.
1:Yeah. Okay. But anyone else? I don't want to The last one. Yeah. Asking question.
8:Are there any more questions back there? some of us were alive in 1973 and not too many people in this room, but it turns out in the life of the centuries, some years are more important than others. 1973 is a remarkable year in the history of architecture, and you're right in the middle of it, standing upright and painting it. Yes. So 1973, al the, the bien, the book preceding it, marks this extraordinary moment in the history of architecture where modernism, shatters, conceptual modernist modernism with a social conscience, which was begun 40 years ago, just breaks up. What did this feel like? What was it like? You were there, you were there, what was that experience like?
3:Like a mission is
1:mission like for the recovery of the new meaning. but was there a consciousness? So there was a, so there, there was a feeling, there was a kind of acknowledgement, something important happening. So the 15th, so 73 was the 15th, channel of Milano. And, and, so, ADV has said, it was mostly sociology, which were, has an awareness of the kind of situation. And then architecture became dependent on this sociological kind of, illumination acquisition
3:real.
1:So this was really the reappropriation of the. Meaning of, the role of architecture in which we just transmitted through drawing. So that the, the both architecture, every discovery and three assessment of architecture, but also the reassessment of the graphical, the, the graphical interpretation or the discourse on architect. So also, so it was also ACD by a reconquest of the graphical languages and culture of architecture through the ma the treatises and through the, the techniques, you know. So the, also, in, you know, in, in the context of, of, you know, Eno highlights that title of Al's book was Architecture of the City, not the urban Form of the City or the urbanist Urbanism of the city. Yeah. So, again, the, this idea of, rediscovering even the her France architecture, and I think in, in summary way, what Aino is kind of, relating to is that, the city is a scale of architecture. So the architecture, there's one architecture which kind of is experie at various level, and we cannot detect one scale from the other. And I think that what we are doing here at the school, so that we kind of looking into architecture and the context, whether it's landscape, the territory, the region, and urbanism is always just one different scale or one different level of the same architectural concern.
3:Albert, I mean, the. Yeah,
1:so the city as a, so the city as like Albert City, a palace, and the palace as a city or the house as a, as a city. So this kind of dialect between the city and and
3:he confront cost.
1:Thank you so much. I.