Di Imma Forino

Uno strano oggetto iconico si erge su una duna erbosa a Weil am Rhein (Germania): sembra una casa emersa da un mondo fiabesco, dall’elementare profilo e dal tetto aguzzo e così piccola da chiedersi se è destinata a un elfo. Si tratta del recentissimo tassello che Renzo Piano Building Workshop RPBW ha aggiunto alla collezione di architetture che Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman di Vitra, sta componendo da anni nel Vitra Campus.

All’ironica irriverenza della forma risponde il contraltare di un’impiantistica sofisticata ed ecosostenibile. L’economicità dell’interno (2,4×2,4m, h di colmo 3,2m) è addomesticata dal rivestimento in legno e dalla complessità di attrezzature, affinché una persona (con un ospite di tanto in tanto) possa abitarvi immersa nella natura. Non si tratta nelle intenzioni dei progettisti di una temporary house né di una cabina da spostare dove si desidera, ma del sogno della botte di Diogene di Sinope: il minimo spaziale necessario per stare con se stessi, ormeggiati al suolo, seppure con leggerezza ovvero lasciando appena un’orma.

Dietro l’apparenza di una perfetta machine à habiter si cela la fantasia ricorrente della «stanza» tutta per sé. La poetica dell’existenz minimun – portata alle estreme conseguenze da Le Corbusier nelle celle del convento de la Tourette e fisicamente sperimentata su di sé nel Cabanon de Vacances a Roquebrune-Cap Martin –,è ricondotta da Piano a un’idea umanistica del rifugio. Eppure, più che lo studiolo di Federico da Montefeltro a Urbino o quello vasariano di Francesco I a Firenze, è il luogo della solitudo di Petrarca che va ricordato: qui l’apertura di una finestra sulla natura dava la giusta prospettiva del ricongiungersi al mondo, dopo aver attraversato se stessi, mentre nel «Diogene» di RPBW il taglio vetrato sul tetto permette di guardare le stelle, la pioggia, il sole che scandisce il trascorrere delle ore. E ancora, più che il palchetto immaginario dipinto da Antonello da Messina (San Girolamo nello studio, 1475 c.), intorno al quale si organizzava visivamente lo spazio di una cattedrale con al centro un uomo e il suo libro, emerge la stanza pluriattrezzata di Gilles Corrozet (Les Blasons domestique, Paris 1539), in cui rinchiudersi a lavorare quando necessario. Una solitudine creativa e operosa, un’idea accattivante di stare al mondo e forse da riprodurre in serie, nelle intenzioni di Vitra. Sarà per tutti?

12 giugno 2013

Gilles Corrozet, Les Blasons domestique, Paris 1539

Binario 21, Stazione Centrale di Milano

Giulia Ricci

È nei sotterranei della Stazione Centrale che Milano conserva la memoria del dramma della Shoah. È da qui che ebrei e prigionieri politici milanesi partivano, fra il 1943 e il 1945, per “destinazione ignota”, ovvero per i campi di concentramento e di sterminio. Questo intervento immette Milano nella dolente geografia europea dell’olocausto, permettendo alla città di ricordare una storia che sempre più si allontana dalle vite e dalla memoria di chi transita ogni giorno proprio nei luoghi in cui avveniva silenziosamente l’avviamento alla morte di migliaia di persone innocenti.

Il progetto per il Memoriale della Shoah di Guido Morpurgo e Annalisa De Curtis Architetti Associati conserva le tracce fisiche di quegli atroci avvenimenti storici, a partire dalla macchina scambiatrice, utilizzata in origine per il carico e lo scarico dei vagoni postali nella parte di Stazione destinata a questa funzione, e nella prima metà degli anni quaranta messa al sinistro servizio della deportazione.

L’intervento ha l’ambizione di rendere questo luogo un laboratorio della memoria, a dispetto della staticità alla quale la parola “memoriale” potrebbe far pensare. Esso è progettato per ricordare attraverso reperti storici, supporti multimediali e documentali, ma anche – e soprattutto – per rendere attiva la memoria, affiancando alla contemplazione la diretta esperienza. Questa dualità d’intenti si traduce in una forma architettonica eterogenea, atta all’espressione delle diverse forme del ricordo. Spogliata la struttura dall’intonaco, i progettisti hanno proceduto inserendo una serie di episodi architettonici all’interno dello spazio preesistente: talvolta trovando loro un luogo all’interno della struttura, talvolta demolendone parti per permetterne l’insediamento.

Il percorso inizia in un vestibolo d’ingresso in cui la parola “indifferenza”guida il visitatore verso una rampa che si getta a sbalzo su uno spazio a doppia altezza, protendendosi verso la biblioteca, per poi ritirarsi bruscamente conducendo il visitatore nel settore in cui si sviluppa il memoriale vero e proprio. Gli interventi si articolano nello spazio scandito dalle lunghe campate in cemento armato che costituiscono la struttura originaria dell’edificio ferroviario di Ulisse Stacchini. Qui il visitatore ha la possibilità di ascoltare le testimonianze dei sopravvissuti e prendere in esame immagini storiche. Il Binario 21, fulcro del memoriale e prova tangibile dei tragici eventi, è allestito con quattro vecchie carrozze merci, dello stesso tipo di quelle che furono il mezzo di compimento della deportazione; attraverso di esse il visitatore è invitato ad accedere alla campata più interna che ospita il muro dei nomi e la linea del tempo che riporta la cronologia dei viaggi.

Il percorso si conclude nella forma raccolta del luogo di riflessione, una struttura architettonica intrusiva ed introversa, alla quale si accede mediante una rampa che la avvolge, a sottolineare la sua indipendenza – e quasi il suo isolamento – dallo spazio nel quale è inserita. Si tratta di una sorta di “grembo” in cui si può rielaborare, sintetizzare e decomprimere i propri pensieri, e dove il cono di luce proiettato dall’alto sembra avere una funzione quasi escatologica e catartica. Infine si raggiunge l’atrio, dal quale si può uscire dalla struttura oppure accedere al piano inferiore.

Attraverso una scala incastrata nel solaio e contenuta in un cilindro in cemento armato, sospeso rispetto al piano di calpestio del piano inferiore, si ha accesso al cuore del laboratorio della memoria. Tale scala sembra suggerire espressivamente un’instabilità che accomuna questo elemento di distribuzione alla rampa aggettante incontrata all’inizio del percorso. Il piano inferiore ospita gli ambienti della biblioteca, del patio e dell’auditorium. La biblioteca, per far posto alla quale è stata rimossa una parte dello spesso solaio della Stazione, si pone in comunicazione diretta con il patio. Quest’ultimo è permeato dalla luce diretta proveniente dalle porte di accesso alla stazione postale, porte che ora sono state trasformate in aperture incorniciate da serramenti quasi impercettibili. I cancelli che le chiudevano sono aperti e fungono da elemento scenografico, producendo in tal modo una serie di inquadrature sulla città circostante: quasi un polittico all’interno del memoriale. In ciò trova espressione la tensione degli architetti nel proiettarsi verso la città, la loro volontà di appropriarsene, ma al tempo stesso di coinvolgerla nella condivisione del tremendo “segreto” contenuto nella fiancata della Stazione Centrale.

In questo spazio si trasferisce verticalmente la vibrazione proveniente dai binari al piano superiore. Il rumore provocato dal passaggio dei treni invade gli ambienti del Memoriale portando il visitatore alla consapevolezza della vicinanza tra il luogo della realtà quotidiana e il luogo del drammatico fatto storico.

Iniziato nel 2007, il Memoriale della Shoah è un progetto fragile, come gli stessi architetti Morpurgo e De Curtis lo hanno definito. La sua costruzione è iniziata nel gennaio 2010 e dopo nemmeno un anno i lavori sono stati interrotti per mancanza di fondi. Nel gennaio 2012 l’opinione pubblica si è mobilitata, prima con una campagna di sensibilizzazione a cui Ferruccio de Bortoli ed Enrico Mentana hanno prestato il volto, poi con una maratona pubblica di letture sul tema della Shoah. Solo il 27 gennaio di quest’anno si è giunti alla cerimonia di inaugurazione, che non è però coincisa con la conclusione dei lavori.

Attendiamo quindi di poter finalmente vedere il progetto completato e accessibile alla città – una città che per troppo tempo ha ignorato questo luogo della propria storia. Nella speranza che ciò arrechi a chi visiterà il Memoriale una maggior consapevolezza di che cosa vuol dire avere la possibilità di scegliere la propria destinazione.

Fotografie © Andrea Martiradonna

AN OVERVIEW

Pier Alessio Rizzardi

NOWADAYS REALITY

The numbers of the urban development in Asia considering the European one are incredible: 5 times faster (in 20 years happened what has been done in Europe in 100 years), 8 times bigger (23 cities with more than 5 million people in China while only 3 cities in Europe) and this covers a population twice as big (731,000,000 in Europe 1,342,000,000 and in China). It’s intuitive as these data lead to a way to tackle the project completely extraneous to a Western architect.

Currently, the urban population exceeding the rural population rose up to 51%. It is estimated that this will reach 83% in 2035 when the process stabilizes. The urban population requires services and infrastructure. The design approach is thus based on the big numbers. One need only consider that the projects that are advertised in Europe as the CCTV Tower by Koolhass and opera house by Zaha Hadid are dozens or even hundreds of times much smaller than other projects in construction: infrastructure, construction of new cities, industrial areas, ports etc.. The number and size of projects strongly influence the way of making architecture.

In China, the face of the city is characterized by the demolition. The view is a huge construction site hidden behind the walls and billboards with renderings of what you will see in a few months. To quote Wang Shu, Pritzker Prize, only 10% of the historical buildings in China has survived to this day. Basically the reasons that can be found are two. The first is based on past history: the traditional architecture used wood as the main material for building. The result is then the practice to reconstruct the image of architecture with new materials. The second is based on the recent history: the Cultural Revolution used the cancellation of the past in order to build the new culture. The lack of historical urban tissue creates dynamics completely different from those found in Western cities. With the almost total demolition of historic parts of the cities the Asian society must constantly face with the concept of tabula rasa. This leads to the possibility of free development with a complete world to rebuild. The number of architects is extremely significant. The proportion of residents and architects is 40,000 to one, incredible if we think that Italy is raised to 400 people for an architect. The number is 100 times greater.

If you look at the data of Chinese architecture, we see the peculiarity of the Asian condition. The Chinese architects must be much more efficient than their Western counterparts to work.The volume of the use of reinforced concrete in China is 33% of the world total amount, the number of Chinese architects in the world is one hundredth of the total. The turnover instead stays to a tenth of the world average.In other words, one percent of architects to design the buildings and 33% of this must be done for one-tenth of the profit.

This creates the theoretical condition of Chinese architects and architecture of China. A Chinese unique phenomenon is the process of City-making. The state, the only landowner, rent the land to individuals allowing them to build. In this way the state receives funding from the private sector. This is what we call “planned capitalism”. The state government has absolute control, not only through the possession of the land, but also through the imposition of masterplan tightly regulated. The government cannot do anything else but planning, it doesn’t have an absolute power on architecture. The government defines a masterplan in which investors and architects formally define the buildings and then the shape of the city. The logic of profit creates cities where there are only homes, what the real estate market asks. Homes are sold as investments, and these remain empty for years. The Chinese real estate bubble grows, but for how long?

Today, the condition of Chinese architects imposes the reduction of both the design and construction time. The project is with limitless possibilities, it becomes mechanical instead as industrial production and not time is left to think about it. The design of a building in Shanghai can be taken, modified, shortened to 10 floors and reused in Hong Kong without radically changes. The speed of execution and the will to characterize the site generate examples such as One City Nine Towns in Shanghai, satellite towns in European style. After 1980, the Economic liberalization and the new freedoms gained stimulated people to seek what was lost in the Maoist period. Everything that comes from abroad is seen as innovation and freedom, a goal to aim. China wants to experience life in Western way and never mind if it is a copy of a far Europe style. Investors get the message and build copies of idealized European cities.

The fact to import Western styles and impaste to churn out buildings, creates a hybrid halfway between the one and the other culture. The architecture in China is Business. Real Estate is built, used, and when the investment has given all it can give more is being demolished to make way for a new investment. “Tou Fu Buildings” are buildings in which materials and technologies are sacrificed to lower production costs and speed up the execution time. No one escaped from this trap even the Archistar as Zaha Hadid Opera House Guangzhou experienced the consequences of such philosophy. The cultural upheaval of recent generations has resulted in a hybrid architecture, where profit directs the project. Large numbers of Chinese architectural theorem, the Olympics and Expo, the economic boom create opportunity and need to build.

CONTEMPORARY TRENDS

The architectural trends of recent years can be grouped by different types: International Architects (iconic architecture that aims at large-scale projects), Local Architects, the new Chinese generation (small-scale architecture and vernacular), background Architects (Architecture of a such extensive proliferation to constitute a phenomenon influential on the national architectural scene).

The Archistar entered in the Chinese architectural scene, supported and desired by the government. As it was Manhattan in New York nearly a century ago, China turns into a new stage in world architecture. This architecture is pointing up. Skyscrapers have a strong iconic impact: this is given by higher image and then economic returns. The city remains a “shopping window” for the modernization of the country, as Deng Xiaoping wanted Pudong in Shanghai. The “Manhattan of China.” China wants respect and visibility; the tendency of the government is toward recognizable, massive and iconic architectures seeking a world-wide recognition.

“Nostalgic Architects” pursuit the “Chineseness” in architecture trough the idea of rebuilding portions of the city in a traditional style. The old motto of Mao was “the new against the old”. Now is the old against the new, because the new has become old too fast.

The Cultural Revolution sought to eliminate the past. Now they rebuild as it could be without Cultural Revolution.

“Traditional Iconic Architects” use the way of the magnification in scale of images of the cultural tradition. They explicit architecture symbol putting an immediate icon on the city. Architects use traditional symbols like lanterns, fans, dragons, coins to instill in their buildings, the icon of “Chineseness.”

“The Architects of the New Generation” are composed by who have studied in leading universities of the United States. These architects are open to experimentation contaminated by Western notions. They reject the current architectural situation, creating a choice based on the purity of the tectonics, radical shapes, vernacular materials and simplified building technologies. If we compare the timelines of the Chinese and Western architecture, we see the existing time gap. Analyzing the current ways of doing architecture of the new generation of architects, you will notice many features in common with the architectural period of post-war Europe and the West. From New Empirism in Sweden, Neoexpressionismus German, but also i English Brutalism, Italian Neorealism to Brazilian Brutalism.After 50 years the themes of “After the Modern Movement” European come up for discussion in China today.

THE CONDITION OF THE CHINESE ARCHITECTURE

The rate of instantaneous composition implies an architecture in which the current image is just a tiny moment of his life. We understand that architecture can not be finalized but it is actually evolving. Megacities, as small towns, regenerate continuously. The system is dictated by the economic gain that does not earn or do not earn enough, which has changed to be put in a position to produce. In the cities you do not see buildings older than 10, years in some areas even 5. In this condition, the architecture generation is quick and it creates chaotic urban landscapes. The result is a city with not clear composition, but with a complex structure interesting to explore.

The architecture is related to a continuously changing environment that in facts generates the negation of the Western context. The project, in these conditions, is abstracting from any substance and it brings a picture evanescent, fragile and volatile. The current situation has created a condition in which anything can happen, as on a stage without scenery, naked and full of potential. This challenges the old method by which you assign functions to the space strictly defined.

The Chinese society is complex because it varies. The ethnic groups are different, with different cultures and customs and the languages (China has 292 living languages). The density is uneven: megalopolises, densified areas and large uninhabited territories. The climate changes the way of living for people, space and architecture. In China the territory is divided into 5 different climate zones from the Arctic to the tropical zone. Thus we see how the Chinese society is complex and diverse a cocktail that creates unpredictable situations.

Under these conditions, to work, the architecture has features that meet the needs of such a diverse society.

China is enormous in everything, but if we check, we realize that this bigness is special. Take two representative buildings of East and West as the Forbidden City and the Palace of Versailles. We immediately notice the difference. The Forbidden City consists of 980 buildings, autonomous, and a scheme that make the size of this building, with gaps of up to 90% of the area. The Palace of Versailles instead consists of 4 buildings, with 15% of voids. But even if we do not look at so famous and ancient examples, we realize that this feature is constantly repeated. Karaoke, gigantic palace, a universe composed of small “cells” which together forms the size of this place. Another place of modern use is the Internet Cafe, widespread phenomenon that illustrates the peculiarities of the Chinese new space, surrounded by invisible barriers such as headsets and screen. These represent the spatial bubbles that indicate small virtual realities that create the bigness of real space. The union of many small situations gives the bigness. This is translated into the simulation as sensitivity in the creation of human-scale spaces but connected to create a general sense of unity.

Kristian Fabbri

Introduction

The distinction between humanistic and scientific knowledge put forward by Charles Percy Snow, has largely become outdated. It is no longer applicable to a number of different fields of science and humanities, which have merged and given rise to new disciplines. An example of this would be neuroaesthetics, or the relationship between biology and cognitive sciences, and countless others.

Architecture has a lot in common with the humanities, in particular history, philosophy (especially aesthetics) and even law, but it also shares aspects of technical and scientific knowledge and is characterized by its own scientific method, based on observation, experimentation and theory.

In architecture, the relationship between technology and artistic expression differs considerably from many other fields. Let’s think, for example, about the segregation of knowledge that exists between two disciplines such as the chemistry of paint and the art of painting. In architecture, the modification of the territory (i.e. buildings) is not a natural phenomenon, and as such it cannot be studied with the purpose of deriving laws and theories from it; nor is it a tool used with the intent of reproducing a natural phenomenon.

In his book “The Two Cultures and a second Look”[1], C. P. Snow identifies two main motivations in the scientific culture of progress: “one is a natural word understanding, the other is a control over them”. The practice of building makes use of both: the understanding of the ‘world-of-natural-phenomena’, of space and the interaction between objects, of the characteristics of materials and their “assembly” in the creation (and perception) of shapes as a meaningful element.

At the same time building means changing the natural-world, which is the object of our perception and ‘building-of-reality’[2]. This is done though a sufficient modification and control exerted on the natural-world, or at least part of it, in order to make that set of natural phenomena fitting for “human nature”.

In this way nature and the modification of the territory introduced by man become natural, because they are perceived as landscape from the human point of view. Man is the subject who ‘building-of-reality’, making a distinction between what is built and what is not built, i.e. nature, but also between what is built and understood as human-natural (villages) and as artificial (the non-places).

The distinction between nature and non-nature is made on the basis of the degree to which it is habitable by man, through choice of location and building.

The control exerted by man on the environment is obtained by organizing, building and defining space to minimize negative factors for the senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, proprioception, interaction with others and with objects) and to make that space suitable for permanent habitation.

In his book “The Nature of Technology. What It Is and How It Evolves”[3], W. Brian Arthur tries to define what technology is, and puts forward a definition of technology as “a scheduling of phenomenon in order to achieve another target”.

This is what architecture is really for. It isn’t just technical knowledge about building: it is about giving shape to things in order to achieve a specific purpose. Brian Arthur highlights the difference that exists between science and technology by showing that scientists use technology in order to advance in their knowledge of the laws of nature, and even when they focus on technology itself they only do so in order to improve the technological instruments which they use to confirm or confute scientific theories and laws.

Technology in architecture is not the same as in engineering, because building technology, engineering physics, etc. are not the only ‘tools-to-do-something’ used by architecture.

Among the ‘tools-to-do-something’ used in architecture there are also architectural composition, the spatial distribution of volumes and functions, but also the history of architecture, without which it would not be possible to know the characteristic elements of the regional and historical context in which architecture operates.

In W. Brian Arthur’s definition, technology is described as being made up of subsystems and components which are combined to achieve a goal. Each of these components is, in turn, independent and functions towards the achievement of a specific goal. Building technology is not meant to support the making of a device, or the altering of the territory. The risk of this approach would be to misinterpret the history and the ‘morphogenesis’ of the architecture of places, and only recognize the architecture of styles, in a historicized way, thus labeling architectural typology as a ‘cultural phenomenon’.

If we refer back to the renown paper by Heidegger [4] on the nature of technology, we find that technique  is a way of ‘dis-cover’ and the place is such when you inhabit it, that is, when you build it. ‘To-do-architecture’ is a specific mode of knowledge, in which scientific notions such as the study of objects and the understanding of their functioning go hand in hand with the knowledge of words, the use of words and of representation, even graphical representation, in defining the finalities and modalities of understanding architectural shapes.

The practice culture

Architecture does not rightfully belong to either the sciences or the humanities, nor can it be considered a subset originating from the merger of the two cultures.

Architecture is about doing something. As such, my proposal is that it should be considered as part of a ‘practice-culture’ (‘cultura fattuale’ from latin “facere” means “to put into action”).

Practice-culture, unlike the humanities or the sciences, which contemplate or investigate the world, acquires knowledge by modifying the world-of-natural-phenomena, the same world which is the object of contemplation for humanistic culture and of inquiry for scientific culture.

Scientific knowledge is characterized by being predictive (‘predittivo’ from Latin praedicere “to say before”). For example we can predict where a projectile will land if we know the laws of motion and the initial parameters.

‘Practice knowledge’ makes use of this predictive aspect through a design (‘progetto’ from Latin pro-icere “to cast forward”) which is not the same as “to say before”. An architectural design introduces changes that will lead to variations, and studies such variations which can lead to construction (of a building), to the conservation of the building (restoration) or to the modification of the rules of construction (regional planning). Every one of these is a project in that it predicts the modifications by acting on the factors that influence those same modifications: construction, restoration and conservation and the rules of regional planning.

In practice-culture, knowledge is acquired only through the modification of the world, or the project-prevision of such modification. Producing a change in the object of observation is what allows us to know the object of observation. Thus there is no indetermination due to an experiment, because there is no experiment that can be replicated; modification leads to a knowledge of the ways and rules, variable or invariable as they may be, through which the object of observation of practice-culture changes status.

The transformations and changes of the world produced by scientific knowledge are carried out through technology, but the “transformation” derived from science is a consequence of science, not the way in which science acquires knowledge. Science, by definition, advances in its knowledge of the world by carrying out an experiment, which has to be reproducible, and by formulating a theory.

Kristian Fabbri is adjunct Professor of Faculty of Architecture University of Bologna.

Notes and References

[1] Snow C.P. “The Two Cultures and a second Look”, 1963,

[2] Bellone.E “Qualcosa là fuori”, Codice Edizioni, 2011, Torino (Italy)

[3] Brian A.W. “The Nature of Technology. What It Is and How It Evolves”, 2009, Free Press, New York (USA)

[4] Heidegger M. “The Question Concerning Technology” in Heidegger M. “Basic Writings”, 1993 Harper Collins, New York (USA)

GRUPPO A12 / BAUKUH

Opening Saturday 2 February, 2013, 6.30 pm

Palazzo Ducale, Piazza Matteotti 28r, Genova

pinksummer - Dramatic and frightening is the image you have chosen for the invitation card of your exhibition at pinksummer. The same angel on the Ribaudo family’s tomb at the cemetery of Staglieno, that was chosen by the Joy Division for the cover design of their single” Love we will tear us apart”. Let’s start from what Baukuh and Gruppo A12 have in common: Genoa and Stefano Boeri first, not to mention architecture itself. Did the common imprinting from the city, its genius loci, only taught you how to get away as fast as you can? What about Boeri’s social (political?) approach?

baukuh - Beyond the - obvious - association with the “terminal” condition of Genoa, city of older people and most of all of no interest for whichever future, we chose the angel of Joy Division a little by chance. In a sense, it is also significant that this image of Genoa was produced outside the city, which is by now our condition. Moreover in our case, we (five on six) are not even from Genoa. At a certain point we have chosen to work there, then we have preferred to move the studio and now we would like (at least partially) to reopen our studio in Genoa. It is maybe because we are architects, we do have a very little sentimental relationship with the city.  Cities can be used for some time, then you may change idea, then maybe you changes idea once again. About Genoa’s genius loci, speaking from our position of people who come from outside, we do not dislike it. Sure, it is clearly suicidal, but it has its own greatness.

As far as Stefano Boeri, that was an Hobson choice, as there were not a lot of other options. I do not know if you have an idea of the situation of the architecture in Italy at the end of the Nineties. Therefore even those, whose interests were rather distant from Stefano’s, ended up to work with him almost unavoidably. Also Stefano is an extremely intelligent and generous person, able to gather together very diverse people. And he has the virtue of not considering himself a loser, which, while working with him, gave you the impression - completely exceptional in that context - that it could even happen that you may not be a loser, you either.

Gruppo A12 - We are two groups of architects, we share the same dimension of collective work too, even though carried out with different modalities and stories, and probably we are different even in our relationship with the city and Stefano Boeri. Joy Division’s song it is about a tormented love and Genoa is not an easy city. Learning to see it a little like the eyes of someone from outside do is a useful exercise that would be healthy for all Genoese people. Concering Stefano, we have met him in the beginning of the Nineties, when we were a little more than twenty years old. A little older than thirty five, he was at his first teaching assignment as associate professor. For sure that was a breath of fresh air in a rather creacky academic system, with the ability of involving you and let you feel you at par as a plus one. A12 was being born just in that period and from there a series of collaborations is been born, even though they did not continued then therefore over a long time span.

pinksummer – Somewhere we read that after the end of the classicism and the sunset of modernism, for architecture we are in the time of post-critic, of post-theory, probably just post and that’s all (also for visual arts we are in the imperative hit-and-run of the curator, somehow close to the sell-earn-and-regret of the finance, agnostic or boor as it might be). In that sense, architecture is meant to be a trade sunk into the mere pragmatism and, in the same sense, the exhibition at pinksummer could always be considered an aporia, an impossibility, an absurdity, or just a loss of time?

Gruppo A12 - Actually in architecture, in front of the economic crisis that has hit in the heaviest way the real estate industry and in front of the discipline that has been lain down on the stylistic marks of some professionals of fame, we see an uprising interest for drawing, speculative projects (in terms of theory of knowledge, not real estate speculation) and for all what can pretty much represent the purest research to architecture. One can say that the majority of our activity as a group has been based on that kind of research, even though, because of our much more pragmatic than theoretical attitude, everything has been ending up in temporary installation instead of texts, diagrams or big that has been translate in ephemeral installations instead that witnesses, diagrams or large drawing plates.

Regarding the abuse of “post”, that is probably due to a defect of the critics, that is not capable to define anything if not in connection with what it happened before.

baukuh - To be honest, there is very little pragmatism/profiteering at the moment. As real estate market seems to be dead and never resurrect (and probably it will not resurrect, at least as we have been knowing it so far), within a 35% juvenile unemployment scenario, it seems difficult to imagine that one can be so busy in making good money that he is not able to have an exhibition.

For what concerns all that list of post-something that you have mentioned, we believe that it is a perspective, which does not help very much. Perhaps it is just the fundamental assumption of the whole modernism and postmodernism that should be discussed. We cannot think in terms of an univocal historical development, to which we just should clutch, as if the Zeitgeist was riding a motorcycle and were attached like a sidecar. I would say that Latour has made clear enough that this type of modernity is just superstition.

pinksummer - A silly question for baukuh. Concerning your Two Essays On Architecture (Due saggi sull’architettura, Genova, Sagep editori, 2012), we have been thinking at a much arbitrary comparison to the movie “Amadeus” by Milos Forman. Giorgio Grassi is Salieri, poor thing, and Aldo Rossi is the Mozart of the history of architecture, poor thing?

baukuh - “Amadeus” by Forman is one of the more stupid movies of all the time and Mozart simply looks like a dumb guy possessed by a superior spirit, which is exactly what we do NOT think about intellectual work. Working is a hard work for everybody, and for sure Mozart was not such a lucky lunatic as he is pictured by the movie (that we consider totally fascist for giving such an idea of the art)

Therefore the answer is that Grassi is Salieri and also Rossi is Salieri, but above all also Mozart is Salieri, even because otherwise it would be just a jerk.

pinksummer - A question for Gruppo A12. Something on your participations to the Kröller-Müller Museum and to the Venice Biennale of 2003: does it persist any substantial difference between architectonic “system” or even “architectonic device” (these being the definitions of your work, that we heard on those occasions) and actual architecture? And in case that difference exists, is it just a matter of temporality or even of responsibility?

Gruppo A12 - Those terms have a specific meaning and they have been used to describe our interventions probably because our answer to a particular typology of architecture (the temporary exhibition pavillon) was much wider than a mere solution of the architectonic theme in terms of form and function and opened a reflection on nature of collective space and the urban condition. Both of those participations can be considered some sort of manifesto for a rather precise idea of architecture, generally valid. Their ephemeral nature, on which many people focused, has been completely accidental to us and is related to the fact that, for several reasons, contemporary art exhibition are almost the only context, where we manage to express such ideas.

pinksummer - Do you have any relationship with vernacular architecture?

Gruppo A12 - For some reasons, it is impossible not to have it (believe it or not, even the “cultivated” architecture or “auteur architecture” origins from there). We cannot say that we have a specific interest for the topic or a particular “taste” for vernacular aesthetics, traditional construction techniques or spontaneous architecture, even if the appearance of some our jobs could recall self-made constructions, which is one of the possible interpretations of the term that you used. Our approach to the construction of the project, also in about its formal aspects, is much more conceptual.

baukuh - We don’t.

If “vernacular” refers to the achievement of some minority to sympathize with, of some poor thing to whom you give something to charity to set your mind at rest, then it is ethically disgusting. We do not believe at all to the “architecture without architects”, that it is always and solely architecture made by “architects” (because such are they, even if they do not have the stamp of the order) overwhelmed, forgotten, exploited. If this “architecture without architects” has reached some formal achievement - as most of the time did - it was always just because there the awareness of a project and therefore an architect was there, even though his track got lost.

If instead by “vernacular” you mean simply a picturesque appeal, where everything is a little blurred, a little adjusted, a little more gentle, a little more innocuous, that is just crap.

pinksummer - Rem Koolhaas the Superdutch is going to be the curator next Venice Biennale of architecture. What do you think about it?

A12 Group – That follows last year trend of entrusting the direction of the Biennale to important international architects rather than architecture critics or theorists. Of course, Koolhaas is an architect whose activity is equally shared between research and building practice, one of the most influential personalities who have radically changed the way of making architecture during last 30 years. Therefore we are curious to see how he will carry out that assignment.

baukuh - Koolhaas has nothing to do with the “Superdutch”, the title of a book by Bart Lootsma, that used to piss off people about ten years ago, but that now is just touching. Moreover Koolhaas has always disliked that book and of course you cannot blame him for “Superdutch”. On the contrary, you can blame him for having raged at that Bart Lootsma, poor devil who ended up emigrating to Austria, but maybe the issue is not very interesting…

Koolhaas will be an excellent curator. I would say that he has the right to do whatever he likes to and we trust him. Overall, we trust in Koolhaas, Gerhard Richter, Derek Walcott and Steve Albini. They all can do whatever they want.

pinksummer - Cities get ill and sometimes they die too. Sometimes that happens for natural causes, like the sanding up of harbors, other times is an infected politics that slow them down to death. Genoa is dying a little bit, it is not basted by good connections, it is bleed white by the consistent emigration. Genoa is more and more beautiful though. Could the Architecture, the true one, the one of the city and for the city, not the overbearing and the individualist one of archistars, be a medicine? Isn’t it a dog chasing its own tail? Can the architecture of the city, of the community, prescind from a healthy politics?

Gruppo A12 - No, architecture cannot be a medicine for the society. Aldo Rossi, between a symphony and a quartet, on the relationships between politics and cities, says that ” the city actualize itself through its own idea of city”. City, architecture, artwork are products of the society that they express. The quality of the architecture depends at least equally on both the patronage and the architects. Therefore, a good public architecture is possible only when the public patronage (politics) is aware of the importance of the quality of the space where citizens live, it is convinced of the necessity of a consistent planning to obtain it and it is determined to face all the difficulties of making that happen. But there is no link between quality of the architecture and “health” of politics, as we mean it today. If we look back at the past, we realize that often also corrupted regimes and ferocious tyrant have produced wonderful architectures.

baukuh - For Genoa’s specific disease, architecture cannot be a medicine. Only politics could it be.

pinksummer - Regarding the reflection that you are going to elaborate in form of exhibition at our gallery, you move from different approaches leading to different outcomes. baukuh refer to a pragmatism, that we like to improperly define “butterfly effect”. You act very little, but you are everything but modest. A barely perceivable quiver of a wing provokes a cyclone (even though contained and tendentially quantifiable in terms of power) of effects that improve space and, consequently, life in that space. You have a solution and the solution grows and develops inside the belly of the architect.

Keeping on with this unexpectedly astrological style, good for the year just begun, we would say that Gruppo A12  has grown bigger on genuine food and, most of all, on radical architecture. Your language claims the ethical linearity of modernism, utopia is your beacon, but the cynical quadrature of postmodernism was not in vain, therefore the light you follow, still shining, incorruptible and enchanted, tends to shine on a wrong way round world, where progress clashes with the positive and positivistic myth of eternal youth. You let it crash louder, by simply amplifying the noise of the crash. You tend not to get out the speculative dimension. Sometimes architecture seems like a pretext, but then one notices that it is the condition, the foundation stone. You do not have solutions, but we suspect that, even if you had some in your pocket, it would look like ingenuous to you offering it, because that could be nothing but partial, compared to the problems you pose or, better, that history poses and that you round-off upwords.

12/11/1972, the beautiful exhibition that you presented at pinksummer in the 2002, developed from the present to the past and vice versa, in order to show and to demonstrate how a city can be read as a sort of diary, written with the rather objective alphabet of architecture, where all the changes of the society are consciously or not recorded. Focault entered into the language and he inhabited it as one could inhabit a city of bricks and mortar in spite of the systematic rules by Giorgio Grassi, analyzed and interpreted by baukuh in their essay Due saggi sull’architettura. In your new project you start from the present and you deduce the future (we would rather use the verb to evoke).

Anyway, seeing butterflies in Genoa is as improbable as coming across Tredicino that runs after the seven-league boot.

What will you present at pinksummer?

baukuh - We present something very easy: a project called “Demolishing Genoa” that proposes the demolition of 1% of the built-up area of a city, that has lost a quarter of its population in the last twenty-five years and that, at the same time, is in a disastrous hydrogeological situation. The work is part of a broader research, titled “Genova meno uno percento” (www.genovamenounopercento.it) that involves other Genoese architecture workshops (Gosplan, OBR, Sp10, Una2) to point out a problem and a possible opportunity, that the city risks to ignore. The project is described through two large drawings that represent the current situation and proposed transformations by using as sample the Bisagno valley. In spite of the intentionally terrifying title, “Demolishing Genoa” suggests a program of very tiny demolitions, small, very cautious “surgical” interventions. This cautious strategy would concur to increase the amount of poriferous grounds, greens areas and public spaces available to the city. The intervention we present are purposely not very showy; the difference between the current situation and the proposed scenario visualized by the two drawings is almost imperceptible. Nevertheless we think that such minor transformations could reactivate some parts of the city and hence promote wider transformations.

In the end, we do not get tired of repeating it: we are realist. If there is something we are not interested in, that is utopia. It is always possible to make happen what we propose, even though perhaps to do that a small change of perspective is needed.

Gruppo A12 - Let’s get back to Genoa and focus a general phenomenon that here is particularly sensible: the progressive aging of the population in western society. That is a trend that is going to reach a critical point and we are interested in the possible consequences on the organization of the cities and their spaces. If we look back to the past, in front of such kind changes only avant-garde movements and utopistic thinking have been able to provide enough large-scale visions.  However, in their leap towards the future, all the utopic or radical visions have been always based on an healthy man, full of energies and potentiality, mature and effectively productive, endowed with reproductive abilities. What happens instead, if we try to put in the center of our utopia a typical old man? A man, or a woman, older than 65 years, who needs to face a condition of weakness if not illness? And most of all, what does it mean to design a city devoted and purposely built for that kind of people? What we are going to display in our exhibition is a collection of notes for planning a new urbanistic utopia, entirely dedicated to old people.

Pinksummer - A question for A12, inspired by a very recent article appeared today on Sunday issue of the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. The project you are going to present at pinksummer moves from statistics and mathematical probability to read a not-so-bright future. In his article, Carlo Rovelli affirms that “probability is the careful and rational management of our ignorance” and that “the theorem of Bayes supplies a formula for calculating the probability for an event to occur, when I end up knowing something more about it”. Concerning Genoa inhabitants inclination to get older and older, did you by chance find, at least on local scale, any possible alternative to decay, different from seaquake, scarcity, war or epidemy?

Gruppo A12 - After quickly surveying on the Internet, we have learnt that the theorem of Bayes find its application in anti-Spam filters and e-mail programs, which means that it is thanks to that theorem that we lose messages of vital importance, without any success in avoiding daily proposals for improbable business from self-styled Central Africa ministers… therefore we do not really trust in that. However in 1999 Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, on occasion of the launch of the International Year of Older Persons, asserted: “Longevity is a success. It is something that human beings desired since year zero! The fact that we are achieving it would not be considered a problem. It should be considered conquest.” We add that, since year zero on, open to change and project-oriented, visionary attitude always turned out to be effective strategies in difficult situations.