MARCH LIST

I choose books in a different way, sometime they are a result of a subject research,  sometime I just find them by chance. Often are books I've read longtime ago and I decide to read again. This time they are a result of a trip done for an exhibition at Villa Noailles, here I found out a curator work, after many years she collect a series of fragments to describe an idea of architecture, Florence Sarano. Florence does it as a designer, dialoguing with architects, looking personally after the catalogues, plans the scenography, so it’s nice to see such great work. Here is her books list, in a few days I will carefully analyze them in one of my post. (1)

Neuf Architectes, 

New propositions pour Habiter

Villa Noailles 2012

Following Rudy Ricciotti, Patrick Bouchain, Lacaton & Vassal, Luca Merlini, Lefèvre & Aubert, TYIN & Anna Heringer, and Iwan Baan last year, we wished this year to slip ourselves behind the attractive and surprising pictures of the “architect houses” we are regularly surrounded with.
Choosing 9 buildings in Europe, we wish you to discover 9 architects and 9 personal universes being at these projects origin.
Each of us can re-find himself in their worlds exhibitions: they take part of the constructible removal of our own geographies.
Discovering an architect universe these realizations come within the frame of is the opportunity to discover their generator process.
To put the creative process on show, know the architect interrogations, share their thoughts mechanisms, discover their references, approach their work tools, distinguish their numerous parts: then each visitor can perceive and share the necessary and permanent researches of any project.
Questioning invention is questioning the architect position and numerous parts, but sizing up our request of creating together living spaces as well. Choosing 9 different places is casting a mirror glance on our daily architectural environment, partly made of dwellings series. Out of her history, the Villa Noailles fully takes part in this exhibition.

Aimer

10 Ans d'espositions d'architecture (s)

a la Villa Noailles

Inviting ten architecture firms to participate,  Aimer: Bâtir analyses the role of the architect over three time periods: yesterday, today and tomorrow. Each firm answers three questions: which un-built project do they wish they had built, what is their favourite built project and what structure do they hope to realise in the future?
Displaying texts and photgraphic materials from the architects Rudy Ricciotti, Patrick Bouchain, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, Luca Merlini, Johannes Norlander, Anna Heringer, Tyin Tegnestue, Peter Cody, Fran Silvestre and Manuel Aires Mateus, the show is an exploration of the practice of architecture and a celebration of Villa Noailles.

Iwan Baan

Around the world

Villa Noailles 2011

Internationally acclaimed Dutch architectural photographer Iwan Baan is perpetually on the move. His 2010 photographic ‘diary’,  exhibited at the Villa Noailles  in southern France, is testament to his global nomadic life and comprises 52 commanding yet serene photographs of modern architecture in different cities, one for each week of the year. The exhibition has expanded to incorporate Baan’s recent images of the CCTV building in China. 

Luca Merlini

Le Pays des Maisons Longues

et autres trajectories
Metis presses 2010

Un roman policier peut-il devenir un programme architectural? Peut-on voler ses vêtements à Hieronymus Bosch sans que cela ne porte à conséquence? Comment traverser des lieux lointains sans y aller? Qu’est-ce qui rétrécit le plus vite: la ville, ses habitants ou les théories urbaines? Pourquoi la silhouette de Robert Mallet-Stevens est-elle devenue une porte sur certains ailleurs? Pourquoi les maisons longues sont-elles un endroit où chacun retrouve toujours une trace de soi? Les murs ont-ils plusieurs côtés? Qui se souvient de Garrincha, incroyable inventeur d’espaces? On trouvera quelques éléments de réponse dans ce livre-promenade ou livre-trajectoire.

Florance Sarano

Architectures pour l'avenir

Villa Noailles 2014

Designing schools and playgrounds means creating a “tomorrow”. Encouraging children to discover, to experiment and to imagine: means offering them the opportunity of building themselves. Places of action, of stories to be written, of unsuspecting emotions, of creative experiences, of renewed exchanges and of collective freedoms: we have all "lived" much of our childhood in our schools and have also outlined our first desires for spaces there.
In France, the early Republican educational project contributed to a calibrated and standardizing learning embodied by standardised and normalised buildings. However, the definition of education has evolved to allow children to be themselves and to participate in society. There are different education realities in the world. Architecture is never neutral, it plays an important role in defining the future. For this reason the exhibition proposes several positions:
Schools of desire. Offering each child their own way of discovering the world around them so that it consists of unforgettable memories. So that they can set off again with a desire for spaces, using all their senses to live fully connected to their environment.
Schools of enchantment. Suggesting spatial experiences with vibrant emotions that would create wishes for the future, desires and promises of living such generous architecture.
Schools of openness. Imagining a building that helps children find their place, imagining a town that revolves around the school. Opening possibilities where going to school is not always possible.
Schools of the possible. Designing a place where the identities of everybody would be rebuilt and allow their culture to live together.
The four teams of architects presented in this exhibition have designed their projects as the same number of realities full of hopes. From France to Japan, from Nigeria to Afghanistan, each one goes on writing the original story that is behind its creation.

 

 

Patrick Bouchain 

HISTOIRE DE CONSTRUIRE

Actes Sud 2012

"Histoire de construire" est le premier ouvrage qui révèle, projet après projet, les processus de l'oeuvre de Patrick Bouchain, auteur d'une architecture inclassable. Principalement visuel, composé des nombreuses archives de l'architecte et de son agence - plans, croquis, extraits des précieux carnets de projets ...

Aldo Colonna

Borgata Gordiani

Skira 2013

Borgata Gordiani emana, spiccatissimo, il sapore acre della nostalgia ustionante rivolta a un tempo relativamente recente e già lontanissimo, tramontato per sempre; distante anni luce da noi altri, figli dell’omologazione su scala planetaria, privi di segni di riconoscimento, figurarsi di identità. Colafranceschi, detto Cola, Farinacci er communista, Franchino er carozziere, Pino er matricida, Limone alto alto; tutti marchiati al fuoco della marginalità, sono autentici ‘ragazzi di vita’ i protagonisti del racconto scritto negli anni ‘70 da Aldo Colonna (scrittore, critico cinematografico e regista) ora pubblicato per la prima volta dall’editore Skira con la consueta cura, nella collana di narrativa. 

LAN

TRACES

Actar 2014

The city is the point of departure and arrival for the "architectural experience." It is, therefore, a palpable, external fact as well as a product of the mind, an abstraction. This book attempts to recreate this trajectory and to describe this exchange between the mind and the world through the traces it has produced. Two separate moments lie at the heart of this book's very structure and shape: one when the city is the site of an experience and of reflection and the other, when architects modify this site through a new project. The white notebooks contain writings, reflections, and observations collected over a ten-year period about our urban experiences. In fact, they hold the names of the cities that gave rise to them. These notes were often written during our travels, on the occasion of conferences or projects. Very importantly, though, they do not aspire to certainty; rather, they are a collection of questions and hypotheses. The black notebooks instead seek to delineate the scope of our research and to describe architecture as we practice it, namely as a collaborative effort, where each person's ideas and experiences form part of our shared vision and designs.

                                       Piero Ostilio Rossi

Per la città di Roma 

Mario Ridolfi Urbanista

Quodlibet DIAP Print 2014

Alla fine della seconda guerra mondiale Mario Ridolfi, come altri architetti che negli anni precedenti si erano dedicati soprattutto alla scala architettonica del progetto, ritenne necessario occuparsi dei problemi relativi alla dimensione della città e del suo disegno complessivo. In quel momento, l’urgenza delle questioni urbane prevalse sui temi di natura architettonica (o per lo meno le prime assunsero un peso paragonabile ai secondi) e l’urbanistica tornò ad essere occasione di elaborazione culturale e di confronto politico. L’annullamento della dialettica democratica nella gestione delle politiche urbane durante i vent’anni del fascismo, le distruzioni provocate dai bombardamenti aerei e dall’essere stato il nostro Paese teatro di battaglie tra eserciti combattenti e di una guerra partigiana avevano infatti generato un groviglio di problemi estremamente complesso per affrontare il quale né i professionisti, né i dipendenti delle amministrazioni pubbliche apparivano adeguatamente attrezzati. Il Ridolfi urbanista richiamato nel titolo è quindi il Ridolfi meno noto, quello che nei dieci anni che vanno dal 1944 al 1954 – dalla fine della guerra al progetto delle torri di viale Etiopia – è impegnato a progettare, prima come architetto-urbanista e poi in sede politica, il futuro assetto della sua città.

Giovanni La Varra

Case Minime

Robin edizioni 2012

Milano, 2011. Centinaia, migliaia di appartamenti vuoti nelle case popolari. E una società immobiliare che li deve schedare. Per questo assolda studenti della facoltà di architettura. Sergio e Mattia hanno 22 anni, ancora tanti esami da dare e molto tempo libero. Ekaterina è a Milano solamente per un anno, viene da lontano e prima o poi ripartirà. Ma tutte queste case vuote sono anche una possibilità di autonomia e libertà, un'idea da abitare. In poche parole, un progetto. "Case minime" è una storia che ruota attorno ai monumenti involontari della Milano del Novecento: la Montagnetta di San Siro, il Gallaratese, il Gratosoglio. Monumenti della città e del tempo in cui siamo cresciuti.



 (1) 
 

I libri li scelgo in modo diverso, a volte sono frutto di una ricerca su un tema altre volte semplicemente li incontro per caso. Spesso sono libri che ho letto molto tempo fa e che decido di riaprire. Questa volta sono frutto di una viaggio fatto in ocasione di una mostra a Villa Noailles, qui mi sono imbattuto nel lavoro di una curatrice, che da anni mette assieme una serie di frammenti per raccontare la sua idea di architettura, Florence Sarano.

Florence lo fa da progettista,  dialoga con gli architetti, cura i cataloghi personalmente, progetta gli allestimenti, insomma è bello vedere un lavoro così. Ecco la lista dei suoi libri nei prossimi giorni li analizzerò con cura in uno dei prossimi post.