June 2017

32 BUILD / June 2017 , Graz and Grazer Schule, Klaus Kada, above all, work on which I have been involved for years, producing two books, for Logos and Marsilio, but also Ernst Giselbrecht, published on the pages of Il Progetto, organizer of the exhibition “Neue Italienische Architektur” by Haus der Architektur during the months of January and February 2002, and Günther Domenig, Volker Gienke, who have been also critically analysed in the magazine edited by me. Not less important are the relationships with Miha Dešman, editor of the prestigious magazine ab (arhitektov bilten) which has been edited for decades by the Slovenian Le Corbusier Edo Ravnikar, with whom I entered the Competition for the multi-purpose centre and attached “Sarabon” car park in Ljubljana (Slovenia), in 2000, or with Maja Ivanič, editor of the magazine Hiše, and Piranesi Days Of Architecture (piranski. denevi.arhitekture), succeded by a Slovenian contemporary Master such as Vojteh Ravnikar. With Bostjan Vuga and Jury Sadar, collaborators of Il Progetto since 1997, such as the Croatian friends Marko Dabrovic and Saša Begovic, of 3LHD and Andrija Rusan, editor of the magazine Oris and promoter of Oris Days Of Architecture (Dani Orisa), annual appointment with international architecture which takes to Zagreb a public of 2.600 architects and students at an unrivalled event in the architectural field. I think that this cultural patchwork and hybridization, the comparison among similar cultures for geographical reasons and for a somehow common history, cultures however diverse, the direction of investigation, which are the inevitable result of a borderland, where various diversitiesxxii have lived together for centuries, have given and enriched my personal cultural background. The research and experimentation work has certainly an absolute and strong Italian connotation, heir of a historic, cultural and architectural patrimony in some ways unique; used to daily dealings with Superintendencies and Authorities, as well as with complex legislation, such as the many preservation regulations in force in Italy. But, in the complex and contradictory panorama of our time, it constitutes a moment of strong eclecticism, of “contaminated” and “hybridized” research and experimentation; a clear example of planning experimentation of what has been defined as a “generation of no masters”. I think this is an eclecticism devoid of formalisms: the multiplicity of the cultural references is used in an inclusive way as an instrument, not as a purpose, in a view which has, as aim of the architectural plan, the “construction” of spaces, environments and territories on different scales, searching with constant method to establish a conscious methodology. It is known that emotions and expressive means comply with the ways of thinking which control time. As in the Renaissance the prevailing space ideas were finding a means in the perspective, in the contemporary ( from half of last century ) the space-time concept urges the planners, and the architects to the use of very different means. Our culture has a patchy, inclusive, democratic, globalized, disaggregated, little hierarchized structure: information is everywhere, it arrives from everywhere, characterized by our “google culture”. In our activity we always proceed with a big number of specialized disciplines, then we hybridize them, contaminate and proceed from these towards a general and coherent idea of the world. Each responsible human act implies the possibility to choose. The feasibility concept in itself, and its deriving responsibility, appears as the key element for every planning act. This is a difficult, sometimes unstable and complex pathway, but this is the pathway the contemporary reality imposes. The degree of identity achieved by the methods of thought and feelings determines the balance. Starting from such reflections, in my investigation activity, I have had to face daily one of the most delicate and certainly one of the most current themes in the European field: the quality of architecturexxiii, not so much intended in aesthetic terms only, as much as interpreted on several levels of needs (performance, functional, aesthetic in terms of: sustainability, technologies, typological suitability, economic and possible feasibility) and result of a constant and continuous cultural updating. The history of the territory with its stratified traditions and the better known new buildings indentified in the concept of “sprawling city” which are characterized by a substantial decline in the quality of local works, cannot impede new intellectual needs which find form in managing space. The ideas Inevitably I have tried to experiment through the continuity of action-project not in architecture only: the research widens, within a broader question of the plan, from communication to art, from technology to design; to draft and build ideas. Without ideas, Architecture is worth nothing, it becomes an empty box. I have never researched the form, a designer piece, an “artistic” aspect. I have tried to build ideas, believing that architecture is building ideas, developing concepts. I have tried to work on space, on gravity, on who uses space. Architecture is often played in the dialectical relation between man and gravity, between man and space control. Starting from the frame, from the “skeleton”. From light, from light control, also intended as matter, as material for construction. This is a strongly motivated research based on the universality of the culture, on the continuity in time, on the continuity in space. The aspects tied to “sculpture”, “context”, “system”, “model” intended as the scheme, “void”, “stratification”, “narration”, “senses”, “texture” are the themes on which the projects are designed. Sculpture constitutes the solid shaping, realized through three- dimensional models or images, by which architecture, the relation among volumes, fullness and vacuum are tested. This is the starting point of successive moments of refining. The context, not only physical, but also economic or political is where architecture must adapt itself to the environment. The system constitutes the structure, the organization, the framework of each project to the different scales. The model confers form and aesthetics to architecture, it confers an expression to every building. Void is part of volume, hollow, light, shadow... In (historical but also functional) stratification the programmes of the building are developed: the aspects which characterize an architectural object in the broadest sense are superimposed, interrelated, integrated and mixed. Narration confers feeling, emotions, it goes beyond the visual aspect: this is what is perceived, what is felt, what makes space vibrate, every space; it constitutes the architectural sensorial aspect. Good architecture must also be able to destabilize or, at least, to surprise. The texture, the structure, is one of the basic aspects, it is the hierarchy, which arranges and gives rigour to each project on the different scales. This is a dynamic project drafting which must put together every aspect of the culture of time through an inclusive and heteronomous attitude which is characterized by a critical pluralism which is not simply a façade. That is a project drafting which believes