...To Be Continued...

I can't believe this first year of uni has gone by so fast! Its incredible, it feel like I landed in London yesterday, and instead its been almost 10 months!

The difference now, is that when I leave London, once I come back ''I know my way home''. Which is a bit of a metaphor, with this I mean that now I know a little bit the city, the people, different places, now I have a sort of family here, made out from good friends, whom I really want to thank for being there, classmates that are always able to make you laugh, flatmates ready to look after you, teachers ready to 'crit' you and teach you...

If when I arrived to London I was scared of having put up to high my expectations, my dreams about this city too much, now I can tell for sure, I hadn't because it has overcome all my expectations, and trust me, there where high up!!!

See you soon everybody, have a lovely summer, and this story, which has just begun, is ought TO BE CONTINUED!!!

In Medio Stat Virtus, In Medio Stat Veritas

I believe in balance, but not the balance made out of 50% black and 50% white. I think balance is more personal, deeper, relative and subjective.

What I mean with balance is taking the best from both sides, what you prefer from both or more parts, and making them your ones, personalizing them.

There are some things, which I think are very few, that are completely one way or the other one, and usually there is no doubt about them. Maybe one day there will be, but at the present moment, that is the way there are and it is not yet changeable or discussable.

But most things in life, I believe have different levels, opinions, options, choices.

I believe variety and the capability of changing are among the nicest and most fascinating things of human beings.

‘ISMS’: Frank Lloyd Wright, Guggenheim New York

Journal, Art. 8

Definitely it seems like a building, which has put into second place functionality as a museum, and in first place esthetic, shape and eye-catching clean elements.

If you have ever had the chance to visit it, it isn’t maybe the most comfortable museum to go around, it is not as clear as maybe the architect thought it would.

But I would also like to say that maybe we don’t understand his concept very well, maybe he did think about functionality, but he didn’t realize that the way he interpreted functionality maybe was just to personal and not applicable enough for the rest of society.

And seriously, I do believe an architect must have his ‘foot print’, his personality and thoughts, but has also to think about the clients: the private client, that is going to finance the construction, and in this case Guggenheim, but also, ‘cause it is somehow a sort of public building or at least is meant to be for other people too, the architect in this case has to think about who is going to be using this spaces.

I believe architecture is not only about ‘you’ but also, and mainly, about others.

And I think that it is a pity somehow, that Lloyds Masterpiece, amazingly felt, nit, pure and cleaver, which I personally really like, seems not to have worked out as they imagined it would.

But still, I am going to attach a Piece about it I have read, that might change a bit our minds, or at least, make us be a little less drastic about judging him and his work, because he did think about us, people and society, just maybe had to many expectation about human being.

‘’To the question of why did he prefer a ramp to conventional floors, Wright answered that for a museum visitor is nicer to enter a building, go up with the elevator until the highest floor, and slowly descend – having always the chance to go up and down with the elevator again- to, finally, find the end of the exhibition in the ground floor, next to the exit. Wright added that in the majority of conventional museums, people had to cross large exhibition spaces, to go through them again and again when ending their visit, just to get to the exit.

Guggenheim was enthusiastic about the upward spiral and supported the project until his death in 1949.

When Lloyd died in April 1959, the construction was almost complete, and only some last remaining details had to be finished. The 21^st October, the museum opened its doors to the public.

During the construction process, the director and the administrators of the museum, received a letter signed from a long list of artists, in which they exposed that the slightly bent walls and the ramp weren’t appropriate for a painting exposition. ‘ Why do you think the walls of the Salomon R. Guggenheim Museum are slightly bent towards the exterior? Because its founder and architect thought that paintings located on a slightly bent wall can be looked at with a better perspective and receive lighting better than if they were absolutely vertically hanged up.

This is the main principal of our building, the hypothesis on which the project was based on. It is a new idea, but it can become a very important precedent in and for the future’. “

INDUSTRAIL REVOLUTION: Romanticism

Journal, Art.7

Art as literature, literature as art, during the idustrial revolution.

We know that many people wrote along this historical clue moment, but still, what they mainly wrote about was the tragic situation the working class was submitted to, the terrible consequences of this discovery, or the exaltation of it. But it was all about being critic, positively and mainly negatively. Critics, Essays, New Concepts: Marx, Hegel, Capitalism, and Marxism…

But me must also keep in mind a group, that wanted to escape from all of this and was looking for comfort, and they sort of found it in NATURE. This where the ROMANTICISM.

They stressed the meaning and power of NATURE, denouncing this way, the ‘monstrosity’ of this machines.

Among the most important British Romantics we should keep in mind: Lord Byron, William Blake and Shelley. That has definitely foot printed English literature, with their masterpieces.

So what do we do? We are free of choosing technology and renouncing to the amazing beauty and power of nature expressed through words, or choosing nature and renouncing to technology?

As usual, we a free of making a choice, but as usual I say ‘In medio stat virtus’.

BAROQUE: a tragicomic theatre of shapes

Journal, Art 6

On one hand we have a society which is discovering science, which is living many changes, which has to accept the earth is definitely not plan but a sphere, and it goes around the sun, that out there: there is an amazing universe, which makes men be a small, minimum part of it.

And after the Renaissance this message sent many people in crisis; on the other hand the man is, somehow at the center of the Earth, and that sound quite comforting.

So it is a moment of great change that goes hand by hand with the scientific revolution, the Church crisis, and the conflict with the monarchs and mainly the Ancient Regime in France.

So the reaction to all this new stuff going on, is the radical but initially respectful divorce of FEITH and RATIO.

Consequentially art and architecture are not meant to be anymore the research of an unknown and imaginary perfection, given from the classical orders, proportion and neatness, but the acceptance of some how imperfection.

This ‘imperfection’, related to rationalism, gives birth to a ‘messy’, somehow, architecture. Which looks forward to breaking all those rules that had been marking all the past buildings. They aim to represent the REAL.

This research of reality becomes RADICAL, and this emerges in the exasperation of this reaction, exasperation of weird shapes, which become a TRAGICOMIC expression of feelings.

REINASSENCE & MIDDLE AGE: comparing

Journal, Art.5

Was really Middle Age as dark as many people think? So dramatic and tragic? So negative?

Was Renaissance so positive? All about renovation? Something completely new that popped out without roots?

I believe the answer to all this questions is NO.

Probably and mainly because I believe nothing, except main and basic ethical-moral rules of behavior, can be completely black or completely white. Because there is a scale of grays and colors marked by individual thinking and acting, by temporal and geographic context, by social belonging…and by many other things.

Definitely is not possible to argue to much about Middle Age being a difficult moment, very complicated and critical for European society, with many economic and health problems, conflicts… And neither is arguing about Renaissance not being a good renewal moment, full of news, progress, a new post to break with ‘the darkness’ that had been growing along the Middle Age.

But, there is always a but…and in this case, my but is about: was it really so defined and drastic? So clear to everyone? Was the Middle Age Black and the Renaissance so white?

I really don’t think so, maybe in a generic scale, and very summarized is how it is easier to understand it and to define it.

But I do think is important to consider the positive aspects of the Middle Age, and the negative ones of the Renaissance too. So not to fall into such a drastic and radical point of view.

As a matter of fact, during the last period of the Middle Age, Latin started to be less used and substituted by the romantic languages that had been developing them selves and turning into the vernacular languages that in the future were meant to be the current languages nowadays spoken.

So Dante, whom literature masterpiece is the ‘Divina Commedia’, is written in vernacular Italian and not in Latin. Yes he did accuse the excessive dynamism of Florence, but at the same time he abandoned writing in Latin, for several reasons, but maybe one of the major ones, was the fact he wanted his masterpiece to be read by many and not to be restricted only to a limited social group of aristocratic cultured people.

Together with this we must remember universities started to spread, and culture with them and through ‘printing’, which was discovered in the Middle Age.

Also is important to remember the development of architecture and art, and the many buildings that where built.

Renaissance was amazing, at least for what it meant and how people felt about it: freedom, renewal and finally Religion were not in the center anymore, but men, human being as individuals. This is one of the reasons of why, in this moment, a person wouldn’t concentrate in studying and focusing only on one subject, but tried to have a spread culture, a bit of everything (maybe a bit like architecture nowadays?).

But even if it was and it has been such an important and at the same time positive moment we must remember that some things weren’t so white as they seem to have been.

We should definitely remember, that with the big change from a god centered society to a men centered society some men did find themselves lost.

Aristocracy had lost their great power so they started to get more and more conventional, closed minded, and into them.

Its first moment wasn’t as positive, the was an ‘enclosure’ politically and socially speaking.

Latin will never get back to be what it was but definitely Italian started to become deliberately courtly and Latin kind of.

And they wanted to mark so badly the change of moment, the change, that they were very critic about their recent past.

So Renaissance wanted to be new, distinguish itself from the Late Middle Age, but it wasn’t so radically new. It was a RETURN to the classical and humanistic studies, and their celebration. It was a RETURN IN INNOVATION, and this is probably what makes it so special and so amazingly positive rather than negative.

POWER OF INSTITUTIONS

Journal, Art.4

I think that institutions (and I might change one day my mind, but at the moment this are my thoughts) , if they find the right crowd and the correct speaker, can become very powerful.

This is not something that can be defined right or wrong, it is just something that has happened and probably will still keep on happening, because it is almost belonging, somehow, to human beings nature.

And this happens with institutions, but what are institutions in their origin: different thinking currents, groups…that then, once they’ve exposed their idea, found some followers through a good speaker, become some sort of institution, some are bigger, other smaller…

But when an Institution finds a majority of followers, and starts having more than one good speaker, and a main leader is elected, consequentially they start needing more spaces, and this spaces can’t be whatever space, but they need to be central, powerful, in a way they need to attract people, but on the other hand ‘scare’ them through their grandiosity.

One of the major examples can be considered, related very much with the Romanesque and Gothic periods, the diffusion of the Catholic-Christian Church, which after having increased their power, founded many followers, elected some sub-leaders and a main leader, and in itself having had some differences, created smaller different groups, that had their one ‘ rules ‘, all among them very similar, but with a little difference, that made them enter in competition among them…

All of this has definitely affected the city/village patterns.

As a matter of fact, these buildings, which probably found their ‘root moment’ in the Romanesque and Gothic periods, became, and, for many still are, important centers for many different actions.

At that time they needed to guide the people (big buildings, with time always more and more eye-catching), they needed to teach them without them necessarily knowing how to read (drawing, sculpture, symbolism), they needed to be imposing and authoritarian and, at the same time, make people feel somehow free (game of light and shadow), where they could feel both: individuals and belonging to a society (church layout)…

So these constructions ended up modifying the pattern of cities and villages, not only situating them selves at the center of attention, and consequentially directly modifying the layout of the city and indirectly entering in a building competition with, depending of the place, other religious groups, whom would start building something more vast; but mainly with the political groups, generally the one that was governing at that time, that could not allow them to be the main focus or center, even less when religion started to have more power than politics.

So all of a sudden the major institutions entered a competition among them to see who would succeed the best, to demonstrate themselves who really had the power.

An interesting example could be, among the little villages generally in plain areas, the necessity of having the highest bell tower, so to let the other villages now, how powerful and rich that village was!

And this generic example about Catholic-Christian Religion can be perfectly applied to all Religions, and not only, also Politic thought and groups. I imagine it can be applied and it’s valid for all Ideologies, mainly the ones that at some point succeeded, but not only, ‘cause also the minor ones, needed places where they could meet.

So, everybody needed to BUILD!!

CLASSICAL CULTURE: ONLY POLITHEIST? ONLY ONE RELIGION?

Journal, Art.3

I think many people believe that Romans and Greeks, had this big group of twelve main gods, all around ( Zeus for Greeks and Jupiter for Romans), and that their religion was that. And that was it.

Well, I think, if I am not wrong, that that wasn’t ‘that is it’.
Not at all.
We have all ready been taught about their devotion to the main religion, the polytheistic believe in this anthropomorphic gods that could affect human lives, but where somehow unreachable and super powerful, often prayed to, and everything was related somehow to them, such as all the many temples we’ve studied or heard of.

But with time, and the discovery of philosophy or in some moments of religious and political crisis , ‘new’ ‘different’ ‘extra’ religions and cults are developed.
In the VI BD the Orphic cult rises in a moment of enormous change for the Greek society. Very related to the philosophical movements that where starting to rise too, and that , themselves, started , in some cases, to be considered self-made religions.

And later one, among Romans, that had transformed the Greeks Gods, into theirs by changing their names, we will see the rising up of many other small pray groups, and later one the big Christian Movement.

GREEKS AND ROMANS: Was it all about them or they had been influenced?

Journal, Art.2

Definitely, I believe that Greek and Roman Cultures are amazingly interesting, fascinating and attractive.

Maybe because I have studied ancient greek and latin, translated what they wrote, what they thought, tried to put myself in their context… Maybe because I believe they have marked with their present, our future, living an unforgettable footprint in Occidental life… such in values, in history, in thoughts, and probably in style. And they’ve been able to do this through literature, philosophy and an architecture that speaks for itself, but that at the same time, goes deeper than an esthetic , eye catching building, ‘cause behind it, it hides a deep meaning, or , in same cases more than one.

Is obvious that there are many differences between Greeks and Romans , and their way of reading architecture and many other things; that Greeks came before Romans is a fact. And that a big part of Greek culture was absorbed and remade, reinterpreted in a ‘Roman way’. And I could keep on going writing about this, but I don’t really want to focus on the differences between this two, similar and at the same time opposite cultures, so I will refer to them as Classical Culture.

Because what I would really like to focus on is : As Greek somehow influenced Romans, who influenced Greeks? Because I am sure they have. ( I do, however respect other opinions). Because even if they have been probably one of the greatest culture development centers, they where human beings, and they where perfectly conscious about this, as we may notice through their religious devotion and being ‘scared’ of the Gods, as these could interact with human life; as we may notice In them being the nest of proper philosophy, asking them selves who they where? Where did they come from? What was really death? Etc.

Even if they did think, mainly during the Golden Era of Athens, that they where amazingly powerful, fully self-confidents of their skills…but it was the power of belonging to the ‘polis’ (city) and being a politeia (citizen).

So, back to the point: who influenced them? Even if they thought they were terribly unique? And if they received influences, as they did, are they still as unique as they considered them selves and as most of people do?

Definitely I believe they received influences from many different cultures (from them considered ‘barbaroi’, meaning ‘non speakers of our language’ consequentially ‘barbarians’ ), from the contact with them through navigation, wars and military campaigns, expansion, commercial exchange…

I am not quite sure about from who they learned more or which cultures they mostly approached.

But definitely they had a lot of contact with Minor Asia so partly Asian Culture(Persian), the North Coast of Africa (Egyptians), the currently Eastern Europe ( Macedon) and many others.

But, who doesn’t as a society and as an individual? It doesn’t mean you are not yourself, I believe it means that you are open minded enough, to accept good things from others and personalize them, adding your characteristic that distinguishes you!