Because beauty consits of it’s own passing, just as we reach for it. It’s the ephemeral configuration of things in the moment, when you can see both their movement and their death.
Muriel Barbery, “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”
- Francesco Venezia – Etruscans – Exhibition – photo by Fulvio Orsenigo
I remember this lesson of architecture as if it were yesterday, it was 2003, first year of faculty, I knew already from the first days I took a very thrilling path for my life choosing that field, I felt so fulfilled starting those studies. I felt that Architecture was an exciting mix of science, trends, materials, theory of art, daily practice, drawing, economy and management, sociology, psychology, perception and above all there was, on the very top: your vision of the world.
I was questioned about a solution for somebody’s needs. I was asked to improve life quality for people around me.
My previous year of studies in International Politics had been quite disappointing, I had the feeling that studying was a challenge in between pupil and professor to reach the highest knowledge of what professor oneself wrote: quite impossible to have a debate, very often was a stupid effort of stocking data in my mind, collect, collect and again collect. Who cares what you were really thinking about the world? Nobody cared. That was highly frustrating, indeed.
That day I remember I had a bursting shiver listening at my professor of the times: Mr. Franciosini. I’m sure not only me, but most of my colleagues had the epiphany: “this is what I want to do in my life”.
The architect was explaining us what was the essence of our job, what was creating a “space” from nothing. In this picture it’s illustrated one of the points: a sudden expansion of spaces, this truncated pyramid aiming at an above height, a central focus of interest under the upcoming light, corridor in the darkness and subject into the light, the rate in between voids and built area. In few words: a theatre.
“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina”
Se puderes olhar, vê. Se podes ver, repara.
Dom Duarte, “Livro dos conselhos”
Dentro de nós há uma coisa que não tem nome, essa coisa é o que somos.
É que vocês não sabem, não o podem saber, o que é ter olhos num mundo de cegos.
Costuma-se até dizer que não há cegueiras, mas cegos, quando a experiência dos tempos não tem feito outra coisa que dizer-nos que não há cegos, mas cegueiras.
Por que foi que cegámos, Não sei, talvez um dia se chegue a conhecer a razão, Queres que te diga o que penso, Diz, Penso que não cegámos, penso que estamos cegos, Cegos que vêem, Cegos que, vendo, não vêem.
José Saramago, “Ensaio sobre a cegueira”
When someone that you love dies..it’s like fireworks suddenly burning out in the sky and everything going black.
Muriel Barbery, “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”
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