Salvatore D’Agostino di Wilfing Architettura mi ha coinvolto in un’intervista a piu’ voci con Luca Molinari, curatore del padiglione Italia. Di seguito la mia domanda (ad ogni persona e’stata offerta la possibilita’di fare una domanda)
- Giacomo Butté: progettista. Dopo gli studi in Europa si è spostato in Asia. Attualmente in Cambogia dove divide il suo tempo lavorando con comunità urbane, progettando da freelance, insegnando e curiosando tra le pieghe “dell’altra Asia”.
Premessa:
mi sembra che la maggior parte dei problemi italiani nascano da come il paese risponde a problematiche globali.
La biennale è una mostra internazionale, non sono i “trials” pre olimpici dove gli italiani decidono chi mandare a competere.
Quindi io non guarderei la mostra dall’interno, come molti commenti che si leggono online mi sembra facciano, ma dall’esterno.
Forse potremmo affermare che questa mostra serve a ridare, al mondo, una percezione di cosa sia l’architettura italiana oggi.
In quale modo AILATI contribuisce a costruire, nell’immaginario internazionale, la percezione di cosa sia l’architettura italiana oggi?
- LM la ringrazio del commento di partenza che condivido appieno! La mostra è stata immaginata anche per dare segnali sulla condizione italiana verso il resto del mondo. La nostra è una condizione anomala da molto tempo, almeno dal secondo dopoguerra in cui l’anomalia dell’architettura è corrisposta all’anomalia del Paese reale, e questo tipo di condizione sembra essersi ulteriormente ampliata. Il nostro è un Paese sempre più ai margini del dibattito centrale, del mainstream e ogni tentativo di rincorrere i centri risulta sempre essere provinciale e molto debole. La parola Ailati indica questo e insieme la necessità di costruire percorsi diversi, autonomi, forti di un’anomalia che oltre che essere una condizione obbligata potrebbe anche essere una interessante risorsa su cui lavorare. Ho provato a mostrare un’Italia che sia anche laboratorio e luogo in cui sarebbe interessante tornare a sperimentare seriamente, Paese permettendo!
I read, hear the word “development”everywhere. On flyers, on newspaper, on university mission statement.It couldnt be different for a country as Cambodia in 2010. Unfortunately I dont hear the word progress as often.
——————————————————————————————————————————
This last week cambodian media reported the new plan to build asia second tallest skyscraper. Yes, you read it right.
Phnom Penh, a city with no public transportation, with bad sewerage system, frequent flooding problems, where thousand people get evicted from their barracks and sent outside the city too distant to get a decent job, is willing to build a 555m skyscraper.
Because in distorted minds of politicians, developers and architects in that moment Phnom Penh will be a world class city.
From shacks to skyscrapers skipping all the intermediate steps.
,
Looking at it, at its relation with the surrounding one cannot avoid to feel that something is dissonant. As an old man, almost entirely in male menopause, takes a viagra pill to feel once more something he is not. In the same way this building tries to cast image of Phnom Penh as a contemporary city (first:do skyscrapers make a city contemporary?) but in reality tries only to blind ourselves from seeing all the things that are missing. Viagra urbanism.
——————————————————————————————————————————
Today I watched a movie directed by King Sihanouk in the ‘60 about Cambodia. 100 min of images showing industrial, agricultural, educational achievements. No words, only music as a background, traditional music, cool jazz swing.
It comes quite natural to compare those years with today. In both situations Cambodia tried to search for an identity. Maybe no necessarily its own identity but an identity that would be accepted internationally.
We can try to observe some things:
-at that time it seemed push forward mostly from the state, today but private developers well connected with the government.
- post independence period seemed to present Cambodia as an independent country with own culture even if mediated by western influence. Today’s Cambodia seems to promote itself for a place of easy business
- in both cases it seems that Cambodia is chasing something, with effort and speed.
When and if Cambodia will reach that something it is hard to say but I wonder if, in that moment, khmer will still remember who they are
Tonight I went at meta house to watch Burma VJ which i absolutely recommend. Because it is time to watch documentaries rather than Hollywood movies, because it is dense, touching, sad, essential…
Then you would wonder why someone shoot on people, why one gives an order to beat up to death the most non violent beings on earth, Buddhist monks. The easy answer as usual is to think that they, some of them, all of them, are evil, are different have something we dont have. But then one start to see that they and their behaviors are somewhere hidden in us. The anger changes to fear, feat that we are just watching another side of us
What happen if we isolate a fragment of the image, a face, and look at it closer. Do we still see what we saw?
Is that person still a soldier or just a boy? Is that uniform still a man?
Cambodia recent history has an overlapping of unfortunate events (war, the tentative of creating a “new man”, capitalistic colonialism…) this attacked the identity of khmer culture. Of course there are association, events, groups trying to preserve the traditional arts but there is another type of culture. The one we feel deeply rooted inside us, a mix of culture, ideas and sensitivity.
This identity is the one that can adapt contemporary situations, products, actions and make them special, unique and rooted in a certain socio-cultural context.
POLICE thwarted a proposed meeting of about 500 Boeung Kak lake residents yesterday and later used shields and electric batons to break up a protest by around 200 of the group who moved on to protest outside of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house.
Boeung Kak resident Soung Sophoan said the villagers were forced into an impromptu demonstration after Srak Chak commune authorities prevented a scheduled meeting at the nearby National Institute of Education. Police and villagers were involved in minor clashes as the protest moved towards the premier’s house near the Independence Monument.
“We planned to have a peaceful consultation at the National Institute of Education, but Srah Chak commune chief Chay Thirith banned it and told us to do it at the Red Cross Hospital,” he said. “But the hospital was closed, so we did the protest here.”
I am currently part of this youth project.
The first part of this project aims to engage architecture students to work with alongside a relocated community and to use their skills in exploring ways to improve the living conditions on site.
cambodiarchitecture
since moving to Cambodia I have started a blog about architecture and urban development. the goal is to map and give exposure to the current situation and challenges
Jaakko Vatanen
A photo diary of Vatanen's journey around Asia through doubts and clouds.
maybe after this travelling, after trying to see further out, b we will end up in a small house in central europe listening to beethoven... [jakobknulp]
