Le Corbusier synthetizes roman ruins through basic geometrical forms.
“The light plays on pure forms, and repays them with interest. Simple masses develop immense surfaces which display themselves with a characteristic variety according as it is a question of cupolas, vaulting, cylinders, rectangular prisms or pyramids.” Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, 1923.
Harmony is reached through “primary forms” and “mathematical calculation”. Through these principals Biella’s industrial architecture achieves harmony.
Over time, industrial development generated a stratification of “primary forms” which were defined by their function. The rooms that used to host the wool manufacturing machines are today empty, lifeless. The rigid forms needed for industrial necessities have to be recovered through a flexible interpretation so to give them new life.
If the form cannot change, our mindset has to so to change our point of view and see it with new eyes.
The installation is a conceptual representation of all these elements:
box / pure empty form
steps / new point of views
water / flexibility
light-reflection / change
“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” Bruce Lee
