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“Ogni progetto è un’occasione unica nel contesto e nel tempo in cui avviene. Quindi è testimonianza. Sappiamo che l’architettura, o la costruzione, è attaccata al terreno e inamovibile [...] Non è il design, non è il treno o l’automobile o l’oggetto [...] il concetto c’è sempre. Ma è sempre un contesto in movimento, un contesto che vive nel tempo. La città è un organismo vivente. La città si trasforma e qualsiasi cosa che viene costruita la trasforma a sua volta. L’architettura non può esistere fuori dal contesto, e questa è la sua qualità unica”. (Gino Valle)
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Our proposal starts from a careful analysis of Gino Valle’s architecture, and, more specifically, of his approach to composition.
Valle strongly believed in the Module as a minimal component through wich explore infinte compositional possibilities; this process is not merely a stiff repetition of a single element, but rather the identification of an “atom”, whose multiplication, subtraction or modification, can generate masses and spaces.
The design of the floor plan of the Giudecca’s social housing is based on a 165x165cm square. The reiteration of this minimum dimension generates all the components of the apartment system: single and double rooms, bathrooms, kitchen, even stairs and corridors.
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Once defined the house pattern, it can be repeated endlessly, but at the same time the atom-square is also constantly manipulated in height and in its serialization, in order to create diversity within the repetition.
The installation that arcipelago envisioned aims to connect the idea of this concept of module and repetition with a reflection on the creation of complexity in the private/public space.
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The brick is identified as a minimum element, an archetipal atom of the building action; a composition of three bricks evokes both the primary element of the housing, the single apartment, and the shape of the facade of the Giudecca’s complex, facing the canal; the result is abstraction, but without losing the materiality of the building. Moreover, the structure of the brick recalls the relationship between solids and voids, and also between the elevation and the water.
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At first there is just a simple box in a room, but approaching it and looking inside the visitor enters this small diorama and interacts with the installation.
Inside it there are the three bricks, reflecting on mirrors, in several directions, creating an infinite serialized image; they look for the sudden surprise of the visitor, but it is just the beginning of the experience. As a matter of fact, after few seconds the signifier assumes the intended meaning, through a process of abstraction of forms, allowed by the isolation of the object from the context.
The mirrors allow to create infinite combinations, to explore the possibilities of composition, to reflect on the control of the minimum module. The figure symbolizes the Giudecca’s housing, and it soon becomes clear to the visitor, who can start varying the point of view of the box, or simply the inclination of the observation, and reflect upon the way this simple atom can create complexity in housing and public space.
