Renzo Piano

La settimana scorsa sono andata a vedere una presentazione dell'architetto Renzo Piano presso il Politecnico di Torino. Al inizio la idea già mi sembrava buona, anche perchè non abbiamo sempre una oportunità come quella in Brasile, però poi quando ero seduta di fronte a quell'uomo mi sono diventata infatti contentíssima di essere lì.
Pensavo che sia un di quelli colloqui che il professionista parla di tutte le sue opere e si autocita parecchie volte. Ma invece a quello sono stata sorpresa di conoscere una personalità come quella.
È arrivato un signore settantenne, barba bianca e pocchi capelli. Gentile e sorridente.

Volevo scrivere tutto quello che ho sentito, capito e imparato. Oppure le ispirazione che quelle parole mi hanno portato a quel punto. Non sentivo la voglia di farlo fino adesso, però oggi ho deciso finire questo post (che stava salvato e lasciato indietro)

Alcune di suei frasi mi hanno inspirato tanto che li trascrevo:
L'invito di ascoltare quello che non'è forma, ma che diventa forma.

Dovete sapere rubare. Rubare proprio. Ascoltare e prendere le cose che gli altri vi offrono senza accorgersi.
Copiare no! Rubare è un'altra cosa... Copiare è brutissimo!

E poi quella che mi ha "toccato" di più:
Ragazzi: Impari, diventi più complessi

Ho già detto quello parechie volte, ma sto cercando di farlo.

|Sem tílulo| - tentei pensar am algo

Sabe aqueles dias que você só precisa de um abraço e fechar os olhos? Mais nada. Pois é hoje é um desses dias.
Preciso da sensaçao de conforto por alguns instantes.

Por mais que eu pense em como as coisas serão diferentes daqui a algum tempo, não consigo deixar de sentir isso.
Não sei porque escrevo. Acho porque tenho certeza que ninguém vai ler isso.

I've been reading...

Yesterday I decided what would be the main subject of my final these at the Polytechnic. It is something I start liking some time ago, just meanwhile I become more interest about the identity of the cities and how the field professionals such as architects, designers and researchers could decode, analyze and try to understand the city and its habitants given signs to produce new ways of dealing with this relationship.
That studies, will not only give me the opportunity to enhance knowledge, become aware of the history and culture of the place I am living, get to know all the urban, migratory and economic processes Torino has been through but also and mainly try to develop a suggestion for a new visual identity for the city.
Well, that is just the initial thought. I have to figure out in what scale should I work, for example my own neighborhood or the entire city? Or even the metropolitan region composed by small cities around here? I'd say I prefer the small scale, such as Borgo San Salvario.
My own quartiere has a lot to do with the West European and African immigration into the EU richer countries and the traces of cultural mixture are everywhere. I'd like to be able to connect and integrate all this people from abroad and try to make them feel here as their home too. Creating this connection with the places, ones tend to become more respectful and take better care of things as well.
I believe also that this have to do with the feelings and sensations such as happiness, contentment and joy in spite of the madness of the uncontrolled urbanization and the high speed of contemporary relation processes ands the giant amount of available information.
I don't know, but maybe that's the reason people get unhappy and unsatisfied nowadays. For me, the open possibilities and the enormous information access create a feeling that every effort you make to try to follow the moving events of life seams not enough. I feel this often. Even trying to do as many things as possible to keep going, I have this feeling that I'm letting some things behind. And that sometimes make me sad.
But that was just a thought among all the context reflexion.

Well, I'll transcript a part of the back cover describing this book I'm reading written by the Italian architect Mario Botta and a well-known psychologist Paolo Crepet called Dove abitano le emozioni - La felicità e i luoghi in cui viviamo.

Le nostre emozione dipendono infatti anche e sopratutto dai luoghi in cui passiamo il nostro tempo: i colori, la luce e l'organizzazione degli ambiente possono generare solitudine, benessere, disagio, stimolare creatività o noia. (...)

Let the semester begin! Go!

It's incredible how just the expectation of a good thing in the near future can bring a whole new way of seeing and dealing with daily situations.
You probably have noticed that I am a changing humor kind of person, on extreme ups and downs. I can't help it and I just can't hide my feelings also. If I am in a good mood you'll probably see me singing, laughing and making fun of everything, but when I'm blue I simply wanna be quiet, on my place, thinking about whatever is bothering me. Sometimes I don't even wanna talk about it, just because I think I'd be annoying the others...
I'm happily, nowadays, with good thoughts and a lot of plans. I also have taken some challenges this semester such as studying, working, start writing my final University project (which I gotta present next July)and teaching English to a Romanian sixteen year-old girl here in Italy. All at the same time! But on my side I have a good hope that makes me do my best and go through it all.
Probably that will make me grow in many ways like being more responsible, organized and dedicated (since last semester was very slow and boring at school). Not spend my salary and save for a reason, work as many hours I can and dedicate my weekends on studying for college and for the things I am interest - Graphic Design lately!

Well, that was just a normal post, because I felt like writing a little bit. So, see ya.

This pic was from one of the classes...Researching to make it funny. Cute ahn? =)

Learning

I woke up this morning not thinking at all how my mood would be. Neutral. I don't know, maybe just keep doing all daily habits. As work was slow for a while, I decided start reading a book I've downloaded from internet about Graphic Design in the 21st Century (Taschen, 2003).
Surprisingly, some old ideas and goals I've put in my mind to achieve in the near future start seam to be accomplished. Some time ago I decided to inform myself better and develop my art senses as well my professional skills (not well-understanding what profession will be so far).
For a while I've been practicing hand-drawing as well as computer assisted design. I've already have some ideas to make true, but I think some lecture and learning will do just fine first of all.

Well, what i really wanted to write about was an essay that grabbed my attention. It's from an American designer named Milton Glaser (b.1929), actually one of the most - if not the most - respected and active designers in the USA and was presented at the 2005 AIGA National Design Conference in Boston, MA. I've found it while researching in his own web site(http://www.miltonglaser.com/) and it makes really good points about art, design, publicity and the role of the professional in society.
Here we have some pieces of the essay:

"Many of us have been troubled by the passivity of the American people towards the events of our time. Part of this condition must be attributed to the cynical use of fear our government has employed to control peoples’ judgment after the trauma of 9/11. This was made possible in part by television, my favorite whipping boy, and the most persuasive means of indoctrination in human history.(...) Television combines news about the war, Paris Hilton’s career, global warming and Geico commercials into events of equal importance. The result is an enormous population that believes nothing matters."

About Art:
(...)"Not long ago, I reread EH Gomrich’s magisterial Survey of Art History which begins, 'There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists.'How liberating, the question is finally answered—if there is no Art, Design cannot be considered Art.'
If we need a definition of Art, the Roman literary critic Horace provided an elegant one. “The role of art is to inform and delight”. Form and light are hidden in that definition. It’s an idea I enthusiastically embrace. Of course, informing is different than persuading. When one is informed, one is strengthened. Persuasion does not guarantee the same result.
Delight is the non-quantifiable part of the definition that speaks to the role of beauty. What artists make is a gift to humankind; a benign instrument that has the possibility of affecting our consciousness through empathy and shared symbolism. We are affected not through logic but by a direct appeal to our limbic brain, the source of our emotional life. Although we don’t fully understand how it functions, I’m drawn to this mysterious part of our work, which we frequently describe as metaphysical or miraculous. These words may simply mean that we still do not understand what our brain is capable of."

Well those, among many others, were thoughts and questions I've already had myself and I believe supported in good references he found a good way to discuss that.

As I keep on learning and realizing things, I'll be happy to write this down. Even if no one so far knows or reads this page.

Mari

"We can reject the passivity and narcissism that leads to despair, and choose to participate in the life of our times."(M.Glaser)

Bloody Sunday

Sometimes I wish that as much as we wanted something that could become real.
I have no guarantees but i truly wish we had a chance. Maybe it's not the right moment. I know that. But I can't help feeling this way.
Once probably I've insisted in something I wasn't sure but deep inside I knew I could have some else better than. Now it's very different.
I felt I could be me and also feel good about it. That surely means something.
I hate this situation. And I don't even know what I can do about it.

I wish I could write better tonight...but I don't.
I just know I still dream about you.

How soon is now?

I am human and I just need to be l...
Just like everybody else does.

(The Smiths)