Scan barcode
A review by clairewords
Atlantis: A Journey in Search of Beauty by Renzo Piano, Carlo Piano
5.0
What an unexpected pleasure this was. I spent a week reading it, always looked forward to picking it up and loved the shared narrative between father and son as they travelled around the world on a research ship, during 8 months, revisiting the sites of Renzo's architectural designs and his memory of the creative process, of the people he met with to understand their needs and that of the community his structures would serve and the incredible cultural immersion all those projects have given, this now 80 year old architect and father.
Renzo and Carlo set sail from Genoa one late summer day, and from the blurb, would have us believe:
It is as much a conversation as a travelogue and one that takes place when 80 year old Renzo is still contemplating retirement, this revisiting of his projects and the reflection they invite, the inspiration of old, the dissatisfaction with things he might have done different and the provocation and scandal that his early work, (Beauborg - the Centre Pompidou in Paris) caused.
The son Carlo questions and muses and creates the narrative structure within which his father responds and reflects and by the end I can't even say whose narrative I prefer, there is such a wonderful synergy and relation between the two, Carlo is able to dig further than an interviewer might, because it is his father he knows so well, referring to him by many names throughout, the Explorer, the Constructor, the Old Man. Does he call him the Philosoper? I'm not sure, but he is, his subject creativity and beauty.
Having educated us in how the word 'beauty' differs in Italian, French and many other languages, something that means 'good and beautiful, intrinsic in the essence of something' he reminisces with his staff on their collective purpose: (in a letter he writes on the ship to them on the day of his 80th birthday)
I found the entire book engaging, their journey and revisiting the building projects along the Tames and the Seine, in New Caledonia and New York, San Franciso and Osaka Bay and finally to Athens, providing just enough information and context to keep the narrative interesting and intriguing, with the addition of that element of humanity that only two people who know each other as well as these two could bring.
Renzo and Carlo set sail from Genoa one late summer day, and from the blurb, would have us believe:
guided by the ancestral desire felt by many explorers before them to find Atlantis, the perfect city, built to harbour a perfect society
It is as much a conversation as a travelogue and one that takes place when 80 year old Renzo is still contemplating retirement, this revisiting of his projects and the reflection they invite, the inspiration of old, the dissatisfaction with things he might have done different and the provocation and scandal that his early work, (Beauborg - the Centre Pompidou in Paris) caused.
Sins of Youth
After the Paris adventure he spent years defending himself against people who feared they would put pipes up everywhere. Rogers suffered the same fate, a fate reserved for heretics in the Middle Ages.
"I see Beauborg as a joyful urban machine, which inspires more than a few questions."
The son Carlo questions and muses and creates the narrative structure within which his father responds and reflects and by the end I can't even say whose narrative I prefer, there is such a wonderful synergy and relation between the two, Carlo is able to dig further than an interviewer might, because it is his father he knows so well, referring to him by many names throughout, the Explorer, the Constructor, the Old Man. Does he call him the Philosoper? I'm not sure, but he is, his subject creativity and beauty.
Having educated us in how the word 'beauty' differs in Italian, French and many other languages, something that means 'good and beautiful, intrinsic in the essence of something' he reminisces with his staff on their collective purpose: (in a letter he writes on the ship to them on the day of his 80th birthday)
"The pursuit of beauty. The word is hard to articulate. As soon as you open your moth, it flies off, like a bird of paradise. Beauty can not be caught, but we are obliged to reach for it. Beauty is not neutral; pursuing it is a political act. Building is a grand act, a gesture toward peace, the opposite of destruction."
I found the entire book engaging, their journey and revisiting the building projects along the Tames and the Seine, in New Caledonia and New York, San Franciso and Osaka Bay and finally to Athens, providing just enough information and context to keep the narrative interesting and intriguing, with the addition of that element of humanity that only two people who know each other as well as these two could bring.
A light touch allows you, even at your most determined, to listen to others and seek to understand them. A heavy tread you're better off without.
Lightness is key to understanding places, and, in that sense, an architect must inhabit the places where he works. I have been a Parisian, a Berliner, a New Yorker, a Londoner, A Kanak.
All the while remaining who I am.
I think an architect who does not recognize himself in the place he is building cannot capture its soul.