In a mysterious place
something will be discovered
Hey there, jump on the train of mystery with me in this disorganic newsletter.
The main theme is the Mystery. A concept that I want to embrace in the broader sense possible. Simplicistic yes, but also fun. The theme was prompted by a page from Townscape by Gordon Cullen (no idea what I’m talking about? Check the insights of a previous newsletter). The page is simply called mystery, and you can find it down here:
It is one of my favorite pages of the book because it is able to prompt ideas and it really makes me want to explore the city and get lost. Mysteries hide behind every corner, especially when you live in Rome and you happen to discover new things every day (even in places where you have been thousands times). Now I want to visit Withenshawe.
My name is Federico and welcome to Representations of Architecture #8.
Insights
The mystery here is: Why there are no western publications on the japanese master Seiichi Shirai? How is possible that such a fine architect (it was a Pritzker Prize nominee, see down in the links) has never had a non-japanese publication? No idea, but in this elevation you can admire one of his most famous buildings, the third phase of the Shinwa Bank in Nagasaki. Shirai is often called the Japanese Carlo Scarpa, and his passion for materiality is clear. Scroll the page to find some other Shirai’s drawings.
Still a mystery is also the author behind this painting from the 15th century. It was attributed to Luciano Laurana, but right know Galleria Nazionale delle Marche (where the painting is preserved) states that the author is a “Middle-Italy Painter” since there is no concrete evidence that the painting was produced by an author or another. Urbino’s Ideal City is just one of three “Ideal Cities”, italian reainassance perspectives in an unusual elongated format. There is one in Baltimore, and one in Berlin. Some general infos in their wikipedia page.
Very beautiful links
When I was a kid my parents brought me to the Swiss Expo 2002. I remember almost nothing. I remember clearly just this strange rusty cube by Jean Nouvel, the one at the beginning of the newsletter.
One of my favorite comic-artists is Moebius (Jean Giraud). One of his better known graphic novels is Arzach. A wordless comic where around the middle it appears a weird and mysterious building, operative center somehow related to the main character.
If you want you can take a look at Azarch here. If you enjoyed it consider buying an original copy.
Arzach made me think of a documentary on Moebius that is on YouTube, and also here 👇
Seiichi Shirai, as mentioned before, is often considered the japanese Carlo Scarpa. It’s a fact that the two appreciated each other’s work (page 5).
According to architect and historian Terunobu Fujimori in Japanese modern architecture there are two schools: White and Red. Discover why Shirai is Red School and why Toyo Ito is White School.
It seems that the only western publication on Shirai is a poorely scanned pdf of a 1988 master thesis from a MIT student called Toshiaki Nagaya. If you are interested you can find it here.
You think my assumptions on Shirai are wrong? Please mail me.
There is a park near Rome called Parco dei Mostri (Monster Park). Projected by Pirro Ligorio for the Prince Pier Francesco Orsini during the sixteenth century. It’s a park full of stone creatures, and it has also a leaning building. While doing some research about it I also discovered that Salvador Dalì really liked it and visited it:
In this tiny video the speaker call him Dali (no accent). There is also a short movie by Antonioni on the park, and it also appears in numerous movies such as Sotto, Sotto.. by Lina Werthmuller (today impossible to find because Berlusconi bought the rights and never allowed further distribution. His first wife [Veronica Lario] appears in the movie).
Pirro Ligorio is also the author of one of my favorite images of Rome, the Antiquae Urbis Romae Imago, first drawing of the page and also beautifully described once again by Socks Studio in this article.
Sweet IG pages
Y_ylibrary is a mysterious page swapping (mostly) architecture books. Never tried that, but I’m willing to in the next months. I wanted a Capsule Metabolist magazine (with poster and CD-Rom), but I ultimately didn’t felt to swap anything from my collection (or maybe I just didn’t have rare material to swap 🤫). Right now you can find in the evidence stories some real gems. Little trivia that really no one wants to know: the previous name of the page was yokatta_yokatta, that in japanese means “I’m relieved to hear that.” or something like that.
This page collects drawings and pics from famous (and less-famous) cemeteries. The name of the page is really 👌👌👌. Some of the architectures presented are spooky and mysterious.
Misc
I just watched a movie called Stalker, by russian director Andrej Tarkovskij. Everyone told me “you have to watch it”, so I did it. It was good, long, but good. This one here below is one impressive shot.
The plot in short: inside “The Zone” rules of physics and time don’t apply in a normal way; the Stalker (the only person that can orientates inside “The Zone") guides the Professor and the Writer to a mysterious room. No way I’m telling you more. Take 2 hours 40 minutes and discover it by yourself.
I’m doing a research on a Banksy’s artwork and I found some pdfs of his first 3 tiny books (long-time sold-outs, but available here) + Wall and Piece that I have in physical copy. The third (Cut it Out) and Wall and Piece itself are dedicated to the memory of “Casual T”. I’m pretty sure this one is not Banksy’s, it could be this one instead. Or maybe Casual T is a Bristol writer from the 90s. Who knows… all this to say that I’m listening this music below 👇
To conclude I’ll copy paste a short extract from Nagaya’s thesis:
In February 1984, the committee of the Pritzker Prize selected Sei'ichi Shirai as the recipient of the prize for the year 1984. For the past few years Arata Isozaki, then a member of the committee, had been recommended to award Shirai. The response of the board at first was not favorable, commenting that his work was a strange eclecticism with derivatives of western icons, but year after year as Isozaki continued his support, the mood of the committee changed until it could appreciate Shirai's personal approach to architecture. Ironically the committee decided to award Shirai only three months after Shirai's death. Although Isozaki continued to argue for the award, because of the stipulation of the Pritzker Prize limiting its recipients living architects, the decision to award Shirai was cancelled. If he had lived a little longer, Shirai would have been the first Japanese architect to be awarded the world's most prestigious prize before Kenzo Tange, who received the award in 1987.
Probably in an alternative reality Shirai lived two more years and it is now studied as the first Japanese Pritzker prize.
Well, here we are, another week is gone, another newsletter too. I hope you are doing fine, wherever you are.
Alla prossima, ciao.
Federico
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