Month: June 2016

Thus far my sketch notebook has not only been an adventure into getting to know my drawing style and how I can progress as an artist even though I didn’t even consider that a possibility. It’s also a way to take notes and look back on my previous adventures throughout Milan and how this study abroad experience has impacted me. It’s also a way to find the interesting ads of Milan and show them to colleagues and learn the differences in culture that are present here. One of my favorite sketches currently is the one above. The reason I greatly enjoy it is because to me it feels like a pun and even to the people of Italy I believe it is taken that way. I think this is the case because in the headline it says “eately,” which to Italians is how you pronounce the word Italy, and it also contains the word “eat.” This amazing pun made me laugh for a good ten minutes as I realized the play on words and really wanted to congratulate the agency that thought of this one. Even though I have no idea what the ad is actually saying, I can tell that it’s related to food with not only the picture of the woman holding bags of food but also the word “eately” telling me. It also seems to be strictly for Italy and would not even come close to working in the United States, which I feel gives it that uniqueness and sincerity that can only be achieved here.

Florence was a city I REALLY wanted to visit during my stay in Italy but it didn’t like it was in the cards for me. I knew a large group of girls were planning to go on Saturday, but I was unable to because my sister was flying in from New York. I had given up on the idea of going, when my roomates planned a last minute day trip there. We were able to book an express train to get us there in a short amount of time and I was able to persuade my hesitant sister to join us. Our trip was incredible! We were able to visit the Duomo and climbed over 400 steps to reach the top of the Campinile. My legs were burning by the time we reached the top but the view was worth it. My roomate Hailey really wanted to visit the Basilica of Santa Croce to see where Galileo and Michaeli Angelo were buried. On our way there we found ourselves in the midst of a jousting tournament. That was a fun surprise! We wrapped up the day by visiting the Gucci Museo, which was nothing short of incredible. I’m so thrilled that I was able to visit Florence for the first time and share that experience with my roomates and sister.

For mapping the city project, a route between Headquarters of the Federazione del Fasci Milanesi and Triennale di Milano had to be administered. My group and I began our journey on Piazza S. Sepolcro where the headquarters is and ended at Emilio Alemagna where the Triennale is. Even though Triennale was build before the headquarters, this pathway of journey enabled us to better interpret these two important buildings. When doing our first walk, we didn’t have any idea of how to best interpret our journey. Starting at the piazza, we were reminded by how suppressing the feeling of just being there felt like. Standing tall as the 9^th century church in front of it, the headquarters was the political center of Mussolini when fascism ruled Italy. Going further, we passed the stock exchange area where the financial district of Milan is. After that, we came across bunch of shops and cafes where the daily interactions takes place. Then we saw a community with parking garage with some cafes as well and people jogging around. Next, Cordona station was sighted with a park sighted right before our last stop, Triennale. When stopping at Triennale, we felt we were more in an open environment without feeling suppressed.

In between traveling around a single country, a change can be noticed in any single subject. Whether that is architecture, food, transportation, environment, or clothing, a difference can be easily recognized. While I have been in Milan for about three weeks now, a variation in architecture was observed when I traveled outside of Milan. With the focus of my sketchbook being windows, I spotted differences in windows and overall architecture of buildings between Milan and when visiting Rome last weekend. While here in Milan there is a mixture of elaborate and decorative buildings, as in Art Nouveau, with that of Fascist architecture, in Rome however, there was only Fascist style to be discovered. Even with the lack of ornamentation, by embracing the simplicity of modern architecture in Rome I did not become overwhelm. With already an existence of prehistoric architecture and monuments, by seeing buildings, especially windows not also take the form of extreme decoration, I was able to smoothly grasp my surroundings. Moreover, since fascist style was brought through Mussolini’s idea of unifying Italy through fascism, seeing this effect take place with the simplest art in Rome and everywhere in Italy, shows the influence that politics can have on art.

 

 

This week had a very anxious start with the final presentation of our glimpses into Milan and the amazing amount of information presented about our buildings. Through this amazing adventure, we were able to meet the community of Milan firsthand and interact with the city instead of just staring at its wonders. We memorized street names and coffee shops. Smelled the fresh fruits and live atmosphere that kept Milan the amazing destination for those to live and work here. It was a great experience and being able to tell the experience was even more rewarding. I was even asked at the end for more information regarding my story that I told while we walked. The story included actually being able to see a building in the style of a village. It was remarkable to learn how others in Milan live and be astounded by how incredibly similar their living situations were to those in, for instance, New Orleans with the expanded courtyards and the beautiful layout that allowed a person to see those around them when staring up in the courtyard. It was a great experience and retelling it was even better. Being able to hear each of us present this experience to our classmates and retell stories we had constantly practiced was really hard and nerve wracking, but fulfilling.

I have continued my sketching of the various floorings, pavements, and ground coverages that I have been running across within not only Milan, but surrounding areas as well. While many floors have continued similar styles and color tones, I am surprised that I have not seen the same pattern twice. Each place has offered its own unique presentation of geometric patterning and neutral coloring. The only time that I have seen a flooring resemble a previous patterning has been in hallways or exterior walkways. Typically, these floorings are basically mosaics that are bordered in. The majority of these just vary in size and coloring, but still offer something new to my collection of patterns.

The most continuity between floorings has often occurred – non surprisingly- within the area of specific places/ buildings. Some of the prime examples that I have in my sketchbook to demonstrate this are at Stressa, one of islands of Lake Maggiore. While some of these floorings offer similarities in patterns, they are all unique and some even vary drastically from organic forms to strict geometry. However, the overall color compilation of these various floorings is cohesive. While this seems like it could be a simple statement of commonsense, it became more notable as a priority to look for similarities and differences in color combinations once in the more dense areas of Milan.

This was my first trip semi-alone. Well, alone for the first half of the first day. I booked my train ticket extra early so I could pack in as much as possibile because I was only staying one night. I was a bit nervous about traveling by myself since I had never done that before. But I was so excited once I got there! So excited that I accidentally texted my mom telling her how excited I was at 2:30 am Texas time! I also told her I was alone, so she had a hard time going back to sleep. Sorry mom!

I started out with a bus tour that just went around the city. It was only about an hour long, but gave me some context of the history behind Florence. It is definitely not a design oriented city like Milan is, rather it has a lot of art historical hubs. The Uffizi Gallery is located in Florence, and houses many of the great works of art of Europe.

One thing I noticed right away, was how small Florence is! It’s a tiny city! I could walk from the train station to the Duomo in about 10 min! And that is like wring across the city. That would not be doable in Milan for sure. But, I loved that aspect of Florence. It made seeing a lot of sights in one day easy and not stressful. I went to the leather market at Piazza San Lorenzo, which was magnificent! That was probably the most design-related area of the city. There were hundreds of leather bags, jackets, shoes and belts down this one street. I felt like it never ended! Of course, I had to buy a bag, I even haggled a bit!

After my fun half day of wandering around the city by myself I meet up with some of the girls. We walked around the city some more until we decided to break off into smaller groups and do our own exploring. Florence has a much different feeling than any of the other Italian cities that I have been to this month. It has a certain charm that I didn’t feel in Rome and don’t feel in Milan. Maybe it was the size, or maybe it was because it is mainly a tourist city, filled to the brim with museums. I love Milan, but Florence had a different, almost magical feel to it. It didn’t have the hustle and bustle feel that Milan and Rome had.

I have already decided that I have to go back to Florence. I didn’t get to see everything I wanted to, but that is okay, because it gives me an excuse to come back!

After our walks and examination of the two areas, City Life and the Rustic House, we moved onto how we wanted to represent our observations and question about modernity in an effective and efficient way.

While trying to answer the question about what modernity is and how both City Life and the Rustic House could somehow fit into this category, we also wanted to focus our presentation on different ways of living in Milan. This city is constantly developing. It is a lively area with a whole bunch of history but also a whole bunch of building. Because of this combination of new and old, and the fact that almost every decade is represented in the architecture as you walk down the street, Milan is called a patchwork. And this patchwork is constantly growing. New developments are not necessarily trying to change Milan but simply to add on a new way of living in the city.

Modern is relative term pertaining to a certain instances in time. Over the years, many movements have claimed to be modern. So what is modern? If modern acts as a time capsule for different movements, we question what certain modern styles can tell about the people attracted to it or the residents who choose to live within it? Is there a type?  We observed the area between two contrasting community to evaluate the individuals who choose to make up the community and to test whether each building attracts the like-minded people who share the same values as the movements.

These two residencies, and all other apartment buildings, offer the people of Milan different ways to live their lives. The surrounding green areas, sounds, smells, gates, parking, colors, and many other factors affect the way people live in their communities. It also affects the type of people who would decide to live there. In order to represent this, we decided to divide our observations into three main sections: people, commute and community.

For people, we looked at the residents. In City Life, although children are seen in the area, it does not appear to be a family oriented environment. The residents need to have a certain economic standing in order to afford the luxury apartments. It is even known for housing professional athletes and musicians. The apartment prices can reach over 2 million euro. The Rustic House

The commute also affects how people interact with the spaces. In terms of driving and parking, City Life is the largest car free area in Milan and one of the biggest in Europe, however it offers underground parking space for over 7,000 vehicles. Rustic House on the other hand has a bunch of parking in the surrounding area and offers free access at any place with loose gravel. For underground transportation, the closest metros to City Life are Amendola (5 minute walk, 400m) and Tre Torri (9 minute walk, 650m). The closest metro to Rustic House is Gerusalemme (5 minute walk, 450m), the second closet is nearly 20 minutes away (walking). It seems that City Life is much more welcoming to people taking the metro.

The last section is community. We analyzed this in terms of the community within each residency and the larger community surrounding it. In City Life, the gated community promotes exclusion of outsiders more than the safety of the residents. Because it is trying to become self sufficient and the communal parks are located at the center of the property, the builders of City Life are more focused on enhancing the community with the space than with the community outside their gates. On the other hand, the courtyard of the Rustic House is open on one side, available to both the residents of the house as well as the surrounding metropolitan area. And to kill two birds with one stone, there are bridges across the one open side that promote community within the building as well.

Hearing from Cristiano Bottino, one of the partners at studio FM milano, was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. Being enthusiastic about graphic design, I am always so curious about what the life and work of a graphic designer looks like and how they got to where they are. I was so inspired and obsessed with all of the work he showed us. I loved the cleverness in each project. Kind of like in rationalist architecture where if a building was taken out of its context it would no longer make sense or have as much meaning, their work would not make sense if it were not for that particular client and purpose. FM does not seem to have a formula where they just plug and chug to get a product. They do intense research and go through many steps specific to each project in order to create something that will fit the need best.

This is the kind of designer I want to be. I don’t want all of my work to look the same despite the purpose or need. As of now, I also think I would love working in a small studio like this one. They get to work on such diverse projects and they seem to tackle each one with zeal.

I did not leave studio FM milano empty-handed. I not only left with a lot of inspiration and hope for my future as a designer, but also with a truly adorable and clever book full of type “faces”!

As previously mentioned, my team and I were assigned the Headquarters of the Federazione del Fasci Milanesi and the Triennale di Milano as the two endpoints of our mapping assignment. For our presentation we decided to display a miniature exhibition inspired by that of Neo Preistoria – 100 Verbs by Andrea Branzi and Kenya Hara. Neo Preistoria was one of the first exhibits that we walked through at the Triennale and we were inspired by the journey it told through objects that at first glance were almost too abstract to connect. The connection and explanatory factor was the 100 verbs that were used to simply notate a characteristic at each key point. 

While the exhibit at the Triennale was displaying a journey of mankind and objects overtime, our team’s goal was the use a miniature exhibit to map the ‘moods’ overtime during the journey from the Headquarters of the Federazione del Fasci Milanesi and the Triennale di Milano. Rather than the 100 verbs that broke down the long and continuous history of mankind and objects, our exhibit was broken down into seven main transitions in moods; each of which was assigned a descriptive verb. 

Our exhibit could be read either ‘A’ to ‘B’ or ‘B’ to ‘A’, heaviness to lightless or vice versa. For our presentation, we followed to path that we first traveled and began with the heavy atmosphere of the fascist headquarters and moved towards to lightness surrounding the Triennale. The following words and contrived definitions were used to represent each key point throughout our journey, followed by the representative object.

SUPPRESS– To lower an opponent through intimidation. To stymie all hope.

DEPLETE– To exhaust completely. Continual loss from a supply.

STIMULATE– To pique interest. To stir physically and emotionally.

ROUSE– To awaken and captivate through thought or experience. To differentiate the immediate past and present.

MOBILIZE– To transport. To transcend spaces and locations.

UPLIFT– To fuel the spirit. To amplify the feeling of happiness or wellness.

EXPAND – “To broaden a space. Physically or mentally. To breach new territory in a literal or figurative manner.”

The first point after the headquarters of fascism, DEPLETE, was located at Borsa- Piazza degli Affari. This area is the financial district of Milan and is notable for the iconic middle finger statue in the center of the piazza. While this area was still suppressing in the function and atmosphere, is was slightly lighter than the Piazza San Sepolcro where the fascist headquarters is located. There started to be more people roaming the area- although all wearing the same attire of business professionals- and an overall sense of equality between the buildings around the piazza that differed from San Sepolcro where the fascist headquarters dominated.

After Borsa, the mood began to lighten more gradually as we came across an area more so dominated by commerce rather than cubicles. While business professionals could still be spotted in the area, there were also casual walkers, shop owners, and customers. The intersection that we labeled as the ‘core’ of this mood shift was at Via S. Marigalla alla Porta and Via Meravigili. The fragrances pouring out on the sidewalks from various shops inspired the chosen object and verb: A Jo Malone perfume sample ( from a shop on the corner) and STIMULATE. This was the beginning of a lighter mood beginning to take priority in our walk.

Just past the main section of commerce, an area more so dedicated to cafes and greenery came into sight. A romantic pathway of cobblestone and gardens connected the compressed commercial district of our walk to the large and open core of traffic on the other end. Notable for being the first part of walk that was adorned with greenery and flowers, ROUSE was chosen to help described the mood that this area emitted.

At the other end of the green walkway a familiar and unexpected area came into our line of sight. The oversized needles with the bright red, yellow, and green thread peaked out behind the trees. Cadorna. A main artery of traffic, vehicular and pedestrian, as well as commerce, MOBILIZE was the word that we felt best expressed the mood of this point in our walk. While we had previously seen a commerce area in our walk, the area had still been slightly depressed in its architectural and urban design. However, Cadorna represents a different mood of commerce – open, amplified, and fast-paced.

Just past Cadorna we came across our sixth shift in mood as we entered the edge of a park that led to the Triennale. It is important to note that over our last three weeks in Milan we have rarely seen anyone running or participating in physical activity for the purpose of working out. However, in this area- even just on the edge of the park- we came across person after person jogging in workout attire. This area probably had the most sporting attire in one outside public location at a time in Milan. Between the refreshing greenery and the inspiring runners that filled this area, UPLIFT seemed to be the proper explanation of what it felt like to be in this area of the walk.

And then, we arrived at our final destination – The Triennale di Milano. This area opened up completely and not only the physical environment changed, but also the mentality of the space. Although built of the same fascist time period at the headquarters of fascism, the Triennale represented something new. Built/designed by Muzio, a key figure in the Novecento Italiano movement, the Triennale was originally a way displaying fascist art and representations of Mussolini’s principles. However, with time the movement began to have friction with the fascist movement and authorities. The modern movement that began to be seen in the exhibits have shaped the Triennale and the environment surrounding. Although of similar materials to that of the headquarters of fascism, the Triennale has a lighter atmosphere architecturally and environmentally as well as mentally. Therefore, EXPAND was the proper verb to represent what the Triennale and its surroundings.

Overall, we feel as if we adequately captured the transition in moods overtime throughout our walk from the Headquarters of the Federazione del Fasci Milanesi and the Triennale di Milano. The verb choice and object choice were reflective of the characteristics of each key point in the walk that we identified and we hope that others were able to imagine the experience of the walk through the presented exhibition as well.