Architecture nominee

This series explores the artistic side of rationalist architecture, the prominent style that shaped public and private Italian constructions between the early 1900s and the 1940s. Although often criticizes because of its direct connections to the fascist regime and its marked monumentalism, this misunderstood association often ignores the deep linkages between rationalism and other disciplines. For example, the wise displacement of bright marble statues alongside the most imposing facades generates well-balanced sceneries that seem to commemorate metaphysical visual arts. Not only. Addressing these connections with an open mind, one realizes how solidly rationalism and other facets of the metaphysical thinking were in fact intertwined. The entire movement was indeed a poetic celebration of abstraction through simple and well understood shapes, a glorification of symbolism that is frequently portrayed in many metaphysical novels. Even photography is functional to these intricate relationships: by sitting at the intersection between architecture, painting and writing, it gauges the concreteness of rationalist architects’ masterpieces to the rarefied mood of metaphysical artistic creations.

I started taking pictures with a DSLR camera in late 2012. I was going through a rather difficult moment, and I thought that throwing myself headlong into a new hobby would have somehow helped to get out of the quagmire. That’s what eventually happened. Unsurprisingly, I approached photography the way everybody typically does: by some taking random shots of people, landscape, flowers, etc. For quite a few months I tried hard to make my way out of an ocean of different categories and styles, seeking to understand which one I liked the most. I can’t say that it wasn’t a bit frustrating at the beginning. However, it was not long before I got passionate about cityscapes and, in particular, architectural photography. Since the beginning, I have always placed a great emphasis on modern buildings such as skyscrapers, futuristic residential estates, contemporarily designed shopping malls, etc. In particular, I would shoot both details and entire figures black and white, possibly using very long shutter speed to create a distressing and abstract mood. I recently decided to bring colors back into my shots while cutting out all the unnecessary details that might distract from the core artistic message.