I can start by telling how all of this began. Last year, during the course of architectural planning, i’ve proposed (after viewing an amazing site of abandoned places’’s photographs) to transform an abandoned factory in an art gallery. All the ones i’ve described my idea to, thought it was an interesting project, everybody except my teacher, who said it was lousy. My proposal was to leave the factory in it’s abandoned state, and to freeze the most interesting parts, as objects and machineries, by pouring on top of them a transparent resin, to create a protective film and to include the objects with the architecture. The idea was to leave free visit opportunity, so that everyone could register their own feelings. I didn’t want to violate the infinite imagination of the visitors, so i was kind of reluctant to insert any kind of written informations about the place or the history of the factory. But my teacher thought it was necessary, so i had to find a solution, also because the original aim of the project was to tell the past of the place to the present visitors. So at the end i thought of printing inscriptions in the oddest spots with a thermochromic ink (wich appears only in particular conditions of light and temperature), to tell the history of the place, in a way that each visit would be different, according to the time of the day. So, who entered during the night, wouldn’t have had any information, and imagination would have been free. Who entered in the afternoon would have had differnt informations from who entered during the morning. The informations would have changed from one hour to the other, depending on the solar movement. It probably is an impossible project, because of the expences. What more fascinated me was the intent to freeze traces left by time passing by, as the dust, the dirt, pigeon poops, abandoned shoes in the middle of the floor, writings on the wall. The teacher wasn’t enthusiastic, ‘cause he’d prefer to tear everything down and built something new. I understand his position, and it’s not my intention to preserve every abandoned place on the earth, also because the fascinating part of it, is the constantly regenerating urban landscape: now there’s an abandoned factory, tomorrow it will not be here anymore, and there will be another one some place else, with other stories to tell. I must say that the prototype i’ve shown to the teacher was very disgusting: the resin i’ve found wasn’t good for what i wanted to do, and it also was very smelly!

I didn’t want to do a planning thesis, nor theoretic, so what is best if not the middle way? I don’t plan anything in the places i visit and explore, but i propose a different way of living the city: i suggest to find again the human dimension, to create over again the free time, and to free ourselves from stress, tecnology, society. I want to find out how the city breathes when it’s not observed. I want to show the scenary we live in every day, without realizing. I want to giustify the fears we have when we find ourselves in places not supported by certanties.