I discovered Ugo La Pietra's work at the current Home Futures exhibition at The Design Museum. The Italian artist, architect and designer explores the relationship between individuals and environment, intervening in public space to push the boundaries of privacy. These works correlate really well with my study for the editorial, discussing alternative ways of living, and using slightly humorous techniques to critique the rental market and ownership of space.
ART IN THE SOCIETY, 1976–79 RECONVERSION PLANNING
The photographs of a series of universally familiar urban furniture that evoke the constraints, barriers, aloofness and violence of the city were redesigned and wholly repurposed, from structures serving the city to structures serving the domestic space. His researches of those years made “in and for the society”, as well as the proposal by other art-operators, were documented in the magazines edited by La Pietra: IN, INPIU’, Brera Flash, Fascicolo.
INTERVENTI PUBBLICI PER LA CITTÀ DI MILANO (PUBLIC INTERVENTIONS FOR THE CITY OF MILAN – POLES AND CHAINS), 1979
Ed. Triennale di Milano, made by Mario Tosi. film 16 mm, colour, sound, 6’29’’, 4:3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HydsGgzCKg4
The film is ironic about the lack of actions for transforming city spaces; the few actions undertaken are almost always limited to the positioning of “poles and chains”: the temporary signs of a hypothetical transformation on the city. The film shows sequences of innumerable “pole and chain” barriers, commented on by architects, councillors, members of activity groups… who all underline the impermanence of these objects in view of some “elusive” transformations of the city.
TELEMATIC HOUSE - HOUSE CELL, 1972 FROM THE DISEQUILIBRATING SYSTEM
Presented at the exhibition "Italy: the new domestic landscape" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York this project, which was not understood at the time, foresees something that has then occurred in a macroscopic way: the use of telematics and information technology interior of the living space, in a constant exchange of information between the individual in the private space and the community in the public space (ie the advent of the Internet ). "Ciceronelettronico" and "Videocomunicatore" are the two tools invented to perform this exchange.
Progettare INPIU magazine
Quarterly magazine, Jabik & Colophon Ed., Milan Monographic magazine that still represents today a peculiar way of doing research. Eugenio Battisti’s letter has been the best confirmation on this way of research, used for the studies “The use of the object” and “The use of the city” published in the magazine.
Edited by Ugo La Pietra. I love the layouts of this editorial.
All works and words taken from https://ugolapietra.com/en/home-2/
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