From the Metropolis to the Desert

25/08/2016

From the Metropolis to the desert is a journey through the Californian landscape, from Los Angeles, the metropolis without an end, stopping in Palm Springs, to the Death Valley. My wife Kiara and I made this trip in July 2012 as the initiatory one of our wedding. We discovered together a genuine America, which is reported in this book. The idea of the cinematic metropolis and the desert, like in the movie Zabriskie Point, the masterpiece of Michelangelo Antonioni, has accompanied us during our trip, while the cinema itself has joined our love. The journeys of the British historian Reyner Banham influenced my approach and my gaze, as well did some American photographers, such as Lee Friedlander, whose ironic view has always been my own shadow. This book is the report of both the discovery and the verification of the wilderness of the American landscape, which is totally a new one to the Europeans. This is also a journey through the spaces of a metropolis which progressively dissolves to become a desert, where all the experimentations finally make sense to us, from Bucky Fuller to Paolo Soleri, from James Turrell to Walter De Maria, and the ones between art and architecture which could finally express themselves at the frontiers.

Publisher: PLUG_IN. 2012. Softcover. 22×22 cm. Pages: 46. Language: English. Color illustrated. RRP:€ 30,00. ISBN: 978-88-95459-11-0