A truly bizarre addition atop the convention center in Milano. Mario Bellini’s erotic aquatic imagination got the best of him with what looks like the desiccated remains of a whale that had collapsed in the act of major flagrante delecto with a mis-identified paramour. Imagine the budget the selection committee had to sling at Mario’s go-for-broke moment.
can’t quite figure out whether Mario was enthralled with the convention halls architectural voluptuousness or if he was expressing his inner aggression at not getting the gig to design the Center in the first place.
Fountain pen with DeAtramentis Document Brown ink and Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens on Hannemühle way er paper sketchbook.
Mornin my friend… as usual I’m intrigued with your creativity. If I may,,, as a Landscape Designer/Horticulturalist… I can’t help but feel Milano was trying to disguise its visual footprint on the landscape by making it look more natural… like a mountain.
Hey Brrroo! That should have read ‘Mario’ was trying…..
Well, Milano’s is bigger, but we’re not to be outdone in Seattle with Paul Allen and Frank Gehry’s “Museum of Pop Culture” structure. Perhaps Bellini and Gehry discussed architecture together somewhere early on in their careers…
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMuseum_of_Pop_Culture&psig=AOvVaw3DI_9TefB7f_oZrTnrNKq_&ust=1706276805859000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBMQjRxqFwoTCKitptzW-IMDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAS
Hey Ed!! Milano lies in the Po River valley and it’s flat, flat, flat. Look up Monte Stella. A man made “mountain” that is comprised of the bombing rubble from WWII. My wife grew up in the neighborhood next to it. It was landscaped and heavily planted in the 1970’s and now it looks natural. The crest is about 12-15 stories high. Far more convincing and compelling than Mario’s mayhem. His structure could be said to be interesting, fascinating, funky cool, nifty, maybe someone could be persuaded to call it heroic, maybe. But it looks like an airplane that got off course during one of Milano’s famous dense fog, and crash landed atop the convention center.
I think all that material could be repurposed to build several public restrooms throughout the city. The times I’ve come upon and used public restrooms in Chartres, Amsterdam, Evanston, and Portland, I was super grateful. They can be handsomely designed as they were in a number of places and far more worthwhile.
Just one man’s suggestion.