Arriva da Zagabria un lavoro di grande interese ed attualità. Quello dello studio PENEZIC' & ROGINA. L'architetto Kresimir Rogina in particolare è uno studioso ed un appassionato sperimentatore del territorio che combina  l'architettura alla ricerca digitale.

Il recente volume "Penezic'&Rogina 79-91-01 NonCompletions racconta un percorso di impegno intelligente e spesso ispirato.

rogina@penezic-rogina.com
sito http://www.penezic-rogina.com/
 
 

VukoWar Reflections
Social housing for war victims in Vukovar, Croatia 1998-2002

Baroque town of Vukovar during fight for independence became Croatian Stalingrad, the symbol of people's resistance. It was heavily (almost totally) damaged during the siege by Yugoslav army. In the very center of the city, just in front of remains of the massive department store, nearby historical Eltz mansion, in-between main street and the river social housing facility with 24 apartments for war victims was to be designed. Behind the big screen which reflects dynamic city changes, like live ornament towards the public space, and galleries, elevated pathways, places of the social contacts towards courtyard of the future block, the new life is rising.
 
 

"Dry" Garden

Interior design of the Atrium of the Pliva pharmaceutics research center in Zagreb, Croatia 2001-2002

Space for contemplation and daily relaxation of the scientists as well as the main temporary gathering facility of the pharmaceutics company for different occasions was to be designed in the new building of research center. There are four multifunctional elements fabulating the concept of "dry" garden: Floating meander platform made of teak wood where people can seat on, walk through or look at; Integrated glass prisms, with vertical water flows and interactive light sources; Intelligent bamboo groves; Textile screens for different types of light "calligraphy". Articulation of the huge abstract space to the human scale with the possibility of creation of more adaptable and personal atmosphere was highly appreciated.
 
 

Transparency of the Hyperreal

Audio-tactile presentation of architect's concepts (for blind people) held in Venice, Zagreb and Skopje 2000-2002

The presentation centered on projects, which had won prizes at competitions in Tokyo, questioning the relation between the physical and the virtual in architecture. The first room featured a visual, the second an audio-tactile presentation of the same concepts. A shower of transparent plastic tubes marks the physical shift between the two worlds. Their number, density and the unavoidable, rustling physical contact when visitors passed through them served as a reminder of corporeality and a favorable introduction to audio-tactility. A "Horizontal Totem", high-tech interactive and hypersensitive console 8.5 meters long was the only exhibit in the room. Its segments provided audio-tactile descriptions of the concepts presented by classic, visual means in the first room. The surface of the black console was covered with relief-textured golden boards with inscriptions in Braille. Their tactility attracted visitors, who could touch the surface to activate individual segments, which had their auditive counterparts in the musical illustrations exclusively composed. Visitors could thus experience architectural ideas in a completely unconventional way and it was no coincidence that the blind approached the exhibit most spontaneously, with immanent understanding. It provided a pattern for a new sensibility with the motto:
"If your ears see,
And your eyes hear,
Not a doubt you'll cherish-
How naturally the rain drips
From the eaves!"
 
 

Seven Lamps

Ambience presenting architect's concepts in the Mine Museum in Saint Etienne 2002

Exclusively designed environment was set in the industrial heritage facility, former entrance to the mine with the elevator, today a museum. Defined architecture with strong character demanded sensuous ambientising rather than collision to the existing surroundings. Horizontal floating platforms near the floor and virtual projections were used. Their content was abstract matrix in relation to architect's concepts rather then materialisation. It is statement about today's tension between environmental ritual and virtual part in relation to corporeal atavism and electronic naturalism, where ideas of jump from visual civilisation to audio-tactile culture and architecture with no scale, no typology and no style were presented. Referring to Ruskin, authors bring their Seven Lamps of Architecture: Memory - between spirituality and nomadism, Distortion - between visual and audio-tactile, Choice - between residence and display, Change - between nomadism and residence, Time - between display and everydayness, Play - between everydayness and ludism and Place - between ludism and spirituality.
 
 

Reality-Show Para-Site House

Surround DataHome Shinkenchiku competition prized entry 2001

The project is dealing with the possibilities of dwelling in dense and defined contemporary surroundings paradigm of which is No-Stop City by Archizoom. Considering Post-Spatial Urbanism - Post-Natural Ecology - Post-Pop Population the idea of selfgenerating implants fabulated more by rules of Internet than classical urbanistic science principles was introduced. In existing dense structure of the typical garageland, open units folded by the single surface are implanted. They are not primarily shelters but interfaces between urban nomads and their immediate surroundings. Here the new type of voyeurism meets the new type of exhibitionism through billboards of everydayness where events that occur in a totally transparent interior are immediately projected. The double-fold framing of events is similar to movie making, with platforms that carry you from one sequence to another. It is not sure if some of the scenes are real or virtual, if they are domestic activities or script events, if objects are appliances or mere artefacts, because on the Internet there is simply no intimate act that is not available to us. The whole city becomes a total functional screen of activities, mobile and decentered, where the definition of things is open to negotiation, to mass production of ideas and the proliferation of large urban installations.
 
 

Datascapes
Architecture in the Digital Era project 2003

"Architecture is no longer simply the play of masses in light. It now embraces the play of digital information in space." Datasupermarket (infoscapes - mediascapes - e-scapes) is becoming electronic tent for modern nomads, hypertextual space surfers. In this nature for itself form is given by flow of instantaneous relations. Ever-changing constellations and configurations of desired data and media produce total digital experience. Hypermultimedia "building" offers information and knowledge through personalised ambience and "natural" environments. It is neither library (analogue), nor mediateque (analogue-digital), but datascapes (digital), highly personalised tactile-corporeal simulacrum, electronic environment where bits replace bricks, information replace mortar, interfaces replace walls... Consisted of ritual (physical anchors - phone boxes) and virtual (cyber matrix - transformational algorithms) part of the public/social event. Entering phone box one changes digital constellations and configurations around it by desiring media and data, creating environment "constructed" totally by information themselves updated in the real time. Datascapes conditioning mutations are morph jungle, liquid lounge, chill-out kaleidoscope, defragmentation oasis, reality-show para-site, blur mall, electronic shadow, pierced void...

Addendum Septembre 2005

Approvato il Padiglione di Penezic&Rogina per Sant'Etienne

Si tratta dell'elemento focalizzatore di una nuova sistemazione urbana progettata dallo studio di Zagabria per il cuore della città francesce di Sant'Etienne nella piazza Waldeck Ruessau. Il padiglione presenta un misto estremamente calibrato di funzioni informative e civiche e presenta un progetto innovativo e pragmatico ad un tempo. Il padiglione sposta e lancia nel future lo spazio rigato che aveva usato Persico Palanti Albini e che aveva creato un esito indimenticabile nel Monumento ai martiri dei campi di sterminio dei Bbpr a Milano (sotto) 1945.

Altri dieci e lode                                                          Antonino Saggio Home