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Source text - Italian Dialoghi con Edoardo Milesi
Carlo Pozzi (architetto docente universitario a Pescara) Primi anni novanta. Su di un terreno infangato, in un campo “coltivato a bunker” dalle smanie di un dittatore fuori da quella straordinaria “città di pietra” che è Girocastro (Sud dell’Albania), vicino ad un imponente acero battuto dal vento, un gruppo di uomini sta scegliendo il sito più idoneo per costruire una scuola per la comunità nomade emarginata per quaranta anni dalla vita della città.
Ad un certo momento, tra i volontari di Tolbà se ne può notare uno che, a fianco del leader degli zingari, manovra con disinvoltura una strana forcella di legno: si tratta di un pendolino per rilevare la presenza di acque sotterranee, utilizzato con fare un po’ shamanico da Edoardo Milesi, architetto bergamasco che sta interpretando in quel momento un passaggio dell’opera di Margherite Yourcenar, “Memorie di Adriano”:
“Costruire significa collaborare con la terra, imprimere il segno dell’uomo su un paesaggio che ne resterà modificato per sempre. (…) Ricostruire significa collaborare con il tempo nel suo aspetto di passato, coglierne lo spirito o modificarlo, protenderlo quasi verso un più lungo avvenire. Significa scoprire sotto le pietre il segreto delle sorgenti”.
L’idea di Edoardo (e di chi scrive) è che la scuola venga costruita dove è stato identificato il sito più adeguato, a fianco del villaggio dei nomadi, e che siano loro a costruirla, secondo una reinterpretazione di tecniche costruttive tradizionali.
Non andrà esattamente così, perché la nuova scuola sarà edificata in un’area più urbana e da una piccola impresa locale, per discutibili decisioni amministrative.
Eppure quella lezione di feng-shui , una religiosità del costruire dal profilo dichiaratamente orientale, si imprime in quel luogo e nella mente, costringendo me, che vengo dall’Università e lì insegno, a confrontarmi con queste tematiche, a indagare possibili ibridazioni tra natura e architettura, tra sito ed edificio.
Questo confronto tra pratica del mestiere e studi universitari trova un nuovo momento di approfondimento a metà anni novanta, quando Edoardo viene, su mio invito, a svolgere una lezione nella Facoltà di Architettura di Pescara, in un ciclo dal titolo “Piccole case”.
In quel periodo ne sta realizzando alcune nella “bergamasca”, per parenti, amici, clienti.
Ogni nuova edificazione è per lui l’occasione di indagare “il segreto delle sorgenti”, in una ricerca non esoterica di energie positive, sottili e talvolta un po’ magiche, che irradino l’opera di architettura non in direzione dell’acquisizione di una bellezza che si ponga come autoreferenziale, ma capace di costituire un tutt’uno con la qualità dell’entrarci, del viverci, per trascorrervi anni sereni e piacevoli.
In facoltà si discute oramai da alcuni anni di bio-architettura, che talvolta viene proposta come una ricerca parallela: risulta difficile sovrapporla alle teorie su cui stiamo lavorando da anni, a cui aderiamo e da cui poi ci allontaniamo, scrollandoci meravigliosi maestri, come Aldo Rossi, da sopra le spalle.
Edoardo non ci presenta una nuova teoria con cui confrontarci, magari con interminabili discussioni, ma una pratica concreta che si è incarnata nel suo modo di essere architetto.
In fondo è solo un bravo artigiano nella cui bottega molti apprendisti vengono allevati all’uso di materiali naturali e mai sintetici -“non possiamo vestirci di nylon”-, alla ricerca di quell’armonia tra architettura, natura e cosmo indagata almeno fin dal Rinascimento.
Capisco che questo bravo capomastro ha radici profonde nelle tradizioni costruttive locali, ma riesce a spaziare con uno sguardo ecologico indirizzato da occidente verso oriente.
In quegli anni visito alcune sue costruzioni intorno a Bergamo, in quella città diffusa che occupa militarmente la Val Seriana fino e oltre Albino, dov’è la sua residenza (poi suo studio), le case realizzate e le prime opere pubbliche (campus scolastici, centri civici).
E’ evidente in queste opere dove si indirizza la ricerca di Edoardo, con la contaminazione di eredità dal Movimento Moderno, schivando la consumata battaglia ideologica tra “razionalista” e “organico”, e la saggezza di intere generazioni, messe a reagire con autorevolezza in un crogiuolo da brividi: altro che ovvietà e ripetitività dell’artigianato! In queste realizzazioni si scoprono in tensione cemento armato a vista, però morbidamente plasmato nel getto con l’uso di teli plastici, legno delle pareti ventilate lasciato tranquillamente ingrigire sotto le intemperie - sicuro l’architetto del fatto suo e di come sappiano i singoli materiali attraversare il tempo -, colori sgargianti ed emozionanti, compensati canadesi, graniglie e battuto di cemento lisciato.
La sua sicurezza, che rasenta la non chalance, nel modo di intervenire, impressiona.
Il controllo del cantiere è energico: l’architetto non va in cantiere per la direzione lavori, è egli stesso parte del cantiere.
Translation - English Conversations with Edoardo Milesi
Carlo Pozzi (professor of architecture at the University of Pescara) In the early nineties On a patch of muddy ground, in a field “cultivated bunker style” by the demands of a dictator, outside that extraordinary “city of stone” that is Girocastro (South Albania), near an impressive maple, beaten down by the wind, a group of men are choosing the most suitable site to build a school for the nomadic community who have been excluded from the life of the city for forty years.
At one moment I noticed, among the volunteers of Tolba, someone next to the gipsy leader, who was moving a strange forked piece of wood with a certain nonchalance. This piece of wood was a divining rod to find water underground, used in a rather shamanic way by Edoardo Milesi, the architect from Bergamo who at the same time was singing a piece from the Margherite Yourcenar opera "Hadrian's Memories."
Building means collaborating with the earth, impressing the mark of man on a landscape which will remain changed forever. Rebuilding means collaborating with time, taking the past form, using its essence or modifying it and extending it towards a longer future. It means discovering under the stones the secret of the springs."
Edoardo’s idea (shared by the writer) was that the school should be built where the most suitable place had been located, next to the nomad’s village, and that it should be the nomads themselves who built it, using a reinterpretation of traditional construction techniques.
That is not exactly how it went, because the new school was to be built in a more urban area and by a small local company after questionable administrative decisions.
Nevertheless, that lesson in feng-shui, the religion of construction with the decisively oriental profile, impressed itself on that place and in the mind, forcing me, who came from the university to teach them, to deal with these themes and to investigate the possibility of hybridization across nature and architecture, between site and building.
This comparison between the practice of the profession and university studies was then elaborated upon in the mid nineties, when Edoardo came, on my invitation, to give a lecture in the faculty of Architecture in Pescara, as part of a series of lectures entitled "Small houses".
In that period he was building some small houses in the Bergamo region for relatives, friends and customers.
Each new building is a chance for him to investigate “the secret of the springs”, in a non esoteric search for positive energy, subtle and sometimes a little magical, which illuminate the architectural work, not as a beautiful self-referential object to be acquired, but something capable of establishing a harmonious whole of the qualities of moving in there, living there and spending tranquil and pleasant years there.
Bio architecture has been the subject of discussions in the faculty for several years and is sometimes proposed as a parallel research. It is difficult to superimpose this research onto the theories with which we have been working for years, theories to which we first adhere and then distance ourselves, while disregarding great masters like Aldo Rossi.
Edoardo does not present us with a new theory , that we would perhaps subject to interminable debate, but instead presents us with a concrete practice which embodies his style as an architect.
Basically he is just a good craftsman in whose workshop many apprentices are trained in the use of natural materials. Never synthetic, “We can’t wear nylon”, in our search for that harmony between architecture, nature and cosmos which has been a subject for investigation at least since the time of the Renaissance.
I know that this master builder has deep roots in local building tradition but he also manages to expand his range with an ecological look from the west towards the orient.
In those years I visited some of his constructions around Bergamo, in that sprawling city that invades the whole Val Seriana up to and beyond Albino, where he lives and has his office and where we can find the houses he has built and his first public works (school campuses, civic centres).
It is evident in these works where Edoardo's research is directed. There is the influence of the legacy of the Modern Movement, without the worn out ideological battle between rational and organic, and the wisdom of entire generations, masterfully put together to react in an amazing cauldron. Not quite the predictability and repetition expected of the craftsman! In these creations there is a tension between reinforced concrete facades softly moulded in the formation by using plastic sheets, wooden vented walls left to become grey and weathered, so sure is the architect of his ideas and of how his materials will adapt to the weather, brilliant exciting colours, Canadian plywood, chippings and compacted smooth cement.
His confidence in his way of working, which borders on nonchalance, is impressive.
His control of the construction site is energetic. The architect does not go to the construction site to direct the works, he himself is part of the works.
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Bachelor's degree - university of glasgow
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Years of experience: 21. Registered at ProZ.com: Oct 2007.
After graduating from the University of Glasgow with a first class degree in Italian language and literature, with exams (Higher Ordinary) in German and English literature, I headed off to Japan(!) for two years to teach English.
On my return to Europe I found work in Italy as an English teacher and continued to teach and translate- two jobs that are so different and yet so similar: that for me have always gone hand in hand. For both one needs to have a passion for languages; both have a source language and a target language and it is always important to strive for the meaning, rather than just looking at the words.
For the last two years I have been freelance, still teaching but becoming more involved in translating, my true love.
Over the years I have translated various texts for students and clients of the school: academic theses, military texts, legal texts and technical texts.
More recently I have been working closely with a translation company, translating restricted submarine manuals and various technical texts, including a book on architecture and a lot of tourism translations, specifically websites for hotels and agriturismi. I also do translations for clients of the local English schools, covering a marvellous miscellany of fields.
I am something of a perfectionist and will spend hours on a single word until I'm sure the translation is accurate. That said I have never missed a deadline.
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