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24 giugno 2024

0015 [WILFING] Where were we?

di Salvatore D'Agostino

A blog for an architect is clearly evident from the stasis of these pages. As I have written many times* * * *, a blog for an architect is an extension of the drafting table, a place to jot down ideas, reflect on those of others, and initiate dialogues with other architects, writers, photographers, artists, and commentators. Being a blog without an editorial team, the frequency of articles/posts depends on the author's available time, both physical and mental.

Wilfing Architettura was also created with the intent to explore the change in architectural writing from paper to digital. I have questioned the protagonists of this period not to 'taxonomize' or 'almanac,' nor to 'prove a thesis' on a process, but to layer history by telling it as it happened. The silence of Wilfing Architettura in recent years was caused by the physical move from Leonforte, a small town in the province of Enna, to an almost metropolitan city like Milan. Recreating an architectural studio and settling in was not simple, but now that I have 'a room of my own,' I can make my drafting table public again.

So, where were we?

After almost eight years, resuming these pages means reconnecting with another world, as the blog now seems like computer archaeology, at least in the way it was used in its most active years.

In the new world of disintermediated writing, numerous platforms have emerged that have transformed the web communications landscape:

Social Media
Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have revolutionized how people share information and communicate. Each platform has its strength, from Twitter for short public statements to Instagram for visual sharing and Facebook for a broader, community-focused approach.

Microblogging
Twitter is probably the most famous example of microblogging, allowing users to post short messages (initially 140 characters, now 280). This format favors speed and immediacy in communication.

Video Sharing Platforms
YouTube has dominated this space, but other platforms like TikTok and Twitch have introduced new ways of creating and sharing video content, often in real-time or with a strong interactive component.

Messaging Apps
Applications like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal not only enable personal and group messaging but have also become platforms for disseminating news and information, often bypassing traditional media channels.

Podcasting
Podcasting has seen exponential growth as a means of distributing audio content. Platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts facilitate the publication and distribution of podcasts, allowing independent voices to reach a broad international audience.

Newsletters
Platforms like Substack have revived and innovated the newsletter concept, allowing content creators to build a direct audience and monetize their work through subscriptions.

These platforms have greatly expanded the possibilities for 'free voices' on the web. In line with the spirit of Wilfing Architettura, we will explore who among the new media is doing 'avant-garde' (as Emanuele Piccardo would say), without neglecting those who are using AI among the useful tools of their drafting table.

Regarding the theme of avant-garde and early 20th-century web writings, during the 'temporary suspension of the world' of the Covid period, Emanuele Piccardo recalled the years of the webzines and his attempt to offer an alternative to mainstream press, through a live Facebook broadcast*.

Published by Emanuele Buster Scruggs Piccardo on Thursday, March 26, 2020
Wilfing Architettura returns with the rhythm of non-editorial publication, to continue exploring everything that is happening, without any prejudice, to intersect ideas often different from those commonly accepted, in total autonomy. Especially on themes not yet fully explored, such as:

  • the theme of the memory of web writings for the historian of the future, given the frailty of the life of platforms that are born and die and the graveyard of links that no longer lead anywhere. Since if a paper magazine, even in a single copy, can be consulted forever, a webzine, if for some reason the platform no longer exists or the subscription is not paid, loses all its contents and its memory forever.
  • the absence of political debate on architecture, where one passively witnesses top-down political decisions that compromise the very essence of architecture:
    • direct awarding of public contracts for amounts under €150,000, in practice, gives discretion to the politician to award the project on certain segments of our area without going through idea competitions, perpetuating the usual Italian habit of favoring political friends;
    • although attempts have been made to simplify the process of competitions, these are difficult to encourage as they should be. We believe that, with 7,896 municipalities in Italy, there should be at least 15,000 active competitions every semester, but this does not happen;
    • entrusting a theme like the energy requalification of our building heritage to the incentive of bonuses and not to the project idea of an entire nation;
    • Renzo Piano's G124 suburbs mending remains an authorial project and not a national political action;
    • the extraordinary actions of the PNNR often lack a real project idea and are always based on the 'infrastructure' theme rather than a generic approach to the system of countries and cities;
    • the umpteenth announcement regarding the construction of the bridge over the Strait, based on an engineering work conceived 40 years ago by the now-deceased English engineer William Brown (September 16, 1928 – London, March 16, 2005), could become a symbol of the Mediterranean and not just of Italy, where architectural design is evaded;
    • tenders are structured so that architectural design can also be entrusted to non-architects, as highlighted by a recent post by Diego Terna on his Facebook page, "Who designs the public space of Milan? Engineers*", through a comment I emphasized that engineers are more suited for this type of requests, while architects, trained from university to be 'stars', tend to scatter in numerous studios of individual architects unable to create a cohesive system; Who designs the public space of Milan? ENGINEERS.
If so far everything seems to remain unchanged, I anticipate a novelty: Wilfing Architettura will also organize live meetings, given that the Milan studio has a dual soul: a design atelier and a small talk room for live meetings. We will talk more about this as soon as everything is more concrete.
I await new inputs and signals from both old and new friends of the network; I have some ground to recover.
June 24, 2024
Intersezioni ---> Wilfing

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