In October 2008, I sent an email to Fabrizio Mirabella requesting an interview to be published on my blog, as I was intrigued by his story as an architect in Africa. A day later, I received a reply from his mother informing me that Fabrizio had died on August 2, 2006, due to a fatal illness and that a simple search for Fabrizio Mirabella on any search engine would reveal news related to his name. Shocked by the discovery of his death, which made my request inappropriate and embarrassing, I never responded to his mother. Fabrizio's blog, in its simple form of an online diary, deserves to be read because it has the same literary dignity and value of testimony found in the diaries of the Archivio di Pieve Santo Stefano. Fortunately, his diary is still readable on the Professione Architetto website1. The first post dates back to April 2004*, the last to August 1, 2006, seven days before his death*.
Tiptoeing into the intimacy of the mother's grief, we cannot fail to mention the post that, exactly two years after her son's death, the mother writes using her son's blog, in an extreme, and human, attempt to speak to her son no longer alive using the digital plaza:
«This is the first time since your disappearance that I write on your digital plaza. You knew that in the morning the first thought was to read you, not anymore, now I read and reread all your past thoughts. I knew how big your heart was because a mother knows! Even though this time reality has far surpassed imagination. […] Make a final gesture of love, give me, your beloved father, and Giampiero the certainty of the hope of seeing you again in the light of that God you loved so much! Your mom.*»
«Hello everyone, I start this new page today. First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Fabrizio and I am from Eboli, a not so small town south of Salerno. I have been an architect for less than a year and for strange reasons now I find myself in Venice attending a master's program in urban and territorial planning in developing countries—the master's is divided into 3 modules, I am near the end of the 2nd, the third should take place in Africa. I should be working on an upgrading project in a neighborhood of a large city...but there will be time to tell you about this present.
Let's talk a bit about something else... I've been through many places and experiences, a lot of volunteering in youth associations and social experiences...that didn't always reconcile with my architecture studies in Naples. Yes, Naples! A city that just at the mention of its name hides charm and problems, the Sun, the Sea, and... the Camorra!
They were extraordinary years. In the alleys of the Spanish quarters sometimes there were wonderful harmonies other times dark shadows...and sometimes you couldn't ask too many questions about what was happening (and still happens today!) yet a city that has greatly influenced my present. Bread, love, and fantasy...these were the three words I repeated to myself every day. Thus, the university years passed...of a thousand adventures...until one day I found myself for reasons of life in the poor neighborhoods of Ramallah!
We could say... once upon a time there was a white building and 25 youngsters who silently walked to... change the world! We were 25 youngsters forming a peace delegation and the white building was Arafat's bunker: The MOQATA! And we were there, with 'The president.' After a few hours the scenario changed and we found ourselves in Jerusalem at the Israeli foreign ministry...maybe with a bit too much naivety we tried to understand... to ask... to get answers...we wanted to change who knows what... perhaps we managed to change only ourselves, but even this can be a miracle.
Once upon a time...and it still is! It has been 2 years since then...from Israeli tanks at the Kalandya checkpoint...many trips, many faces...the next one is...my African brother.*»
In another post, there's an interesting reflection on the blog and architecture which is the main theme of this intersection of Wilfing Architecture:
«But what this profession actually is, who knows! In recent years I've had the opportunity to range, to fly, to see the things of the world from different angles. I like to remember the paths of my endless journey, the many cities crossed, lived in. I've seen many 'real and ephemeral constructions. I've seen things that not everyone is fortunate enough to see, I've met people, faces, other architects...so many different experiences, so many different ways of looking at things. Then one day after seeing so many cities of the 'first world I found myself in front of a white building with a tank behind my back. That small building was a symbol of a people. A tank brought it down. Men who build and men who destroy. I remember a neighborhood destroyed by bombs...years later in another world, on another journey I found myself in an informal African neighborhood. A human anthill, a construction site in continuous evolution, spontaneously. So I wonder what the task of an architect is.
In the Neapolitan area in recent weeks many accidents in construction sites and I wonder what architecture for men. Behind a tank who moves the commands... in informal neighborhoods how is it built? Tin, cardboard, barrels, and stone...for the new shantytowns of the third millennium and then... a young man dies on a construction site! What is the value of a life?*»
Returned to Eboli, Fabrizio Mirabella, a new employee at the technical office of the municipality, finds himself having to respond to the Guardia di Finanza investigating old cases of unauthorized building, so he writes:
«when everything seems to be channeling in the right direction here I can't concentrate on what I do. it's been two days that I have the finance guard in the office. and the responsible colleagues pass the buck. and so now it's up to me.
well...at least I get out of the ordinary.
ugly story of unauthorized building from the 90s and mass amnesties.*»
«Bread, love, and imagination... these were the three words I repeated to myself every day to... change the world!'*»
N.B: This translation was made by an AI
Note:
1 In 2008, Francesco Mirabella's online diary was published in a book, THE COLORS OF FABRIZIO. An Extraordinary Life, the Courage to Be Different, published by Spinelli, 2008.
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