Wim Wenders’ Humanism

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The short documentary that accompanies this blog is an homage to Wim Wenders.

About twenty years ago I discovered Wim Wenders’ work through Wings of Desire. Later on, I fell in love with Buena Vista Social Club. Then came Pina, about the late choreographer Pina Bausch, whom we had first seen perform sitting on the last row of a “loges de côté,” way up at Paris’ Garnier Opera. Then came The Salt of the Earth, about Sebastião Salgado’s photography, whose life work honors the dispossessed and bears witness to the human condition. We saw it at a private screening in Hollywood. Wenders sat next to me, but we didn’t talk. He was much into himself, but we had a long conversation with Sebastião Salgado’s son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, who co-directed the film. And, recently, we went to see Pope Francis, preceding the interview of Ben Mankiewicz with Wim Wenders at Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.

Wenders seemed relaxed and willing to bring up some of his experiences and ideas. He confided with an audience of filmmakers how surprised he was when he received a letter from the Vatican, asking him to make a documentary on the first pope from the Americas, also the first Jesuit.

Why did the Vatican or Pope Francis himself choose Wim Wenders to produce a documentary on the Argentinean pope? It was not only because of Wenders’ skills as a filmmaker, photographer, painter, playwright, and author. I think it was, above all, because of the humanism embedded in his work. The two men could communicate intellectually and emotionally. They could understand each other without talking.

Wenders told us that when he started his research, he realized that he had to tell something visually about Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226.) He watched many films on the subject, however, none was satisfying. Finally he decided to produce some low-budget black-and-white vignettes of St. Francis, with a look borrowed from the silent films era – a film within a film – shot on a vintage hand-cranked Debrie camera from the 1920’s.

Four interviews with the pope were recorded with a crew of three: cinematographer Lisa Rinzler, sound engineer Régis Muller and Wim Wenders. Archive footage from the pope’s many trips around the world and encounters with heads of state was later added, to provide context to the story.

Following the Q & A, my decision to make a short documentary about Wenders came as an urge. Although it was not at all on my schedule, “I had to do it.” I did it.

Tongva Park and the Angelbird

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Tongva Park in Santa Monica is a unique model of sustainability and Organic Architecture, sensitive to the site’s geological and human history. It was designed by  James Corner Field Operations to turn the area into “a new destination and gathering place of great social, ecological, and symbolic value.”

During February of 2016, we were invited to see a performance at the park by Elizabeth Yochim, a dancing art historian who acts in public spaces. The encounter with both the park’s design and the Angelbird’s dancing was captivating.

 

I began to study about the park’s history. I went to the park to shoot for the second time, but the editing was derailed by other projects and the footage remained dormant. In the meantime, When I learned that its main designer was British-born landscape architect James Corner and his New York firm Field Operations, I started to connect the dots. Corner had been one of the leading architects of Manhattan’s High Line, in collaboration with Diller Scofidio + Renfro (the Broad’s architects) and Piet Oudulf,. It has been one of the best urban design projects since Paris’ Promenade Plantée and  Parc de Bercy.

 

The Tongva nation, also known as Gabrielinos (the way the founders of Mission San Gabriel Arcángel called them) were a Uzo-Aztecan-speaking people who moved into coastal Southern California 3,500 years ago. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Tongva excelled at building homes and sea-worthy canoes. A Tongva hut, or ki, was usually constructed with tule or willow reeds and resembled a large dome in its design. A Tongva canoe, or ti’at, was made of wooden planks sown together with tar or pine pitch and could hold as many as twelve people. Ti’ats were used for fishing and for transport to the islands that are now known as Catalina and the Channel Islands. The Tongva ki was very architecturally efficient because of its design, which gave the structural stability to withstand an earthquake.

 

James Corner’s thoughtful plan based its design on the theme of the arroyo, the local geology, and the Tongvas heritage. The park is dominated by a series of winding paths and modest hills thickly planted with a mixture of native and drought-tolerant native plants. Original plants on the lot were preserved, and over 300 trees and thousands of plants were added to flush out the landscape.

 

Water features, as reminders of the arroyo, are potable, so that children can play in them. LED lighting reduces energy use, and materials were carefully selected to focus on non-tropical hardwoods that have been sustainably forested. Local aggregates and stone, recycled content materials, low-VOC paints, sealants, and adhesives, and soy-based anti-graffiti coatings are all components of this green symphony. A small park right at the foot of City Hall is called Ken Genser Square, in honor of the city’s late mayor. The fountain at its main entrance seems to be a favorite gathering place for seagulls.

 

The central public art feature by artist Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Weather Field No. 1, is a site-specific sculpture composed of 49 telescoping stainless steel poles aligned in a highly ordered grid. Each pole supports a weather vane and anemometer. These finely tuned instruments are designed to accurately respond to prevailing wind conditions.  Weather Field strikes a balance between the order of the instrument grid and the unpredictable response of its kinetic elements to produce its own microclimate. It is a constant reminder of our connection to both local and global conditions.

 

I went to shoot for the third time. I decided that the time had come to produce a short documentary that would link the park with people, with the invisible spirit of the Tongvas, and with the metaphor of the Angelbird.

An Ingenuous Mini-Farm Permaculture at La Source Dorée, France

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An Ingenious Mini-Farm from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

An Ingenious Mini-Farm

La Source Dorée is an ingenious mini-farm. The key to understanding it is coupling these two adjectives: ingenious and mini-farm. It is ingenious because it is complex and multi-layered. It includes cultivating under permaculture principles and functions as educational, commercial, food services, and accommodation facilities. It is ingenious because it can do more with less and because it assumes responsibility for global sustainability. In other words, it is a tangible model for the future.

Aerial view of La Source Dorée

In the early 2000s, Nathalie and Philippe Gaillet-Boidin, then deeply immersed in the world of large international enterprises, embarked on a transformative journey in 2009. They purchased 7 hectares (about 17 acres) of land 30 km (about 18 miles) west of Lyon, and transformed it into a farm dedicated to biodiversity preservation. Their inspiration came from the renowned Australian researcher, author, scientist, teacher, and biologist Bill Mollison (1928-2016). 

Our journey to La Source Dorée was a serendipitous one. We stumbled upon it online while still in L.A., shortly before embarking on a zigzagging 1,500 km between Bordeaux and Lyon. Our lifelong friend Bernard Légé had meticulously planned the trip “through the heart of France” together with his wife, Catherine. It included long walks through historic sites and nature, diving in a river 100 meters below the ground, works of contemporary architecture designed by noted architects, and museum visits. When we discovered La Source Dorée as a farm based on permaculture, we were immediately intrigued and decided to add it to our itinerary.

Thirty-mile distance to from Lyon to La Source Dorée

It was early Fall, and rain was to be expected. When we arrived, it was drizzling. Greeted by Nathalie Gaillet-Boidin, the farm’s co-founder, she guided us throughout the whole place, expressing herself with both knowledge and passion. Her references to physicist and philosopher Aurélien Barrau and Arthur Keller, a specialist in systemic thinking, added a dimension to our consciousness of the Earth’s present and future problems. In mentioning Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato Si, “Praised Be,” the most comprehensive Vatican document on environmentalism, she told us about her permaculture-related involvement with the monastery Sainte Marie de la Tourette, designed by architect Le Corbusier.

Nathalie Gaillet-Boidin with Bernard Légé and Ruth Meghiddo

Another example of Nathalie Gaillet-Boidin’s understanding of basics was her question, “What is the origin of chickens? What is its natural biotope?” Understanding that the chicken is a descendant of the Southeast Asian red jungle fowl from the Indonesial islands, she tried to recreate a natural environment by planting trees around the hen.

Indonesian chicken in the forest

The farm, with eight vegetable zones, each different from the other, with small and large fruit trees, with an animal meadow, and with an area for aromatic and medical plants, is not just a self-contained ecosystem. It exemplifies the innovative and sustainable farming practices at La Source Dorée.

At the eight vegetable zones

This ingenious mini-farm can be seen as a beacon of hope for urban farming, as Ruth envisioned it in a different context. Sustainable agriculture can thrive amid living neighborhoods, commercial and industrial areas, and college campuses. The farm’s innovative approach has left this potential for community development. 

Urban Farm

An Ingenious Mini-Farm – TRAILER from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

A Permaculture Path Working with Nature, Searching for Regenerative Solutions

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The message of the seventeen-minute short documentary A Permaculture Path goes beyond what it shows. It implies sustainability, community, confronting climate change, and finding regenerative solutions to complex environmental challenges.

A Permaculture Path – TRAILER from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

Many cities have already acknowledged the need for urban farming. It is not just about creating community gardens. It is about planning with a broad scope to grow food close to where people live and work.

Urban Population
Education

Permaculture design is about creating edible ecosystems that include plants, forests, meadows, and animals. It looks at the whole, seeing what the connections are and how to make them work harmoniously. Importantly, it is about finding local solutions to global problems.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s approach to learning from nature led him to conceive, back in 1935, an agrarian alternative to a decentralized city. He named it Broadacre City. About twenty years later, in 1958, recognizing rapid population growth, he applied many of his principles to higher-density urbanization, stating that “city and country will be happily married.”

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacr City, 1935

Ruth Meghiddo’s path through nature evolved influenced by Wright’s principles of Organic Architecture and later turned into permaculture design, after discovering the work and philosophy of Australian researcher, author, scientist, teacher, and biologist, Bill Mollison.

Urban Farm – Plan
Urban Farm – View
Urban Farm – View
Urban Farm – View
Urban Farm – View

Some of these ideas were illustrated in several films we produced throughout the last decade. This latest one condenses segments of some and brings up newer ideas about urban farming design.

A Permaculture Path from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

Copyright: R&R Meghiddo, 2023 - All Rights Reserved

Art in Flux (in L.A.) L.A.-based Artists at The Broad

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Art in Flux (in L.A.) from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

The long-titled exhibition at The Broad, “Desire, Knowledge, and Hope (with Smog) “, drawn from John Baldessari’s monumental work of 1985. It is an eclectic assemblage of over 60 works by 21 artists across varying generations who live or have lived in the Los Angeles area. In other words, it is art in flux from a city in flux. It signals the diversity of the city’s art. The works span abstract and photorealistic painting, photography, and sculpture.

The artworks are drawn entirely from the Broad collection and have been curated by veteran curator Ed Schad and a young assistant, Jennifer Vanegas Rocha. Some artists, such as John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, and Mark Bradford, are well-known to the public. Others are flourishing now, and their work is shown for the first time in the museum.

The show provides the visitor with a panoramic sample of diversity, even if major artists living in Los Angeles are not represented, such as Paul McCarthy, the Ball-Nogues Studio, Nataša Prosenc Stearns, and young emerging artists in multiple media.

The exhibition is educating the general public, and it may open the appetite to learn more.

Art for Everyone? Keith Haring at The Broad

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The documentary “Art for Everyone? – Keith Haring at The Broad” illustrates the largest solo exhibition of his work in Los Angeles. The film’s title question mark tries to bring attention to the misconception that his art is simple; it is not. Haring’s work is very complex. His commitment to a free and happy life is only understandable against his concepts of power and threat, death and deliverance, religion, sexuality, heaven, and hell. These subjects do not appear in isolation from each other but interact and almost inevitably overlap one another.

Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the subculture of the 1980s, particularly in New York. Why does his work remain so popular over three decades after his death at thirty-one? His art, instantly recognizable, is everywhere in garments of easy consumption. It is simple and cheerful: radiant babies, barking dogs, hearts, and a three-eyed smiling face.

Tree of Life, 1985
Untitled, 1989
Untitled, 1985
Untitled, 1984
Untitled, 1984
Untitled, 1985
Untitled, 1987
Piles of Crowns, 1988
St. Sebastian, 1984

His stated goal was to create art that was accessible to all beyond the walls of museums and galleries. He wrote a manifesto-cum-self-definition that included the words: “The public has a right to art/The public is being ignored by most contemporary artists/Art is for everybody.”

This premise was not new. In the early 1600s, Caravaggio broke dependence on commissions from the church, which dictated themes and censored results. He opened the road of individualism. Mexican muralists such as Siqueiros and Diego Rivera strove to create public art. The Communists used art to convey ideological propaganda, and Roy Lichtenstein made large-scale public art on popular subjects consumed by the public.

 

Bacchus, 1598
Boy with Basket of Fruit, 1593
Amor Victorius, 1602
Poliforum Siqueiros, 1971
Poliforun Siqueiros, 1971
Dream of a Sunday Afternoon, 1947
The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City, 1931
Blacksmiths of Modernity, 1974
Times Square Mural, 1994

There are several reasons for Keith Haring’s continuous success in the 2020s. The sexuality of his paintings relates to openness towards LGBTQ. The apparent simplicity appeals to people with a short span of attention. His figures lack discernable ages, races, or identities. Their vitality and joy speak to people of all ages, all backgrounds.

Keith Haring at Pop Shop, 1986

Art for Everybody? from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

Israel 75 Israel Multi-layered Complexity: People, Environment, Architecture.

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ISRAEL 75 from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

Israel 75 Card

The State of Israel is seventy-five years old. The Jewish nationhood celebrates the rebirth of the People of the Book’s physical, spiritual, and political sovereignty, based on secular principles of freedom and equality of justice for all.

Saroma Market, Tel Aviv
Sarona Market – Bakery
Mamila Shopping, jerusalem
Outdoor Cafe, jerusalem
Bus driver
Pride parade, Tel Aviv
Workout, Tel Aviv
Yoga, Tel viv
Fishing, Tel Aviv
Memorial Day, Tel Aviv

This event happens while there is turmoil within and without Israel. From within, democracy is in peril. Its check and balance laws are under attack. From the outside, Israel must confront viral anti-Semitism (frequently masquerading as anti-Zionism) and a conspiracy of delegitimization.

Demonstration ov Veterans
Demonstration in Tel Aviv
Iran’s leader threatening Israel

The short documentary accompanying this blog tries to give an idea of Israel’s multi-layered complexity. As an architect, my observations mostly look at the environment, the diversity of people, and some selected works of architecture.

Memoril odf the Fallen, Jerusalem
Memorial of the Fallen, Jerusalem
Supreme Court, Jerusalem
Supreme Court, Jerusalem
Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
Moshav Nahalal
Museum of Design, Holon
Porter School of Environmental Studies, Tel Aviv University
View of Tel Aviv
View of Tel Aviv

The Land of Israel remains subjected to two truthful and mutually contradictory narratives. The Jewish narrative relates to its ancient history, to the Land of Israel, to Hebrew as a spoken language, to multi-cultural traditions, to dispossession, persecution, massacres, and reemergence.

The Arab narrative tells of its prolonged residence in the land that the Romans renamed “Palestine” to erase the memory of the Jews’ presence, sovereignty, and attachment to Judea. They referred to it as “Judea Capta,” captured Judea.

For real peace to be possible, both narratives must learn to tolerate and internalize the other side’s narrative. This will need education on both sides, and it will take, most likely, several

Art in the Desert Site-specific Art Biennale in the Coachella Valley Desert

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Desert-X Howl from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

The relevance of the 2023 Desert X Biennale goes beyond the exhibition of site-specific artworks by emerging artists; their input is spread across an arc of over twenty miles. This action raises our territorial consciousness of art relating to the environment.

Art in the Desert

Land Art artists such as Robert Smithson, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and Arakawa & Gins, have related to the natural and the built environment with large-scale interventions. In Desert-X an entire area is a stage for individual artists, each approaching the surrounding environment differently.

Susan Davis founded Desert X six years ago and is its director. This fourth edition was co-curated by Neville Wakefield and Diana Campbell, who presented twelve artists from Europe, North America, and South Asia. No one imposed a theme on them.

Area of Desert X artwork’ location.

No. 1225 Chain-link, by Rana Begum
Liquid a Place, by Torkwase Dyson
Searching for the Sky while Mantaining Equilibrium, by Mario Garcia Torres
Hydrolic/Desires – Namak Nazar
Sleeping Figure, by Matt Johnson
The Smallest Sea with the Largest Heart, by Lauren Bon
Amar a Dios en Tierra de Indios, by Paloma Contreras Lomas
Tiny House, by Marina Tabassum
Pioneer, by Tschabalala Self
Hylozoic/Desires, by Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser

Rana Begum’s (No.1225 Chain-link) is a London-based artist from Bangladesh. She created a chain link maze-like series of concentric rings inspired by the surrounding mountains. This work is engaging; it is a metaphor for chain links’ positive and negative uses. The yellow color emphasizes the positive. 

Torkwase Dyson (liquid a Place) created a monumental sculpture that is a poetic meditation connecting the memory of water in the body and the memory of the water in the desert. Her abstract work contrasts built and natural scale.

Mario Garcia Torres (Searching for the Sky while Maintaining Equilibrium) gets his inspiration from bulls’ movements and rodeo riders trying to maintain balance. The setting of these mechanical sculptures brings art-related technology to the desert.  

Matt Johnson’s odalisque-inspired (Sleeping Beauty) assembling of shipping containers framed by a railway and a freeway represents a criticism of movement-globalization of goods. Its architectural scale produces a strong statement.

Gerald Clark transforms a traditional Cahuilla basket {Immersion) into a giant game board, using didactical cards of his creation. According to the game rules, somebody can only reach the center by answering correctly questions relating to the traditions and histories of the Cahuilla Indians. 

Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser (Hylozoic/Desires – Namak Nazar) is a sound sculpture in the form of a salt-encrusted telephone pole equipped with loudspeakers, resembling a flowering cactus. The speakers broadcast the voice of Himali Singh Soin’s poetic declamation.

Lauren Bon, the creator of the Metabolic Studios in Los Angeles, is an artist who works with architecture, performance, photography, sound, and farming, to create urban, public, and land art projects to galvanize social and political transformation. Here she creates an object (The Smallest Sea with the Largest Heart) that represents a Blue Whale’s heart.

Paloma Contreras Lomas (Amar a Dios en Tierra de Indios, Es Oficio Maternal) addresses topics such as patriarchy, violence, class segregation, colonial guilt, and middle-class identity with humor.  An absurd array of tangled limbs of two mysterious characters wearing long hats sprawl out of the car and onto the site’s pristine, manicured grounds.

Tschabalala Self (Pioneer) sculpture focuses on the foremothers, the largely unidentified Native and African American women whose bodies and labor allowed for American expansionism and growth. It visually represents their birthright and place within the American landscape.

Héctor Zamora’s (Chimera) is a performative action in collaboration with street vendors who are omnipresent in the Coachella Valley but often invisible in the landscape. The artist’s work provides opportunities to use materials differently, in this case transforming street vendors into walking sculptures made of balloons. 

Tyre D. Nichols died in January of 2023 after police beat him following a traffic stop in Memphis. The billboards is a tribute to his aspiring photography. This makes a strong statement in direct contrast with the commercial use of billboards and the impact of a freeway on the desert.

Marina Tabassum’sTabassum’s Khudi Bari (Khudi Bari, Bengali for ”Tiny House”) is a Bangladeshi architect who created a prefabricated house that is easy to assemble and disassemble, ideal for building in areas that are likely to be flooded. 

Rana Begun
Gerald Clarke
Paloma Contreras Lomas
Torkwase Dyson
Mario Garcia Torres
Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser
Matt Johnson

Desert X is an excellent example of the input of many artists, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Looking at its geographic scale stimulates our imagination for future invention.

An Eye on Rome History Culture Lifestyle

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An EYE on ROME from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

Rome is difficult to describe; one has to feel it through all the senses. Defined as “The Eternal City,” it implies that its past goes back to immemorial times, and yet, it is a city of an eternal present.

The accompanying documentary, An Eye on Rome, attempts to give the spectator a general idea of the city’s main components: history, culture, and people. It is presented from a personal viewpoint.

History

 The 2700 years old myth of Romulus and Remus, twin brothers abandoned on the banks of the river Tiber to die, fed by a she-wolf, and saved by the god Tiberius, tells us that they chose the location of the new city amid seven hills, but not why. The location is unique. The climate is temperate, and the Tiber River reaches the close-by Mediterranean Sea, allowing boats to come and leave without fearing storms. This means that the supply of goods is unimpeded. 

 Early Romans learned art and philosophy from the Etruscan and the Greeks but gave them a grandiose scale to reflect the power of a growing empire. They built not just palaces and temples but buildings for entertainment and celebrations: circuses, amphitheaters, thermae, markets, and commemorative arches and columns.

 Despite its military power, the Roman empire collapsed from within. It was conquered by a new ideology, Christianity, which was brought to Rome by enslaved people from Judea. When the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (AD 306-337) adopted the nascent religion, the church was born as a physical institution.

She-wolf nursing Romulus and Remus, c.1153
Busts of Roman women

The film shows some turning points of architectural evolution in the city, from Ancient Roman to Early Christian, Renaissance, Baroque, and Contemporary. The Pantheon, a temple of all the gods, remains a great example of Roman creativity. First founded by Marcus Agrippa, it was designed in 114 by Imperator Trajan’s architect, Apollodorus of Damascus. A sphere of approximately forty-three meters in diameter (142 feet) defines its geometry. The large expanse of its roof is made of concrete, a Roman invention. The building’s only light source is the nine-meter diameter oculus on the top. In 609 AD, it was turned into a Catholic church.

 Santa Sabina (483 CE) tells us about the new directionality given to the Roman basilica. At one extreme, the entrance; at the other, the altar. Four centuries later, Santa Maria in Cosmedin became an elaborated typology of a church, with a tall campanile or bell tower as part of it. In the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere (1140-43), the campanile is already of Romanesque style. The interior is decorated with late 13th-century mosaics.

Michelangelo, 1475-1564
Caravaggio, 1571-1610
Borromini, 1599-1667
Bernini, 1598-1680
Top view of Sant Peter’s Basilica
San Carlino, 1646
Sant’Andrea dell Fratte, 1653
Pluto and Prosperina, 1622
Ecstasy of Santa Teresa, 1662
Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, 1674
The Cardsharps

 In 1503, Donato Bramante (1444-1514) was the first to conceive St. Peter’s Basilica. After his death, several architects tried to continue the project: Giuliano da Sangallo, Raphael, and Baldassare Peruzzi. Almost forty years later, in 1547, long after painting the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo was pressured by Pope Paul III to become in charge of St. Peter’s Basilica. He was by then seventy-two and worked on it until his death at eighty-eight. His most important contribution was the simplification of Bramante’s plan. He devised four massive piers to support the dome instead of the many columns of Bramante’s plan. He also redesigned the dome, constructed of two shells of brick. As it stands today, St. Peter’s has been extended with a nave by Carlo Maderno, who also designed its façade. 

 Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s (1598-1680) first work at St. Peter’s was the baldachin, a massive spiraling gilded bronze canopy over the tomb of St. Peter. When commissioned to design the piazza, he created two massive semi-circular colonnades, resulting in an oval shape within which a gathering of citizens could witness the Pope’s appearance.

 The architectures of Borromini (1599-1667) and Bernini remain magnificent contributions to the city. Both being of almost the same age, they were fierce competitors with different characters. Borromini was melancholic and quick in a temper. Bernini was a charming courtier in his pursuit of important commissions. 

 In 1634, Borromini received his first major independent commission to design San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, also known as San Carlino. The church is considered by many to be an exemplary masterpiece of Roman Baroque architecture. Later, from 1640 to 1650, he worked on the design of the church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza. The structure’s geometry is a symmetric six-pointed star; from the center of the floor, the cornice looks like two equilateral triangles forming a hexagon.

 Besides being an architect and a city planner, Bernini was an extraordinary sculptor. In his twenties, he created masterpieces such as Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascarius (1619;) Rape of Prosperina (1621-22;) and Apollo and Daphne (1622-25.) He created the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (1651) and the Four Rivers Fountain in Piazza Navona in his fifties.

 Another genial artist preceded Borromini and Bernini: Caravaggio (1571-1610.) He lived most of his artistic life in Rome. Besides his skills in the dramatic use of chiaroscuro, he is considered the first independent artist to define subjects by himself. He vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death. Caravaggio’s influence can be seen in the works of Rubens and Rembrandt. He died aged thirty-eight.

Trattoria
Wines and Cheeses
Fashion
Shopwindow
Via Margutta – Fellini
Off Via del Babuino
Parking
McDonald at Piazza di Spagna
Campo de’ Fiori
Campo de’ Fiori

Culture 

 Italian culture is the amalgamation of thousands of years of heritage and tradition. It is steeped in the arts, family, architecture, music, and food. Family is a significant value within Italian culture. Their family solidarity is focused on extended family rather than the West’s idea of “the nuclear family,” of just a mom, dad, and kids. Italians have frequent family gatherings, often celebrating around food. 

 For Italians, food isn’t just nourishment; it is life. Italian cuisine has influenced food culture worldwide and is viewed as an art form. Wine, cheese, and pasta are essential parts of Italian meals. Family gatherings are frequent, and the extended networks of families.

 Italy takes dressing very seriously. It is home to a number of world-renowned fashion houses, including Armani, Gucci, Benetton, Versace and Prada, Valentino, Ferragamo, and Dolce e Gabbana. Italians are also great designers of automobiles and household furnishings.

Mixed-use, 1965. Architect: Lucio Passarelli
Jubilee Church, 2003. Architect: Richard Meier.
MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome. Architect: Odile Decq
Lamborghini, 2003. Design: Filippo Perini.
Mouth, 1970. Design: Studio 65.

People

 Italians think differently. The concept of “azerare,” thinking anew, combined with a deep knowledge of history, is one of the basic components of Italian creativity. Italians are also great communicators. Their body language is frequently more important than their verbal one. Their self-deprecating humor makes it difficult for someone to feel offended by a negative comment.

Personal

 An Eye on Rome looks at the city as an insider and an outsider. As one who had lived in Rome for seven years, studying architecture, its monuments, its arts, and interacting daily with its people, I am aware of some aspects of the city hidden behind its facades. We have also brushed the world of cinema, not just as spectators, but also with encounters – and friendship – with some of its makers.

 As an outsider, Eternal Rome remains for us a source of inspiration.

An EYE on BERLIN Present, Memory, Architecture and Art

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An EYE on BERLIN from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

An EYE in BERLIN illustrates contemporary architecture and art examples within a consciousness of the city’s history between 1933 and 1989. It includes the Reichstag dome, the Jewish Museum, and the Sony Center. It also illustrates aspects of the city’s past and present and a visit to the Hamburger Bahnhof art museum and the German Historical Museum.

A City in Flux

Thirty years after the fall of the Wall, Berlin still struggles with its urban form. It is a city in flux, complicated, with an urban fabric that seems to resist all attempts to reorder it. It is a reminder of the more messy, contradictory, and organic qualities that all cities should have. It is charming and full of life, not for its beauty or wealth, but because of its vitality.

The city has become a mecca for artists, a place of attraction to architects and filmmakers, and recognized as one of the hottest cities of the 21st century. With an atmosphere buzzing with creative energy, serious members of the contemporary art world can only stay away from Berlin for a short time. It’s become an essential stop on the art circuit, as a junction between east and west.

Buildings in Berlin are manifestos, propaganda, memorials, and battlefields. The city as a whole is a disjointed urbanization in search of identity. Some areas seemed too large, flat, or insipid box-like structures produced as merchandise.

ARCHITECTURE

The Reichstag – Architect: Norman Foster
The Reichstag – Architect: Norman Foster
The Reichstag – Architect: Norman Foster
Berlin Philharmonic – Architect: Hans Scharoun
Berlin Philharmonic – Architect: Hans Scharoun
Berlin Philharmonic – Architect: Hans Scharoun
D.Z. Bank – Architect: Frank Gehry
Sony Center – Architect: Helmut Jahn
Potsdamer Platz – Architect: Richard Rogers
German Historical Museum Extension Hall – Architect: I.M. Pei
German Historical Museum Extension Hall- Architect: I.M. Pei
Jewish Museum – Architect: Daniel Libeskind
Jewish Museum- Architect: Daniel Libeskind
Jewish Museum- Architect: Daniel Libeskind

The Reichstag Dome: The People Above the Government

The Reichstag is the dominant component of a democracy of the troika, together with the Chancellery and the Paul Löbe parliamentary building. The dome sits on top of the Bundestag, the German parliament, symbolizing that the people are above the government. A mirrored cone in the dome’s center directs sunlight into the building. A large sun shield tracks the sun’s movement electronically and allows carefully filtered light to wash down into the chamber. The dome can be climbed by a vertiginous double-helix made of two lightweight steel ramps, which inspired Foster to design London’s City Hall.

Berlin Philharmonic

Berlin Philharmonic, Hans Scharoun’s masterpiece, remains as a reminder of great post-WW II architecture. Completed in 1963, it preceded Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall by forty years.

It embodies organic architecture principles, in which the buildings are designed from within. The sequences of spaces leading to the hall play with tension and release. Low, small entrance areas lead to a vast, multi-layered foyer.

The main hall presents a vineyard-style arrangement of the stage and audience, with terraces rising around a central orchestral platform. This feature led to the tent-like design of the hall’s ceiling, with a higher center draping down towards the edges.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Designed by architect Peter Eisenman, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is a vast field of concrete slabs in the historic heart of Berlin, which, before the Nazis came to power, had the largest Jewish population in Germany. Paradoxically, the monument is a few hundred yards from the site of Hitler’s bunker.

No other country had erected a monument to “the biggest crime in its history” in the middle of its capital. Covered with 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field, the project was designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere. The whole Memorial aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.

The Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum in Berlin is the masterwork of the Polish-born musician-turned-architect Daniel Libeskind. The zinc-clad structure is designed to create a sense of disorientation interspersed with feelings of claustrophobia and panic. Corridors tilt, cross, and funnel to nothingness. The world outside is glimpsed only occasionally through slit windows.

Libeskind’s building has no entrances or exits of its own. There are promises of doors, but they turn out to be dead ends The floors slope. The concrete walls oppress. You are not in charge of your destiny.

The Garden of Exile denies us the relaxation we expect of a garden. It is a plantation of concrete columns from which Russian olive trees cascade. Nothing is as it should be here. The ground won’t stay still, and the sky itself appears displaced. People wander this disconcerting garden a long time, uneasy and reflective.

Sony Center and Potsdamer Platz

The Sony Center, designed by Helmut Jahn and Peter Walker as landscape architect, is one of Berlin’s most impressive public spaces. It is one of the few buildings in the area which offers a public plaza that is always lively and happening. An umbrella-shaped roof covers its vast atrium.

Potsdamer Platz, an important public square and traffic intersection in the center of Berlin, results from extensive competitions, designs, and planning. Nineteen of the buildings in the area were conceived and designed by an international team of architects headed by Renzo Piano.
Renzo Piano’s master plan for the area called for typical Berlin blocks courtyard buildings with a maximum height of 9 stories. British architect Richard Rogers designed a project on commission from Daimler Chrysler. It contains offices in the first two blocks and residential in the last block. Retail functions occupy the ground and lower floors. Rogers reinterpreted the constraints and designed courtyard buildings with an eroded corner. This would open up the courtyard, allowing sunlight and air to circulate.

D.Z. Bank

The DZ Bank Building is a mixed-use building comprised of a commercial component, housing the Berlin  headquarters of DZ Bank and a residential component consisting of 39 apartments.

A glass canopy covers the main entry to the building from Pariser Platz. A high-volume foyer immediately inside the main entry offers a view into the building’s large interior atrium, which features a curving glass ceiling and a curving glass floor. Office spaces are organized around the atrium, and are oriented inward to take advantage of the natural light that floods through the glass ceiling.

The building’s primary conference hall is located within a highly sculptural shell in the center of the glass floor of the atrium. Clad in stainless steel on the exterior and wood on the interior, the conference room is the physical and spiritual heart of the project.

German Historical Museum Extension Hall

Chinese-born, U.S.-based architect I. M. Pei designed a small extension to the German Historical Museum. The four floors of the Exhibition Hall are devoted to the Museum’s temporary exhibitions. The new building had to be connected with the baroque architecture of the German Historical Museum.

ART

At the Bahnhof Museum
Urban light on the cathedral
Urban light on the cathedral
Urban light on the cathedral
Urban light
People – Artist: Inges Idee
At the Bahnhof Museum
Kiss
Berlin wall
Cafe Cinema
Installation – Artist: Qin Yufen

Berlin is home to hundreds of galleries and art museums with unparalleled collections. Cultural projects are generously funded and supported by many large and powerful institutions in the city. The ever-so-avant-garde contemporary art scene can flourish in this environment.

The documentary includes the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, an original railway station from the mid-19th century, turned into an art museum in 1996; the Berlinische Galerie and the Konig Galerie; and the extraordinary and revealing German Historical Museum.

An EYE on PARIS People, Places, Architecture, Art

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An EYE on PARIS from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

What makes cities great? Streets, public spaces, and architecture physically express its residents’ values, belief systems, lifestyles, and self-expression through the arts. Lifestyle is expressed through our work, how we act, spend our leisure time, and follow social patterns.

“An Eye on Paris” focuses on observing daily life and on some new outstanding works of architecture, public spaces, and some museums (there are about 130 in the city) less notorious than the Musée du Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay.

View from the Centre Pompidou

LIFESTYLE

Dancing bt The Seine
Having a brake at a cafe
Steak Tartare
Enjoying public spaces
Music Day
Learning from markets

The French honor the time dedicated to eating. Sitting around the table for a meal is sacred in French culture. People are always concerned about the quality of their food ingredients. That is why they are loyal to their local farmers’ market and tend to do most of their shopping there.

Cafés in Paris have always served as social spaces, the classic Parisian meeting place to relax or refresh. During the summer, outdoor terraces are packed with people.

Paris has many outdoor events. In this documentary, we captured some of the yearly Day of Music and one of the many places offered to dance by the Seine, in this case, at the Quai Saint-Bernard.

PARKS

We studied three parks: the Park de Bercy, the Park de la Villette, and the Promenade Plantée.

 

Parc de Bercy
Promenade Plantee
Promenade Plantee
Parc de la Villette
Parc de la Villette
Parc de la Villette

 

PARC DE BERCY
Designed by architects Bernard Huet, Madeleine Ferrand, Jean-Pierre Feugas, Bernard Leroy, and by landscapers Ian Le Caisne and Philippe Raguin, the park is made of three gardens connected by footbridges: The “Romantic Garden”, which includes fishponds and dunes; The “Flowerbeds”, dedicated to plant life; and “The Meadows”, an area of open lawns shaded by tall trees.
In the north-east of the park stands the Cinémathèque Française (the former American Center) designed by Frank Gehry, and on the raised terraces are the 21 sculptures of Rachid Khimoune’s “Children of the World” installation, created in 2001 to honor children’s rights.
The park is adjacent to a major sports arena, the Palais Omnisports, with a sitting capacity of 20,000.

PARC DE LA VILLETTE

The Parc de la Villette is a 37-acre / 55 hectares area that houses one of Paris’ largest concentrations of cultural venues. These include the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie (City of Science and Industry, Europe’s largest science museum), three major concert venues, and the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris.

The park was designed by architect Bernard Tschumi in partnership with Colin Fournier on the site of the huge Parisian abattoirs (slaughterhouses) and the national wholesale meat market. He conceived thirty-five architectural “follies “to give a sense of orientation to the visitors. In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily as an ornament but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose.

Since the creation of the park, museums, concert halls, and theatres have been designed by several noted contemporary architects. These include the City of Science and Industry, La Géode (an IMAX theatre inside of a 36-meter / 118 ft diameter geodesic dome;) The City of Music, designed by Christian de Portzamparc, which opened in 1995 and it also includes a museum of historical musical instruments with a concert hall, also home of the Conservatoire de Paris. The Philharmonie de Paris opened in January 2015, designed by Jean Nouvel.

PROMENADE PLANTÉE

The Promenade Plantée is an extensive green belt that follows the old Vincennes railway line. Beginning just east of the Opéra Bastille with the elevated Viaduc des Arts, it follows a 4.7 km (2.9 mi) (2.9 mi) path to the Bois de Vincennes. At its west end, near the Bastille, the parkway rises above the surrounding area and forms the Viaduc des Arts, over a line of shops featuring arts and crafts.

The design was created by landscape architect Jacques Vergely and architect Philippe Mathieux. The Viaduc des Arts was designed by architect Patrik Berger, who also designed the recently completed Canopy of Les Halles. The project includes different types of gardens, it traverses existing buildings, and it crosses boulevards. Twenty years after its construction, the Promenade Plantée inspired the successful High Line in New York.

THE LOUIS VUITTON FOUNDATION BUILDING

Vuitton Foundation
View from the Vuitton Foundation
Vuitton Foundation
Vuitton Foundation
Vuitton Foundation – Site Plan
Vuitton Foundation – Section

The Louis Vuitton Foundation building was designed by Frank Gehry. It is a museum and cultural center like no other one. This unique 11,000 square-meter monument of 21st-century architecture was conceived as an iceberg surrounded by glass that takes the form of a sailboat’s sails inflated by the wind. The structure of the glass roof allows the building to collect and reuse rainwater and improves its geothermal power.

THE FOUNDATION JÉRÔME SEYDOUX-PATHÉ

Foundation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé

You can walk along Avenue de Gobelins and not notice a hidden gem of architecture designed by Renzo Piano. The clever use of the site includes a main entrance on a restored and preserved facade along the Avenue des Gobelins which features sculptures by Auguste Rodin.

The Foundation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé is dedicated to preserving the history of the French film company Pathè and to promote cinematography. It houses its archives and the foundation’s offices. It is located in the courtyard of a 19th-century block that includes a complex of historical Hausmann-era buildings. The 839 m2 headquarters is located in Paris’ 13th arrondissement. Its construction was completed in September 2014. The site’s major limits determined the peculiar design, which looks like a greenhouse.

NEW PALAIS DE JUSTICE – COURTHOUSE

New Paris Courthouse

The new Courthouse, located on the northern edge of Paris, is 160 meters high, have an internal area of around 100,000 m2 and accommodates up to 8,000 people per day. The complex reunites 90 courtrooms and about 1,300 offices under one roof. In developing the scheme, Renzo Piano sought to reduce the apparent scale of the building by breaking it down into four volumes of decreasing size. They include three roof terraces with 500 trees and other vegetation. From an environmental standpoint, the project employs a range of strategies including the use of natural ventilation, the incorporation of photovoltaic panels on the façade, and the collection of rainwater.

THE CANOPY OF LES HALLES

Canope of Les Halles

The long-awaited cultural center and metro station were created by architects Patrick Berger and Jacques Anziutti on the site of a historic Paris marketplace. The design at Les Halles is known as the Canopy due to its enormous umbrella-like glass roof, which comprises 18,000 pieces of glass supported by 7,000 tons of steel.

The completed Canopy and the center below replace a deeply unpopular concrete shopping complex – nicknamed “the hole of Les Halles” – which was built in the place of the market’s original 19th-century glass and iron buildings designed by architect Victor Baltard. They were demolished in the 1970s in an act many critics have described as cultural vandalism.

The creation of a humane urban quality does not depend only on the quality of a city’s buildings. The design quality of open public spaces, way beyond landscape architecture, is critical. It demands imaginative long-term thinking accompanied by the political vision and will.

Always Unfinished Anselm Kiefer in L.A.

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Always Unfinished – Anselm Kiefer in L.A. from Rick Meghiddo on Vimeo.

The exhibition of Ansel Kiefer’s “Exodus” at the Gagosian Gallery in L.A., staged at the Marciano Foundation, exemplifies his breadth and originality. The documentary included here illustrates his work, thinking, and personality. Words matter. They inspire Kiefer’s output. He finds sources in the Old and New Testaments, in Kabbalah’s mysticism, and the poetry of Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann. But it is not only words. Landscapes of nature, ruins of bombarded cities, and of cultural behaviors also converged into the reinterpretations and reassembling of his architect’s mind.

Exodus, 2012-20
Gagosian Gallery Exhibition
Gagosian Gallery Exhibition
Gagosian Gallery Exhibition
Gagosian Gallery Exhibition
En Sof, 2020–22
The emanation of Wolkensäule (Column of Clouds) (2009–21). 
Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead, 2020
Carts and Gold
Carts and Gold
Exodus, 2020
Detail
Detail
Detail
Parabole, 2019-22
Exhuming Special Action 1005) – 2021-22

 

Kiefer’s use of straw in his work represents energy. He claims this is due to straw’s physical qualities, including the color gold and its energy and heat release when burned. The resulting ash makes way for new creation, thus echoing the motifs of transformation and the cycle of life.

Stored Crass – Kiefer’s studio
Grass
Painting with grass
Painting with grass

 

Kiefer’s oeuvre encompasses paintings, installations, books, drawings, watercolors, collages, and altered photographs. The physical elements of his practice—from lead, concrete, and glass to textiles, tree roots, and burned books—are as symbolically resonant of complex events of history, memory, and the ancestral epics of life, death, and the cosmos. Full of symbolic thresholds between peoples, places, and times, the paintings are metaphysical allegories that meditate on loss and deliverance, dispossession, and homecoming.

Drawing, 1980s
Der Gordische Knoten, 2019
The Veneziano Amplitude, 2019
Vetrine Installation
Ancient Civilization
Painting with grass
Phoenix with books

 

Anselm Kiefer was born in 1945, a few months after the end of World War II in Donaueschingen, Germany. Following studies at different schools, he received his art degree in 1969. He lived about twenty years in Hombach (midway between Frankfurt and Stuttgart.) In 1991, the artist left Germany to travel around the world—to India, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, and the United States. In 1992 he settled in Barjac, France (about 50 km from Montpellier and 100 km from Lyon.) From 2008 he lived in Paris, in a large house in the Marais district, with his second wife, the Austrian photographer Renate Graf, and their two children.

Anselm Kiefer

Working
Barjac property
Barjac property
Barjac property

 

Kiefer fascination with Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann, whom he considers “the best poets of the second half of the 20th century,” is revealing. The love affair between Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan constitutes one of the most dramatic chapters of literary history after 1945. The respective backgrounds of the lovers who came together in May 1948 in occupied Vienna could not have been more different: she, the philosophy student daughter of an early Austrian Nazi member; he, a stateless German-speaking Jew from Czernowitz who had lost his parents in a concentration camp and was himself a survivor of a Romanian labor camp. They both wrote in high German, frequently hard to understand even when knowing the language.

Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann
Paul Celan
Ingeborg Bachmann

 

Two major recent exhibitions were a colossal installation at the at Palazzo Ducale in Venice (2022) and at Paris’ Grand Palais (2021.)

Grand Palais, Paris, 2021
Grand Palais, Paris, 2021
Grand Palais, Paris, 2021
Jacopo Tintoretto – Gloria del Paradiso – Sala del Maggior Consiglio
Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 2021
Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 2021
Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 2021