Urban legends: Città Ticino - Site II - Autosilo Balestra

Flavio Mario Gorgone

/

Philippe Mourelle

There’s a monster in the city

 

There’s a monster in the city
And it’s hidden in plain sight
By day, watches from the shadows
Only shows itself at night

 

It’s got spikes and round curved edges
Stands alone in the dense crowd
Watches over the whole city
When it roars it’s pretty loud

 

It guards people’s treasures daily
Holds on to them while they’re out
And while everyone is moving
It stands still without a doubt

 

There’s a monster in the city
Watch out it may come for you
While out in the city centre
Be careful with what you do...

 

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Urban legends are short fictions that come close to myths, contemporary tales, which spread in popular culture by oral transmission and proliferate through social networks. These stories that circulate and that everyone knows. Your uncle told you about that alligator living in the sewers of New York, your father’s girlfriend confirmed it. These legends are mysterious, terrifying or funny. They are adapted to the local folklore by word of mouth, through hearsay. Each city produces these murmurs. Like an echo.

GayMenzel Studio addresses the complexity of the context as a source of development of a narrative linked to the site itself. This highlighting tool reveals the inherent qualities of the place and integrates projections or personal aspirations into it, with the broad ambition of reconnection to the environment.

The studio develops a coherent idea of a project starting from the territory and its landscape all the way up to the very detail. A prototype of a lamp will reflect these influences and enable evocation.

Team
Teachers:
Catherine Gay Menzel, Götz Menzel
Assistants:
Alexandros Fotakis
Infos
Year:
2022
Period:
Y1 (MA), Y2 (MA), Spring
Category:
Semester Project
Topic:  
Architecture, Construction, Heritage, History, Housing, Society, Territory
Copyright:
CC BY Licence
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