a Festarch lecture at Perugia's Teatro Morlacchi

…a massive architects gathering in it’s first year in Perugia – is where I headed this morning to hear from a few of the endless  list of design world personalities partaking in a four day series of talks, events and conversations including Aaron Betsky, Petra Blaisse (who described some recent garden and curtain projects), Stefano Boeri (the Milanese architect, teacher, and magazine editor previously mentioned here who organized the conference), Andrea Branzi (who I was sorry didn’t make it at the last minute), Pippo Ciorra, Xavier Costa, Cynthia Davidson, Odile Decq+Paola Maugini, Elizabeth Diller, Peter Eisenman, Kurt Forster, Yona Friedman+Emmanuele Lo Giudice, Joseph Grima (of Domus who was carrying around his cute 10 month old), Bjarke Ingels (packing Teatro Morlacchi at 9pm with a talk on recent mega projects which was both super impressive for some of the ideas – and the shear amount this young architect is getting built – but also gave me pause with some ambivalence about the next generation of architects perpetuating this notion of ‘bigger-the-better’ top-down architect as all knowing dictator, continuing many of the implicit problems with with post-war planning no matter how cool and innovative and smart and sensitive some of the work is – but hey, finally some wit and sense of humor – plus the young students seemed to love it – especially the cool videos and graphics), Rem Koolhaas (who really impressed with a teacherly talk on his new interest in the problems with preservation and ‘thinning’), Michael Maltzan (showing work from LA – making me feel both at home and very far away), Enzo Mari (the white-bearded grand Italian design figure in his 80’s who gave an irreverent preacher like talk on the perils of contemporary design culture), Jasper Morrison, Hans Ulrich Obrist, François Roche, Italo Rota (delivering an inspiring, if staid, talk on recent work and thoughts related to plants, animals, ecologies, and the environment – gleaning what I could from the back row of the gorgeous Sala della Vaccara of Perugia’s Palazzo dei Priori through his mumbled Italian), Benedetta Tagliabue among many others.