Showing posts with label Italian Moderne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italian Moderne. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Florence Train Station6



 From the French word for window, fenetre, we get the word fenestration--the use of glass or of windows in a building. Nothing says moderne quicker than wall-wide, light-soaking expanses of glass. One only has to think of the skyscrapers of Mies van der Rohe. 
 Here, a wide ribbon of glass flows forward from the concourse at the back, over the main ticket lobby, then down and over the porch at the front and down, finally, to the ground in one uninterrupted cascade of glass. 
 Inside, there is only luminous, window-gridded sky above, the light drifting down the luscious amber marble walls in waves of intangible honey.  

Monday, August 2, 2010

Florence Train Station



In honor of the current Italian movie, I Am Love, starring Tilda Swinton, and a character of equal élan, the Italian moderne house in whose marbled splendor much of the movie unfolds, I'll give the next week or so over to one of my favorite buildings in the world (and another example of Italian moderne at its most refined), the supernal Florence train station.