clorindo testa, the great and gentle brutalist

in december 2004, i was back in buenos aires. i was busy working on my magazine 11-page feature, while most porteños were getting ready for their holidays. i heard that the city would be empty by christmas. my sole local friend, tomás, was looking tied to his new e-commerce business so i couldn’t ask him to help out my assignment. i had no one to consult with, either. i started the project alone from scratch. i looked for local photographers who had done lots of building shots for editorial work on the net. since my magazine, casa brutus, is a design+architecture+fashion journal, the feature had to highlight architectural buenos aires.


i made good progress as i nearly walked my legs off. i hired 3 photographers: javier, who left me for a better job in the middle of the project; after all, he got me pablo for the rest of our shoots and ioana whom i contacted through her web site. (also my digital photos were used. there was no credit, though.) my main focus, decided by my client, casa brutus, was philippe stark’s new design hotel, faena, in puerto madeiro, a redeveloping area. the feature covered from classic and modern to contemporary buenos aires. its topics varied from old and new architecture to trendy spots in palermo.

featuring beautiful architecture such as puente de la mujer, the sculptural bridge designed by the prominent architect, santiago calatrava, seemed impeccable, but the feature needed to contain some interesting story to tell. it was sheer chance that i got a contact of the legenary argentine architect, clorindo testa. i managed to arrange an interview with him. testa is famous for his brutalist buildings (rough concrete & exposing pipes and ducts) but less known than other argentine architects such as cesar pelli and rafael viñoly. he has certain admirers in japan, though. before my interview, i and ioana went down to la plata, 50 km away from the city centre, to do a shoot on casa curutchet, designed by the pioneer of brutalism, le corbusier.


corbu’s house was not particularly well-preserved, however, looked pretty cool. although i like his architecture, i’m not fond of his personality. he was among my heroes when i was an art college student, but once i found that he painted (graffiti) eileen gray’s house without asking her out of petty jealousy about her talent and popularity and the anecdote turned me off. apparently, he was not a big-hearted jolly chap. actually, corbu was clorindo testa’s inspiration. he was also an artist and so is clorindo. in comparison, clorindo is wonderfully bounteous. his smile tells so. i visited him in his office+studio+home on avenida santa fe (just 5 minute-drive from my apartment) after the shoot in la plata.


my interview with the great and, personality-wise, incredibly modest architect gave me such pleasure. clorindo never sounded like he, anchoring himself to his desk chair, was interested in fame or lucrative projects at all. as i asked him some question, he answered it drawing something on his sketch pad with a felt-tip pen, for instance a dinosaur that he personally associated with his work, biblioteca nacional. and porteños love it. we were going to do a shoot there, anyway. to avoid our possible bureaucratic hassle, he kindly wrote a letter to its director, seeking permission to take photos inside the library for ioana and me. that sort of procedure could take weeks or even months.


summer day light in buenos aires is too bright to take photos. so ioana suggested finishing our shoot for the library’s exterior before the sun rose too high. she woke me up at 5:10 am the following morning to get there. the sun was not up yet, we were too early to take photos, however. it was ok. waiting was part of my work, really. ioana tried her best to be helpful, but we both got exhausted from our own kind of perfectionism. all in all, our shoots including banco de londres came off ok. ioana left buenos aires for a long summer break with her little daughter, while i carried on other shoots with javier. when he left me for a prestigious and well-paid job in urguay, pablo took it over from him. then, my 2-month porteña life was over.


i am prone to look back on those days in buenos aires sentimentally, maybe. but i know that, if i had been a plain tourist there, the south american city wouldn’t have stayed on my mind this way.

buenos aires revisited

(i've just called louie, my son, to wish him a happy birthday. he sounds funny as always. he never means to be funny, though.)
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4 years ago today, i arrived at ezeiza airport in buenos aires – alone. the flight from osaka via toronto took me more than 20 hours. it was exactly a half around-the-world trip. the two cities are situated in the same latitude, but north and south. so the seasons were completely opposite: from early winter to early summer.
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tomás, my young porteño amigo, picked me up from the airport. then, he drove me to juncal in barrio norte. i returned to the same apartment hotel, where i had lived for four month until early september. “hola!”-- the familiar face handed me the key and a postcard. it was from pete and the apartment after i left. the receptionist had kept it for me. unfortunately, as the 9th floor was occupied by somebody, i went up to the 5th floor this time. but the décor was same, the two were identical since the two belonged to the same owner.

*

as soon as tomás brought my suitcase in and made sure that i was happy with the new apartment, he stood by the door, already gripping his car key, and said: “you must be tired after the long journey. i’ll leave you to take a rest.” in fact, i was exhausted. but i didn’t feel like resting. i was exited, rather i was delirious. i looked out from my window and recognised that the tall sycamore, which, i only remember, was completely bare, grew fresh green leaves in el instituto italiano de cultura’s garden adjoined to my building’s backyard.

*

the jacaranda was covered in bluish purple flowers here and there, all over the town. i was back in buenos aires to work on some magazine features just like i was doing in london, which made me feel so content about becoming a porteña again. i didn’t need to find myself at a loose end anymore there. i went out. “buen dia”-- i bought myself a tiny bunch of jasmine from a street vendor. well, that’s gardenia, not jasmine, but the name is confusingly different in latin america. no matter what the flowerer is called, its sweet scent wouldn’t escape me, still now.

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i’m going up to tokyo this weekend to get together with my children and girlfriends. you, too, have a great weekend!

palermo soho

i don’t look back. i always look ahead. that has to be my saving grace. still, i way too often cast my mind back these days. i admit it, but being “un etranger” is a different story. i love to recollect all the magical moments of my photographic memories: colours; light and shade. and i simply love to recall the wind, the smell and the sound of the places where i embraced each scene with my five senses. my five senses.
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meantime back in buenos aires, i kept on wandering. i just couldn’t cope with life without deadlines to meet. i was at loose ends. besides, i lost faith in mr dreamer who lost himself in his own drama. we had a row everyday. to avoid any feel-bad factors, i needed to wander the buenos aires polluted streets with heavy traffic of eco-unfriendly old cars and buses. on the other hand, every little thing came across as a lovely surprise. tord boontije’s midsummer light, for instance. i found it in an office window in palermo soho, the most stimulating barrio of buenos aires. the romantic light brought to mind the very first day i visited his studio in peckham, london. that was 2003. that interview with tord was fun to do among usual arduous ones. the photo-shoot by annabel went great, my casa brutus magazine article on tord made his debut, then he became the most sought-after product designer in japan. that was the world where i had lived before moving to belle époque-ish buenos aires.
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shops, cafés and people in palermo soho revived me. i could feel congenial about palermo that showed me its vibrancy. i never missed london. i was only missing my deadlines.

porteña

four years ago today, i arrived at ezeiza airport in buenos aires. why? because i had to. i had to leave london with a man who wanted me to start a new life together in buenos aires. we had lived together for three months in north london before i eventually said “ok” to his righteous plan: he sounded, at least to me, confident enough to realise it. i quit all of my writing jobs and we moved out of our flat. but, why buenos aires? i don’t know. he was just a dreamer and i was such a fool. argentina was entirely romanticised by his penchant for runaway dramas. he was actually on the run. soon after our porteño life began, i saw an imminent catastrophe coming our way. but yet, i was determined to love the city before my inevitable leaving, surely, alone.
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in buenos aires, located in the south hemisphere, leaves started turning yellow and brown everywhere in may. everything looked awash with nostalgia, sentiment or sometimes melancholy. i was sad because i had absolutely nothing to do. i had no deadlines to hit, we had people do dishes, laundry and clean the room. so, around noon, before the time when mr dreamer would come back from a local café, i would leave our apartment hotel in barrio norte for a walk to be on my own. i would stroll up to recoleta or down to puerto madero…i was like belinda of “follow me (aka the public eye)”, an old film starring mia farrow. but the one without being following by cristoforou, the praivate ditective. i wandered aimlessly day after day. was it aimless? no, it was not. i wandered lonely as a cloud to love the city. and in truth, i was growing to love buenos aires.