brussels, a visit to the fair (1958) · valentina mori federica ponticelli. alice zoe ricci...

Brussels, a visit to the Fair (1958)

BRUSSELS, A VISIT TO THE FAIR (1958)

Valentina MoriFederica PonticelliAlice Zoe RicciRossella Scalise

I just came back from Oliviero Manetti’s funeral. It was a truly saddening day, today. I feel as if I have lost a part of me, along with him. He was such an im-portant person in my life, and I’ll treasu-re everything he taught me in my soul.I inherited the logbook he wrote during the trip we made together in 1958. I’m going to compare it with mine when I get home.I was his assistant at the time, and I was asked to go to Brussels with him and to write a journal myself.During my 14-month traineeship, at the Architectural Devices, I had been so naive and excited by everything, and I must have changed so much from that experience.Mine starts like this:“We’ve finally arrived in Brussels! After all of that decision making in London, we’ve just this moment set foot in our hotel rooms for the night.Every inch of the city has been covered with advertisements and adds! There are so many people around: the Fair has really started.The aggressive cloudburst typical of late June is so depressing: I wanted to go out,

Valentina Mori, Federica Ponticelli, Alice Zoe Ricci, Rossella Scalise

but I had to wait in my hotel room alone. The sound of the rain on my windows frame the view of the Alps, and the hills and rivers of the Belgian landscape.I can’t believe I’m here, in Brussels, the city moulded by Cambrai’s bishop, strategic hub between Cologne and Bruges: it had always been one of my greatest dreams. It had been erected on Caudemberg’s hills, residence of Dukes of Brabante and Lorena, dominated by France and Austria, flattened by Louis XIV, finally it is independent. Cradle of Gothic Brabantine architecture, with the Grande Place City Hall, the Tour Inimi-table, the Maison Du Roi.I booked our hotel just in the Brussel centre, in order to live the atmosphere of a city that is changing and transforming towards modernity in first person, and to see with my own eyes if all the planned interventions, which I had read about, have been developed or were just a non honoured promise.I seriously think Mr Manetti despises me. I asked him if he wanted to go get an ice-cream earlier on, and he looked at me, with a dreadful expression, lo-oked away from me and started walking away. He didn’t even answer, he didn’t even explain! I was so embarrassed.Why did I decide to work with him in particular? I really can’t recall.He’s a sad middle aged man, greying hair and a stern look upon his face. I like the way he writes, and he also has a very good way of thinking, but, for the love of God, he doesn’t have an ounce of hu-mour in him! I want to learn everything from him - he has interviewed so many people in the world of architecture, like Mies Van Der Rohe and Behrens, just a

few months before he died. He even got the chance to interview Mussolini, and his article was published on Il Popolo d’Italia.Anyway, I really wanted that ice-cream, so I decided to go and get it by myself. As I was roaming around, I got lost for a couple of hours, I think, but I enjoyed it! I had the opportunity to see how the city has undergone many changes after the war and it is being improved towards a modern post-war appearance.I went through Boulevard de Berlaimont, and I noticed the city in its transforma-tion - it is brand new and buildingsare under construction, giving the per-ception of a great city growing towards a new modernity, although it is not yet fully visible and accomplished.” And now we change dates:“This morning, Oliviero surprised me by proposing a tour through the places of the Brussels’ World Fairs from the 19th century to the one that we are looking forward to.I didn’t know what to think about this, I was both excited and suspicious, but the fear he would have killed me soon passed.We rented a Peugeot 203, and while I was driving it, Mr Manetti was holding on to the handle of the car, telling me where to go and recounting the history of Belgium, that has been one of the few countries organising its exhibitions not only in the capital, but spreading them all around its territory, from Antwerp to Liege. Under a cloudy sky, we went to Parc du Cinquantenaire, where Brussels First World Fair took place. Mr Manetti told me that it had been a folkloristic and and innovative exposition, in occasion



of the fiftieth anniversary for Belgian’s Independence.Closing my eyes, I could almost imagine what people like me could hear, see and live one century ago.Just outside the park, in Avenue de Ter-vueren, I was able to imagine the 1897 Congolese Exhibition experience, which was a completely different scenario. For the first time King Leopold II organised this exotic and picturesque fair, setting up a showcase of his colonial ambitions.Back in our car, we reached the Brussels World Fair of 1910 area, at the edge of Bois de la Cambre, and the comparison with the present is immediate: today’s exhibition should give a new shape to the Belgian capital, the same happened at the beginning of the century. This site was chosen for the desire to urbanise the city and to expand it towards the suburb of the time.It came into my acknowledge that even if a great fire on the night of 14th-15th August damaged numerous pavilions and the folklore district, and the exhibition’s success was compromised, it was an opportunity to inaugurate the Musèe Co-lonial, whose mission, according to the Minister of the Colonies, was to present an overview of all the knowledge concer-ning the colony, arouse the public’s inte-rest in it, provide industry and commerce with all the useful information, and to provide scholars with a documentation as complete as possible: concerned by the need to educate people about the colony. We reached the Heysel, in the North part of the city, used as the site for the first time for the Brussels Exhibition, in1935. Again, with the choice of this site, the will and the need to carry on a

process of modernisation and urbanisa-tion appeared clear: this started a century ago and that has continued until today.I came to know that the 1935 Brussels Exposition, set the opportunity to cele-brate the hundredth anniversary of the first Brussels-Mechelen railway line, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Inde-pendent State of Congo. It was the firsttime that a Belgian world Fair took pla-ce at the Heysel; the first time that Congo is celebrated as independent andnot only as colony; it’s the first time that the colonial section was not in avenue de Tervueren but it is incorporated in the main Expo site. Well, many “first time” occasions took place during that expo!”

I remember the expression on Oliviero’s face when I asked him if I could buy a book regarding all these topics: he was quietly surprised, but he let me do it. In that way, all the images and the thoughts in my mind took shape: aesthetic and architectural choices for the design of the pavilions, reflecting the cultural and poli-tical trend of the era. Strong nationalist assertions, monumental academicism borrowed from art deco and evidence of nationalist arrogance that was domina-ting during the post war period.

“After an enlightening lesson about the strong relation between world Exhibi-tions, city transformations and social changes, I could finally look towards Brussels with a totally different aware-ness: around me was not just new buil-dings realised to embellish the city for a great event, but it was the face of a post-war city where the way of living and the state of mind of its inhabitants were



radically changing.The new economic well-being lead to a growingly consumeristic city; sprea-ding optimism and improvement of the standard of living are the rallying cries, translated in the diffusion of the so called American wellbeing.Walking through the small streets of the centre, we were surrounded by the juxta-position of contrasting buildings:from the more traditional buildings, that follow Horta’s Art Nouveau language, to the 20s style of the white box building, and various traditional or even hybrid styles.

Yesterday evening was so warm I coul-dn’t help but buying a refreshing typical Belgian sweet by a smiling baker while strolling in a boulevard filled with new shops. Everyone is so friendly and full of optimism, that I can’t understand how this atmosphere doesn’t rub off on Mr Manetti.”

From the way in which Oliviero descri-bed the same experience, one could say we had visited two different cities:

“My new assistant, Richard Anson, and I arrived in Brussels, after an eighty-six minute flight.It was an excruciating trip: Mr Anson wouldn’t shut up about anything, and I wasn’t able to read the book on Xenakis I had thought about reading.At the beginning of the flight he had asked me if he could sit next to the win-dow, and I let him, because I didn’t want him to lean over to see the view, and because ’m afraid of flying, but he kept

leaning over me when he started ordering things to eat at the on-board trolley, and he even spilt his hot tea on my trousers.He’s such a pain. Why did I take him as my apprentice? And why didn’t I select Andrew Morris instead? He was duller than Richard in the way he wrote, but he seemed like a calm and competent person.

He booked the rooms for both of us, so I was put in one of the most expensive hotels in Brussels, Le Meridien. The only good thing about this is the fact that it is close to everything in the centre, and it is easy to reach the Central Station from here. So when we will go see the Expo, it won’t be too difficult to get there.

In the afternoon, we went out for a walk around Brussels. It had been raining before we left the hotel, so it was pret-ty muggy, but the sky was clearing so we decided to go out, against our initial prepositions.The city of Brussels had undergone many changes from the last time I saw it before the wartimes. It looks like a com-pletely new city, with new buildings and boulevards springing from the war torn city fabric. It’s really amazing how much war can devastate a place, and how fast humanity starts working again incessant-ly like ants.As we travel the city centre, my interest in the way the city has changed grows. The occasion of the Fair of 1958 was important for the city of Brussels and also for the government of Belgium, for another reason other than the event itself - it has given way to many projects which had been stalled until now.



The event has helped with the con-struction of prestigious buildings in the central areas of the capital, and as a result the whole country of Belgium was put under the spotlight. The Belgian Welfare State is using the Exposition, the new infrastructures and the administrati-ve buildings as a way to show itself and its power, even with the use and diffusion of flyers and booklets.

The exhibition site is situated seven kilometres away from the city centre, but the area which got the most advantage from the construction of new roads and from the expansion of public transport is clearly the centre of Brussels. The aim of this infrastructural project was to allow Brussels to appear as “the crossroads of Europe”, with the creation of one of the first highway systems in the Old Conti-nent. This system of new roads is not only for the Fair and for National Prestige but it will permit to solve the critical traffic problems which riddle the city.

Because of the economic boom and the spread of the “American dream” ideals, social differences between people have started being less visible: almost all the families can afford to buy a car (and this has been generating big problems of traffic in the small streets of the centre).In 1947, the Belgian’s economy had been able to grow back to the same level of in-dustrial production of the pre-war period, because of the exponential economical growth it had in the last period. Almost ten years ago, there was the so called “Belgian miracle” and the first plans for Expo 58 started.

I understand why the Belgian govern-ment had wanted to organise the exposi-tion: its great ambition was to promote the image of a state of the wellness among Belgian citizens and abroad. In the twelve years which brought to the finalisation of the exposition, many projects which didn’t concern the Expo directly, were carried out in the nation and in the capital: the exposition beca-me the deadline for all the infrastructu-ral works, such as the completion of the Brussels North-South underground railway connection, the Junction, in 1952.After finishing the Junction, five other buildings were planned for this area, and some of the most prominent examples are the Monts des Arts, the National Bank complex and the Cité Administrati-ve, all of which had been expected to be ready in time for the opening of Expo.The new administrative front, the Cité Administrative, was devised in order to show the whole world a new modern image of this city. However, its first foundation stone was laid one week after the beginning of the Fair, so I won’t be able to see it.Another big project for this progress of renovation and enhancement is the Detour of 1956, a further development project which aims to solve the problems of traffic this city has acquired in the last decade: this new detour will not have only solved these dilemmas, but it will also lead the supplementary flux of visi-tors of the Fair.The new street network was presented as a matter of national prestige.This Fair will influence urban planning and architecture for many years to come.



I believe International Exhibitions are not isolated events but they are the op-portunity to interact with other existing urban projects.

After strolling around the city for two hours, Richard takes off to get an ice-cre-am. I don’t go with him, because I don’t want one, and because it’s not hot enou-gh for one. He might have taken me for angry, and I was a little, for the accident with the tea, but when he didn’t come back I got worried and I progressively got angry. He got lost, he said when he came back in time for dinner in the mess hall of the hotel.

After waiting near the place where he had left me, for a quarter of an hour, I decided to leave and start roaming about the city on my own, preferring my solitu-de to that hurricane of chatter.

I decided to make my way towards the famous Atomium in the Expo site. According to what is reported on a big descriptive panel, the massive structure, designed by the engineer André Water-keyn and the architects André and Jean Polak, symbolises a frame of mind that combines aesthetic daring with technical mastery.It reflects the democratic will to maintain peace among the Nations, the faith in progress, both technical and scientific, and an optimistic vision of the future of a modern, new, super-technological world for a better life for mankind.

I’m not particularly fond of this work of art: I find it quite insignificant and it do-esn’t bare the symbol of the discoveries

of the time. It is the mere physical tran-slation of the infinitely small in a differe-nt enormous scale. It is not something to be considered innovative, but rather an exercise of style - it’s the attempt to make something magnificent, but ending up in making something that humanity has already seen.It is a commercial act, to induce people like Richard to look at it in awe, but when they turn their eyes on something else it lies forgotten.In a recent article, written by Rogers, I find myself being completely in syn-ch with what he believes: “Expo ’58 is interesting because it shows the limits of our era and not only the tastes, but also the sense of plastic expression, and in a larger sense of the possible decisions in the sphere of culture”.What sense does a hundred meter tall structure have, in a world where the Em-pire State Building stands four- hundred meters tall? None.I doubt it has an important role, and I believe the Atomium denotes a deeper crisis in the theme of the progress of ar-chitecture. This Expo in particular should have been a place in which all of the most recent discoveries in the world of sciences and planning are shown, but the symbol of it is an empty representation of them.I can understand how people, who don’t have an eye as critical as mine, will see this structure: it’s gigantic and it looks as if it could fall from the pedestal. I will admit it is interesting, but I still feel as if it is the futile attempt of modernity to make something of immense importance.I’m also amused by the coincidental inappropriateness of this sculpture in


PHILIPS PAVILION/EXPO 1958


front of the most recent and tremendous murder which took place in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at the end of WWII.Waterkeyn, the designer said something interesting about this sculpture “The completely steel-clad Atomium is a kind of UFO in the cultural history of Hu-manity, a mirror turned simultaneously towards the past and the future, compa-ring our Utopias of yesterday with our dreams for tomorrow”.I still don’t appreciate it, though.”

Oliviero was such a downer. I was much more enthusiastic:“Anyway, today is the great day and I can’t wait to visit the fair and all the pavilions of the different countries.We’re finally here. From the Brussels central station to the gared’autobus in front of the porte des Grands Palais, I can feel a sense of exci-tement in the air.

Two months ago, the 17th of April I saw a broadcast on the Television of a long report on the inauguration of Expo ’58, transmitted all over Europe, with many reporters from each country. After a short introduction by King Bau-douin, the general commissioner Moens de Fernig presented the main aims and themes of the Fair: “The world has lost its faith in the innovationsproduced by science and industry, and the trust in technology common during the pre-world period is now an illusion.There is no need of being pessimistic and discouraged by the technological and scientific progress. If they are developed in relation to the human scale, they can

be used for the everyday life of people and contribute to the spiritual wellbeing of humanity. This new hope is what we want to show at the first post-war Exhibi-tion, entitled “Review of the world with a view to a more humane world.”Yes, I remember that day very well: I had great expectations coming from some ar-ticles I had read on Casabella and Domus concerning that event. I also tried to be as informed as possi-ble to impress my mentor, good times. Oliviero, who was more analytical than me, wrote:“After we bought the tickets, 20 francs each, we enter in the Grands Pailais halle d’accueil, and we are in front of an ove-rall view of the main themes, events and exposition of the fair.There is a enormous board with the list of events that are going to take place today. The majority of them concerns people’s entertainment, such as the World’s Film Festival and an exhibition of the star of the Bolshoi Ballet Galina Ulanova, and cultural and intellectual conferences, as the World convention on childhood, with the presence of the In-dian premier Indira Gandhi. The business card of Brussels world fair highlights how this is not intended to be an archi-tectural and industrial showcase but also and especially a place for the exchange of knowledge between different countries about technological, cultural and social themes. It offers visitors an interesting exhibition entitled “50 years of modern art”, about the history of art of the first half of 20th century.The organisation of the Fair appears efficient enough: if someone gets inju-ries, competent medical staff carries



you to the closest first aid spot, and even those places are exploited by adverti-sement companies; particular attention is given to children, to which there are devoted areas with a team who takes care and entertains the young visitors. In front of this nursery we can see the starting point of the “expo-train” that guides people to the main points of interests, sparing you from the 27 kilometres walk, necessary to visit all the attractions of the site.My ankles won’t be happy after it. However, at least the warmth of the June sun and a gentle breeze are pleasant pals for this long visit.We access to Avenue de Belgique cha-racterised by the monumental Atomium.We are thrown by flux of people in the industrial sector of the Expo and it is immediately recognisable its leading organisational principle; as told in the inaugural speech, Expo 58 does not want to be a trade fair: the most important Belgian companies who decided to take part in the Exhibition were required to gather together according to some gene-ric themes, in order to remove any kind of references to individual companies.On our left, I show Mr Anson the Expo-chimie Pavilion organised by the Che-mical Industries collective, and on our right the steel construction of Electricitè 58, provided by the group of metallurgy factories.”

Ah, Oliviero was so annoyed by the amount of people visiting the Expo. I can’t stop laughing if I think I thought his bad moods were all because of me. How much I tried to convince him to enjoy that experience by keeping on

underlining all the positive aspects of it!Some years later, when we became good friends, he confessed he was actually amused by my enthusiasm, and after the first few days he let himself get carried away, even if he didn’t show it: he held on to his pride.On the other side, I was truly bewilde-red by the atmosphere, the noise, and everything in general.

“A turmoil coming from the feet of the Atomium catches my attention: as we get closer, looking at the advertising posters I become aware that the 45th tour de France has just started. But what is most striking and staggering is the magnificent grandeur of such a huge architectural and engineering sculpture representing a giant model of a unit cell of an iron crystal, with each sphere representing an atom.A short walk through Avenue du Congo leads us to the Avenue Des Nations, whe-re the “Section Étrangères” begins.Walking towards the Square of Na-tions, even through my unskilled eyes, the lack of a shared modern architectural language and the sentence I read the in the articles “Expo 58: Between Uto-pia and Reality” is clear: in this section the pavilions do not respect the idea of modern architecture that should be de-termined by an objective program and an internationally accepted construction techniques. France, Italy, Germany, Uni-ted States of America and Soviet Union reflect radically different socio-politi-cal situation in the use of the dissimilar architectural styles.

What strikes my attention especially, is



the impressive structure of United States pavilion with a broad oval pool in the plaza in front of it, next to the Soviet Union one. On the back of a postcard, given by an hostess at the entrance of the exhibition space, there is a quotation by the architect, Edward Durell Stone, describing the basic concept of his desi-gn: “My aim is to design a “more than modern” architecture, answering a need for richness, exuberance and freshness. I design a geometrically simple volume, impressive through its sheer size.”

The image of American society that I got from this pavilion is of a relaxed and rich atmosphere, in my opinion it is the same that characterises the interior exposition. It houses the very creative impulse of American life, through large photographs and models of modern buildings for pri-vate and public use.The exhibition speaks of the American values of democracy and freedom, and it is provoking contrasting reactions: if I have liked and celebrated the success of this kind of approach, that in my opinion brought honour to USA, Mr Manetti obviously highlighted the lack of high quality objects by American industrials.The visit to the Soviet Union Pavilion was not planned, but I saw a huge crowd of visitors moving from the exit of the United States lot to its neighbour pavi-lion, and getting curious, I decided to follow them while Mr Manetti rested on a bench; I was looking for a possible relation between the two, due also to the tense political situation among them.The first difference that I notice, thanks to the studies I’ve made, is that in con-trast with the American pavilion, this

this one occupies entirely its site and is just placed on a pedestal, that serves as a podium towards the square.

During the visit inside, a guide explains to me that the aim of the government was to represent a post-war powerful and advanced Soviet Union, and an image in contrast with the one of a “relaxed” American society. The USSR building wants to illustrate the new soviet doctri-ne on architecture, forwarded by Stalin’s successor, and the result was an image that reflected the capacities of the soviet construction Industry.I ask for more information about the re-lation between the two pavilions, and the person in charge of the visit explains me that they have been designed and built independently one from the other, but a comparison by the visitors and press was inevitable.After I described the USSR pavilion to Mr Manetti, while having lunch, he told me that in his opinion, the overall impression is of an American superiority to the Soviet, more modern and with a wealth and easy way of living. Modern architecture was the medium to express conflicting visions of contemporary man, of modern humanism: a communist post-war socialist realism versus capitalist neo-classical modernism.”

I didn’t describe The Italian pavilion, but how could Oliviero not?“At least, we visited my motherland pavilion, the Italian one, which I read a lot about, in particular on Casabella the article by Reima Pietilà in which she properly describes the basic concept of this section as a polemic against


formalistic structuralism and a desire of the architects Belgiojioso, De Carlo, Gardella, Peressutti, Perugini, Quaroni and Rogers to maintain a continuity with the Italian tradition.Indeed references to the architectural language of the rationalist period, the new tendencies of organic architecture, the neo-realist style and Olivetti’s indu-strialism, are visible.The visit basically consists of a tour in the five little buildings covering the lot, articulated on one storey, and the delega-tion building of two storeys.Knowing that the architect and musician Iannis Xenakis will be at the Philips Pa-vilion tomorrow morning, we go back to the hotel to have dinner and rest.I must admit, having dinner and discus-sing with Mr Anson about the fair was more interesting than what I expected.”

With the time spent with Oliviero, I acquired a new spirit of observation, and I wrote:“At last, the most awaited moment of our visit arrives: the tour of the Philips pavilion, designed by the leading figu-re of the European modern season Le Corbusier. The guide responsible of the visit, introduces us to it speaking about how this Pavilion represents an improve-ment of architectural plan, of the optical effects of movement and of the ideology of progress respect to his purist houses of the 20s. Then the guide describes that this bu-ilding was the result of a collaboration between two artists with totally different ideas: Le Corbusier designed the plan and Iannis Xenakis the building.


This professional friction between the two designersproduced a variation of the promena-de architecturale, whose tension is not between multiple formal readings any-more, but between the smooth exterior and the “narrative” experience of the interior.

The amazing journey through Le Cor-busier’s stomach plan starts by passing through a short corridor: we came across the extraordinary machinery designed by Edgard Varese, that generates sounds, light, colours and rhythm in the darkness of the pavilion.Here, Mr Manetti tells me how Le Cor-busier had already designed pavilions for other world expositions, and he had little interest in the architectural challenge of the project, but he saw it as the oppor-tunity to envision a poeme electronique, a combination of architecture music and light to express the problems of that period in a provocative mass expe-rience. The main characteristic of Le Corbusier’s idea was the combination of references to show the evolution of the human species and of the artistic expres-sions of faith, with the destruction of war and the need for redemption. The initial concept of Le Corbusier was entirely based on this machine, and he conceived the pavilion as the “container” for this spectacle. He’s definitely a genius.Outside he thought to a total neglecting of architectural from, but soon he aban-doned this idea because of the inadequate acoustical insulation. He proposed a cur-ved plan instead, designed to conduct the flow of people from one part to the other as in a stomach.


Oliviero wrote:“I must say that I can actually under-stand the reason of the fight between Le Corbusier and Xenakis, because Le Cor-busier had a lot of other works and desi-gns in that moment, he charged Xenakis to develop the appropriate building for his plan. But the result was the opposite of what he would expected: a total lack of communication and language between the two parts. From outside Xenakis’s design didn’t give any hint of what could lay within, while the dark interior would not allow a clear view of the building’s form.In the main room, some panels with the first sketches made for the pavilion are shown, and two totally different appro-aches to this design are visible: on one side Le Corbusier wanted to evoke the appearance of mathematical complexity, and on the other Xenakis aimed to make calculation part of the design process.

Xenakis saw the stomach plan of hi-scolleague as a constraint from which to optimise the shape for a greater acoustic quality. The surface generated was made of nine hyperbolic paraboloids read as spliced surfaces, instead of distinct volumes, with three peaks protruding from their intersections: at the entrance, the exit and on the central room stomach shaped, which now appears as the effect and no more the origin of this volume. Xenakis’ building reveals his disagre-ement with Le Corbusier’s idea of the promenade architecturale: the smooth surface and the unclear composition are designed so that a moving observer cannot distinguish a clear architectural progression.


I feel a sense of littleness under its main curves and surfaces. This recalls the ro-mantic concept sublime: the path through Philips Pavilion offers continuous di-scontinuities because of the lack of cohe-rence between outside and the inside.

Ah, this is my favourite part, written by Oliviero:“The first thing you notice about the figure of Iannis Xenakis, is the scar on his left cheek and his glass eye. He walks around with a calm demeanour; he’s sure, assertive. When I find him, he’s showing a woman around, pointing to the ceiling and explaining something. I don’t want to interrupt them, so I opt for eavesdropping, trying to hear what they were talking about. His idea on music is the focal point of the conversation, when I reach them, and the woman inquisiti-vely asks him how music interlaces with the theme of the Expo.

“The integration of arts and sciences, is not only a matter of applying scientific principles to artistic activity. Rather, we initiated an investigation of what I’m used to calling a ‘global morphology’, which I intend as a search for forms that strive to provoke a thought or a manife-station.Architecture make it possible to repre-sent the imaginative world of music. Music is intangible, and therefore there is a distinct feeling when one listens to mu-sic, and when one sees something which stimulates an emotion. Music is closer to the soul, because it is less connected to reality, to the real world: it is the most fine sense, the closest to

INTERVIEW TO IANNIS XENAKIS


another dimension of understanding.The Philips Pavilion, which I designed along with Edgard Varèse, writing electronic music to animate all these futuristic-looking parabolas, swoops, curves. The maths underlying its con-struction, and the shapes it makes, have a direct correlation in the way I used the instruments of the orchestra in Metasta-sis, organising the entries of the instru-ments, and the pitches they play, accor-ding to the working-out of mathematical and statistical formulae, translating the space of architectural planes into musical time.”

At this point I can’t help intervening in their conversation:“Mr Xenakis, let me introduce myself: I’m Oliviero Manetti, and I write for the magazine Architectural Devices, and this is my apprentice, Richard Anson.I was listening to you, I couldn’t help it. May I ask you a few questions?”

Iannis Xenakis turns around to look at me, and give me a big smile “Of course, it would be a pleasure.”

“What brought you close to the world of music?”

“I was always very attracted to the world of music. My childhood was permeated by rich folk music of my native region as well as mathematics and engineering, which was the reason why I ultimately chose to study engineering in the Athens Polytechnic. I began to seriously pursue music in this period, actually.My parents, my mother especially, taught me to appreciate the world of music.


When I was smaller, I started singing in the school choir, and that was a good experience to understand what music meant to me.My whole life was imbued with music, architecture and mathematics, and my music is the fruit of this fusion of appa-rently opposite themes.I worked with Le Corbusier for a long period of my life, he was very inspiring for me and for my development as an architect.I was very attract to the possibilities of music in other spheres of action, and i started experimenting with architecture. I was also very impressed by the way it connected to the scientific discoveries of the last period. There is a certain kind of poetry to the way everything interacts with everything it is surrounded with in order to create something bigger, like a mass, in the case of the atoms for exam-ple. I believe that these unions, these agglo-merations of people, animals, the infi-nitely small and lastly of musical notes, will create something which will surpass the aesthetics we’ve reached until now, a more fertile one.and above all a composer, whose crag-gily, joyously elemental music turned collections of pitches and rhythms and instruments into a force of nature, rele-asing a power that previous composers had only suggested metaphorically but which he would realise with arguably greater clarity, ferocity, intensity than any musician, before or since. This is the music of Iannis Xenakis.”“What is your drive when writing music? You say you compose mathematically: how does that work?”


Take my Metastaseis for example. I was inspired by the combination of Einstein’s studies on the matter of time and space, and my experience with warfare, but it was also connected to the world of archi-tecture, and especially with the world of Le Corbusier.It is played backwards, so it looses its connotations as a piece of music. People don’t recognise it anymore, it’s too ca-cophonous to be understood by a common listener. It’s not to be enjoyed: it’s the description of my life and my experience in wartimes. Music, as the common liste-ner knows it, is a linear process: one note after the other, simple,and understandable. But mine is a new kind of listening: it’s music and the di-scoveries of our times, as the newdiscovery of the relativistic view of time is.I say that it is connected to my times in the war zone, because it is a distorted representation of what I heard and lived everyday of those moments. It drips with dread and fear, and you can hear bullets being shot, in the background, even thou-ght you can’t hear the individual cartri-dges being shot. Taken as a whole, you can understand that is the sound of gunfi-re. The order in which they were fired is unimportant, they could have been com-bined in different patterns, but the result would have been the same.

“What is your Stochastic Music, Mr Xe-nakis?”

I”n 1954, I originated a music which was constructed on the principle of indetermi-nism, and two years later I named it “Sto-chastic Music”.


The laws of the calculus of probabilities became part of my composition process because of necessity. But other phenome-nons also led to the same crossroads: first of all, there was the inspiration by hand of natural events such as the collision of hail or rain with hard surfaces, or the song of cicadas in a summer field. The sound I’ve just described are a who-le created by the juxtaposition of many smaller sound, like single raindrops. When they are put together they become a new sonic sound, aa a totality. These sonic events are made out of thousands of isolated sounds; this multitude of sounds, seen as totality, is a new sonic event. This mass event is articulated and forms a plastic mould of time, which it-self follows aleatory and stochastic laws. If one of then wishes to form a large mass of point-notes, such as string pizzi-cati, one must know these mathematical laws, which, in any case, are no more than a tight and concise expression of chains of logical reasoning.

Everyone has observed the sonic phe-nomena of a political crowd of dozens of hundred of thousands of people. The human river shouts a slogan in a uniform rhythm. Then another slogan springs from the head of the demonstration; it spreads toward the tail, replacing the first. A wave of transition thus passes from the head to the tail. The statistical laws of these events, separated from their political or moral context, are the same as those of the cicadas or the rain. They are the laws of the passage from comple-te order to total disorder in a continuous or explosive manner. They are stochastic laws.”


“What brought you to work in architectu-re?”

“I studied architecture and engineering in school in Athens, where I studied piano as well.After graduating in Engineering I had to flee to France and I started working in Le Corbusier’s studio when i got there, Ihad started as an engineer, but, you know, working with architects becomes a greta source of inspiration.However, while in Paris, I kept stu-dying music, and I think my fascination for Architecture stemmed from it. Some relations between music and architecture are very simple and intuitive to under-stand, some are very delicate to define, and there is no actual way to refuse or validate them, because everything which has to do with aesthetics os uncertain.To me, they’re clamourous. Music and architecture are both noble art which don’t need to imitate things. They are arts in which forms and matter have a stronger and more intimate link between each other, because they connect to a general kind of sensibility: they amaze and stupefy the senses until annihilation. They both work with the grandiose and the intense. Lastly, their nature allows a great number of combinations and regular developments that link them together or they interweave them to geo-metry and analysis.”

I will not report my version of the en-counter with Xenakis, because I was such a childish enthusiast that I descri-bed everything without even writing the questions I had made. I only wrote one, which was the most important to me at


the moment.I had never had the occasion to meet Le Corbusier, and I was fascinated by the great mind of the man, that I couldn’t avoid asking Xenakis about him. Later on, Oliviero told me that my question was a great risk, because of the natu-re of the relationship between the two architects, but he also praised me for my courage (or stupidity) for aking such a question.

“I was so excited that I almost couldn’t talk. I needed to prove my competence to Oliviero, because I had to change his mind about me, so I could keep from him. I think he’s starting to appreciate me more, anyway: yesterday, I asked him if he wanted to eat a fish and chips and he said nothing but walked towards the fish and chips booth. Real progress.

“Mr Xenakis, what can you tell me about your cooperation with Le Corbusier?”

At this, Iannis Xenakis looks at me, with a strange look on face, and says: “Well, I had already worked with Char-les- Edouard before this moment in time, did you know? Although I was an illegal immigrant in Paris, as I told you, I coo-perated with him for other projects like the apartment block in Nantes, parts of the government buildings in Chandigarh, The church of La Tourette and so on.Yeah, I know what people say about our strange way of working together, and we didn’t actually work together for this pa-vilion. Le Corbusier only gave minimal input into the details of how the interior of the pavilion would work, giving a vague concept of what the experience


should accomplish; the only guidelines given by him, to both me and my col-legue Varese, were that the interior was to be shaped in a manner similar to the stomach of a cow, with the form coming from a basic mathematical algorithm.Charles-Edouard was busy with the planning and design of Chandigarh, so the majority of the decision-making was made by me. And, guess what? He didn’t really like when I took control of the project, so we argued until I defini-tely left his office to further pursue my individual work within architecture and experimental musical composition.If you’re wondering what Le Corbusier is like, I can tell you about the time when the Philips Electronics Companyturned to his office for the final com-mission for the pavilion. He replied by saying that he would have not made a pavilion for them, but a Poem Electroni-que, a vessel containing the poem; light, colour image, rhythm and sound joined together in an organic synthesis.Le Corbusier would take on the sole task of developing the interior of the vessel, leaving the exterior design of the pavi-lion my responsibility.For the composer of the Poem Electro-nique, he commissioned my colleague Edgard Varese, choosing him over other well know composers of the time such as Benjamin Britten and Aaron Copland, both of whom the Philips company preferred over Varese. As I told you, Le Corbusier’s personality is not an easy one.However, we found a way to cooperate in order to put an end to this project, and honestly I hope it is the last one Ihave to share with him.”I will not report anything else from my point of view, because, as I had said before, it is riddled with a much younger me fawning over everything that was happening.Reading Oliviero’s part now, I see just how much I have changed from the Expo of ’58. It is also interesting to see how much architecture and the public opinion


of Expos has changed in this time.These thirty-eight years have brought so much change in the world. “At that point I couldn’t decide if my assistant was a complete fool or a genius. He acts as if there are no consequences to his actions, but in this particular case, he was able to extort a true revelation by Xenakis, which took me by surprise.After the initial shock of the moment, I continued with my questions.

“One last question, Mr Xenakis: what is your opinion about this Expo in Brus-sels?”

“Ah, I was waiting for this one. Pay at-tention and write it down faithfully.Honestly, I think the expositions in ge-neral are a good way to share new ideas and technology, they give people the possibility to learn, to be updated with the last innovations in both the artistic and scientific fields. But, let me say one more thing: this Expo in particular had a great potentiality, because the leading architect of the General Commission of the Exposition, Paul Bonduelle, believes in a contemporary Belgian architecture with roots in the classical tradition, in strong opposition with the modernist tabula rasa, but it wasn’t developed properly: Expo 58 is the way through which the infrastructure of the new “state of well being” should be finally visible to everyone: the exposition is presented as a national endeavour, as the masterpiece of the modern state and so it should show a coherent, democratic and united Bel-gium. But even if everything is promo-ted as modern, there are too many incon-gruences between the desire of


of modernity and the style used to express it.The whole event lacked in coherence in the urban planning and it appears clear that the modern architecture actually is not as modern as we thought, but steel rooted in the national tradition.”“Mr Xenakis, thank you for your time. This was very in-sighting.”“You’re welcome.”Richard shook Mr Xenakis’s hand so excitedly, i thought he would have broken his hand. Straight after, he asked Xenakis’s assistant to take a picture of us in front of the Philips Pavilion… I couldn’t believe it, but I was so shocked that I accepted.Mr Anson, Richard, is definitely the worst and best apprentice a journalist could ask for.”

When we got back to London, Oliviero hired me and we worked together for the following five years. After them, we continued reading each other’s articles and analysing them together.

I still believe Expo 58 was a great expe-rience, both from the point of view of the young man I was and from who I became today. It was a good occasion for the city of Brussels, it brought tourism and great innovations to the whole of Belgium.


• Rika Devos, Expo 58 nel cuore di Bru-xelles: i molteplici volti del nuovo stato radioso in” Le Culture della tecnica”, 25, (page 155-166), 2014This article was particulary interesting and useful in order to understand whi-ch kind of transformations was facing Brussels before, during and after the Fair. Because such an important event is not something that happened in a desolate land but in the heart of a city is crucial to reflect about which have been the effects that it produced on it, and not only du-ring the six month of the exhibition, but in a wider range of time. • Rika Devos, Power, control and natio-nal representation: modern architecture and exhibition design at Expo 58 in “Pro-ceedings of the Conference - Theoretical Currents: Architecture, Design and the Nation” (2010) Rika Devos through her words develops some considerations about a crucial the-me of expo 58: modern architecture. The reading of this article has been useful because it provides us another point of view about the dualism that characterized the Brussels world Fair.• Rika Devos and Fredie Florè, Modern Wood, De Coene at Expo 1958 Domus, August/November 1858It helped to understand the construction techniques of the Brussels World Fairs’s pavilions of 1958. De Coene’s involve-ment was noticed in the Exhibition from different experts coming from all over the world because of its architectural


BIBLIOGRAPHY : EVENT

innovations and lightweight structures.• Arnaud Bozzini, “From one Expo to the next, the universal and international exhibitions in Belgium prior to 1958” in Gonzague Pluvinge “Expo 58, between utopia and reality” (2008)This article explain briefly about all the world exposition that Belgium hosted from 1888 to the 1958 one, and analyzes how they have changed the urban settle-ment of the city. The knowledge of these informations have been precious because let us understand that Expo 58 was not only an isolated event but the result of a system of worls Exhibitions that influen-ced the urban and social environment. • Chloè Deligne and Serge Jaumain, “A “Great Modern city” hosts the universal exhibition of 1858” in Gonzague Pluvin-ge “Expo 58, between utopia and reality” (2008)Deligne and Jaumain describe the main projects and processes of transformation that characterized Brussel in the 50s, and that were related not just to the world fair but also to the great change in the way of life typical of the post-war period.• Tom Verschaffel, “The wind blows hard but the sky remains blue: the message of expo 1958” in Gonzague Pluvinge “Expo 58, between utopia and reality” (2008)This article has been crucial because it describes the message and the aims of the 1958 Brussels world fair: these informations have been precious because made us understand more in deep the meaning of the first post-war exhibition and how the image of technology and scientific progress needed to be presented and perceived in a different way respect to the first half of the century.• Rika Devos and Mil De Kooning, Architecture and graphics at Expo 58. in Gonzague Pluvinge “Expo 58, between utopia and reality” p.143-154 (2008)The universal Exhibition of 1958 have been characterized not only by majestic and imposing architectural sculpture, but also by the process of advertisement and graphics.


Devos and Kooning helped us to under-stand the importance of visual advertise-ment in that period; everywhere, both in the city and in the expo site itself, each wall was covered with colorful posters about the most various themes. • “Discovering the world: visiting Expo 58” in Gonzague Pluvinge “Expo 58, between utopia and reality” (2008)This article by Pluvinge was a perfect and punctual description of this event. Thanks to it we could identify oursel-ves in a visitor of the Fair, discovering his wonders, the most praised and also the most disliked attractions and all the contradictions of such and architectural display. • Isabelle Doucet, Learning from Brus-sels. An irreductive approach to archi-tectural and urban problématiques?• Expo 58. Architectural review 124 (Aug 1958)

• Ernesto N. Rogers , “All’expo ’58 il fu-ture (dell’architettura) non è cominciato” Casabella 221, p. 3-5Rogers, one of the architects of the Ita-lian pavillion at Expo 58, with this article presents a strong critique against the architectural language and style of the most of the pavilions presented during the Fairs. The reading of this article has been useful because it provides us also a different point of view compared to other sources. It has been very useful also for the second part of the reportage, the one about the Philips pavilion, becaouse of the kind of description that Rogers made about it.


• Gillo Dorfles , “Cinquant’anni d’arte moderna a Bruxelles”, Domus, p 20-21Expo 1958 has been not only a showcase of pavilions by different nations, but in the Belgian section it was possible to at-tend to a variety of different events (cul-tural, technological, scientific, social..) among which one of the most praised has been the art exhibition about the first fifty years of the 20th century.

• Reima Pietilà, “Expo ‘58”, “il padiglio-ne italiano”, “il padiglione Philips”, “il padiglione Finlandese” Casabella 221This article written by Pietilà on Casa-bella some months later than the first opening of the exposition has been useful because it describes with words and especially with images two of the most discussed, praised and criticized pavi-lions.• Carlo de Carli, “Il padiglione Europa”, Casabella 221De Carli was the author not only of the article but also of the pavillion itself,ba-sed on the theme “history and freedom through the times”. Because it consists just of a technical description about the architectural design, it has not been so useful because though it it was not pos-sible to understand anything about the meaning and the relation with the expo’s theme of the pavilion itself.• Rika Devos, “Expo 58: the catalyst for Belgium’s Welfare State Government complex?” in “Planning Perspectives” vol. 26, No. 4, October 2011, 649-659This article served as a critical view on the infrastructural aspects promoted for the development of the city of Brussels on occasion for Expo 1958. It has shown not only an overall look to the major changes of Belgium’s capital but also deep details such as dates and names that helped us to fulfill our research work.


• J.F. Robin and Combar, Le Pavillion Philips à l’exposition de Bruxelles, sera: “ Une bouteille contenant de la musi-que”, 17/02/1958This article was interesting because it explains the excitement at the moment of the overture of the pavilion, and it was also important for the people of the age to understand how big the space was and how capacious. Another aspect that can be considered of relevance, is the fact that it explains the structure in some of its properties, and what will happened inside.• Joseph Clarke, Jannis Xenakis and the Philips pavilionThis source is significant to describe the concept at the base of the design of the pavilion and also the originary idea of Le Corbusier about the project and how it changed during the process. It let us understand the complexity of the rela-tionship between the two designers due to their contrasting points of view about the architectural language and style. It provide also a deep description of the pavilion itself, not limited just to a tech-nical description of all its parts, but that analyse also the meaning of each detail, in relation to the ideals of who designed it.• Larry Polansky, A review of art/scien-ces: Alloys by Iannis Xenakis.It provided the material for the interview because it explained Iannis Xenakis’s point of view about the relation betwe-en music and architecture and how his collaboration with many different artists influenced him and his works.


BIBLIOGRAPHY : BUILDING AND

ARCHITECT

• Katie Mondloch, A Symphony of Sen-sations in the Spectator: Le Corbusier’s “Poème électronique” and the Historici-zation of New Media Arts• Sven Sterken , Towards a Space-Time Art: Iannis Xenakis’s Polytopes• Roger Reynolds, In Memoriam: Iannis Xenakis: 1922-2001• Iannis Xenakis, Roberta Brown and John Rahn, Xenakis on XenakisThese last three sources have been fun-damental in the development of the in-terview to Iannis Xenakis, because they provide a great number of informations about his private and professional life. They analyzes this artist both as a musi-cian and as an architect, and it is intere-sting the relation that emerges between these two aspects of the same person.


brussels, a visit to the fair (1958) · valentina mori federica ponticelli. alice zoe ricci...

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