Sensing spaces
The title of my book FRAGMENTS OF LIFE could be altered in FRAGMENTS OF SPACES. My strongest memories are based on the first impact entering a space that brings me to the essentials of life itself. I can sense the space, the spirituality of the place, the scale of humility of the space created by its volumes, the presence of light, the absence of work or the absence of sound. Such as the pavilions in Venice Biennale, the exhibition ‘Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined’ at the Royal Academy of Arts, London in April 2014 wanted to evoke the experience of architecture within a gallery environment of the Royal Academy. The constructions of six architects were the starting point for the visitor to undergo and understand or question their own ideas about architecture and create new sensations to inhabit spaces or private houses beyond the gallery walls. A very ambitious project composed showing six architects namely by two woman architects Yvonne Farell and Shelley Mc Namara of Grafton Architects, Kengo Kuma from Kanagawa Japan, Diébédo Francis Kéré from Burkina Faso in Africa, Li Xiaodong from China, Sofia von Ellrichshausen and Maurizio Pezo from Chili, and finally Eduardo Souto de Moura Alvaro Siza from from Portugal; they were supposed to created volumes full of light and mist. Exhibitions are testing grounds, areas of experimentation (see text Presence: The light Touch of Architecture by Philip Ursprung. Catalogue of the exhibition Sensing Spaces.