00:00 because I think in the profession of design he was able to combine his interest in technology
00:07 with his artistic ideas or with his ideas which were sometimes even utopian and very far ahead of his time.
00:16 There was a whole discussion about nuclearism, about nuclear energy in the 50s,
00:22 not only in Italy but in all the artistic world, we have to say,
00:27 because there was this big shock after the atomic bomb in Hiroshima
00:31 when the intellectuals were shown that the human race has been able to control a power which is uncontrollable,
00:43 so they were confronting this possibility of destructing the whole world.
00:49 And a lot of people said, after Hiroshima nothing will be the same
00:52 because we have to face these incredible powers and the power that men have gained over nature.
01:01 So not only these young painters from Italy were dealing with this,
01:07 but also people like Robert Rauschenberg or Yves Klein were reflecting on these nuclear issues.
01:14 Gio Colombo, as a painter, he wanted to make visible the basic energies of nature,
01:23 so this is where this nuclear discussion comes in.
01:27 He wanted to make research into the very inner structure of natural energies
01:34 and he wanted to make those visible in his paintings.
01:36 And then he took similar reflections on these nuclear discussions and he adapted this to architecture.
01:44 And he said, well, if we are able to control nuclear power, we might as well reconceive completely our cities.
01:54 We will be able to put the whole infrastructure under the earth and the surface of the earth.
02:03 We can use it for nice dwellings, to have a nice, like a new natural park,
02:10 like a garden Eden on the surface of the world.
02:14 And all traffic, all the industrial production would be under the earth.
02:18 So this was his nuclear city, which was on one hand only thinkable
02:23 because endless power supply would be there, thanks to nuclear energy.
02:30 But of course it also has something apocalyptic,
02:33 because all the traffic, all the important systems are under the earth.
02:39 So it has the aspect of hiding people under the earth.
02:44 It was a very interesting but very utopian concept, of course.
02:48 Colombo was absolutely fascinated with the new technologies, especially the media, the audiovisual media.
02:54 And he said that media would completely change people's lifestyles.
02:58 And it would allow people to work at home, to work during traveling.
03:05 I'm sure he would have had a laptop if it would have been invented.
03:09 He even told one other designer one day that people might carry their telephones in their pockets one day.
03:16 So he must have had this capability of thinking in the future
03:22 and thinking about things that in that time were not really thinkable because they did not exist.
Comments