At a certain point in T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land", the poet describes the crowd walking over London Bridge: it is a depressed humanity, surely alive in the physical sense, but very much dead inside, walking in a sad city, where "each man fixed his eyes before his feet."
To avoid turning into a member of this sulking crowd, let's try taking a stroll with our head held high and our eyes gazing at the sky. Or at the ceilings of monumental buildings to get the best inspirations.
If you're in Venice waiting for the Correr Museum to open its doors, stop scrolling your Instagram feed on your smartphone, sit down on the steps and look up at the decorative floral motifs under the Sotoportego San Geminian in St. Mark's Square.
You're sitting under the Procuratie Nuovissime (also known as the Napoleonic Wing): during the second period of French domination the Procuratie Nuove were turned into a royal residence, and the Church of San Geminiano, located on the western side of St. Mark's square was demolished to extend the royal residence and create the necessary rooms.
The ceiling here features low relief panels with classical motifs and its floral elements and garlands may keep you entertained for a while. As you explore the sculptural elements ask yourself how they may inspire you.
Could these elements and motifs be the starting point for an accessory? A jewelry piece maybe? A garment with an embossed sculptural element? Well, you decide.
If you want to avoid crowds of tourists and you prefer walking in deserted cities in the summer, Milan may be ideal and may also offer you some wonderful architectural features.
A great example hides in the building known as "the palace with the arch", that is the Buonarroti-Carpaccio-Giotto company building located along Corso Venezia and designed by Piero Portaluppi.
Primarily intended for luxury residences and shaped like a U, with the head facing west towards Corso Venezia, the building is characterised by an enormous passage arch opened within it.
Multiple decorative elements characterize it, in particular the distinctive features of Portaluppi's style: alongside the Doric order pillars, there are cornices and statues, forms and lines of Secessionist and Art Deco derivation that geometrically intermingle and overlap, even involving the gallery of the street passage, characterized by the use of diamond shapes in the counter-vault lines.
When it was built the development of the area was supposed to provide a suitable solution for the exit onto Corso Venezia, ensuring access from the important street axis to the emerging new district. In the original plan, this access had to be guaranteed through a passageway integrated within the building.
In 1925, the property commissioned the architectural project to Giovanni Battista Milani, but, after disagreements over the architectural composition style, Piero Portaluppi took over. In an initial design proposal, the architect envisioned a connection with Corso Venezia through a triple Serliana passage, with two pedestrian openings on the sides and a central driveway.
After suggesting a considerably reduced arch, one that would have preserved more space for the floor above the passage, Portaluppi settled on the ultimate design of the edifice: a substantial structure arranged with two symmetrically opposing sections along Via Salvini, linked to the facade facing Corso Venezia, defined by the monumental passage featuring an imposing semicircular arch integrated into the lower levels of the building.
In this case, the motif under the passage may be more interesting for a kniwear design or a print. So, remember, there is no need to walk like the crowd in T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," with heads bowed in despair. And while gazing upwards may not be a permanent solution for a bad mood or depression, it can offer a momentary respite from the mental weariness and desperation that sometimes grip us; it can certainly grant us a brief reprieve, allowing us to temporarily escape the weight of our thoughts and find solace - and inspirations - in the vastness of the world around us.
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