PALTERER 1982-2002. Architettura e altre storie Palterer 1982-2002 "Architettura e altre storie" (Architecture and other stories) it's the title of the first volume of a newborn monography collection which the florentine publishing house Vallecchi dedicates to contemporary architects and designers. Edited by Norberto V. Medardi, the volume tells and explains the planning course of the israeli – florentine of adoption – architect as a suggestive path through the magical obsessions that imagines produce. The almost two hundred full colour pages, which offer a great emotional impact to the reader, are followed by forty short commentary texts and introduced by the Lara Vinci Masini essay "In pericoloso equilibrio"; the book gives the opportunity to deepen the knowledge of a designer – architect who preserved very strong relationships both with art and handicraft. Unusual figure on the italian scene, Palterer combines the typical third generation architect's formal and conceptual refinement to the warm attraction and fascination towards the material and the ornamental contrast which comes out as he "works" on it; after all, towards the fascination created by "the body" involved in the project creation and execution. In Palterer 1982 - 2002. Architettura e altre storie, the sensual predominance of the figurative upon the text - which is fragmented in a sequence of short flashes - seems to underline the typical allure of the author, and aim at recreating the emotional impact both of the architectural work and the design object more than explaining and describing them; Palterer focuses on the origins, the premonitions, on the contex also intended as biographic background. If every project is a complex event, human, alchemic and, sometimes, "accidental" – as the body intervention reveals – its "mechanics" and "method" will be never shown directly to us, justifications of a particular event could be at least presented, the occasion could be hinted at to relate about an outcome. The suggested excursus outlines the overall iter of David Palterer's work – from his degree thesis to the project he is carrying out – and can also be read as the story of an emotional and professional growth, of the taking possession of the techinique by "doing", the poiesis; almost a slow process towards the domain of - or the indulging in - an obsession, through simulacrum and ritual icons. Two decades of working marked out by the so called artidesign products – to use an expression of Filippo Alison and Renato De Fusco – like the glass and cristal ones (raw materials to which the author dedicated a lot of his poetical talent) representing Fauno, Tritrono, Sedotta e Abbandonata that well symbolize the complexity of the sign and the planning intents of Palterer, but most of all, due to their excellence, tend to reduce the importance and the prestige of the architectonical outcomes. On the other hand it would be a restrictive and false – even if suggestive – hypothesis to judge these twenty years like a straightforward path "towards architecture"; it seems here much more appropriate to talk about a progressive "growth" of a refined object creator who little by little has acquired the necessary authoritativeness to be an architect. It would be restrictive also in the sense that the twentieth century – especially from the sixties on – is really the century in which the designer' subtle irony dares to cohabit with the architect' seriousness; and the hypothesis would be false because the disciplinary, cultural, real nomadism – through Africa, East and West – that permeates the Palterer's project trace and his skilful material manipulation is present both in the young author's life and in his maturity. So, with no apparent contrast, next to the miraculous elegance of the silver teapot made for Cleto Munari, we find the smart renovation of the Niccolini Theatre in San Casciano; the wonderful glass creations for Edizioni Galleria Colombari, the already mentioned Fauno armachair and the Teke vases designed for Zanotta, come alongside the big malls; the interiors of Chichibio restaurant in Mito, Japan, alternate with the last expository sets and the projects in Nyon, Pisa and Calenzano; the collections in "backed" glass made for Sardinia Crystal are reflected in the wonderful glass roofing of the Florence MOPA. Maybe in Palterer's work we can read a noticeable and gradual development that affected the notions/actions of both processed material and decoration. The rhythm, the capability of "telling" which is implicit in the wavy sign, typical of his personal sign, seem to "be part of" a wider consciousness, of a rhythm persistence, of a time in which the same author lives; a tempus-kaiṛs – like in Giacomo Marramao's lecture – which is a melting pot of tempestas and temperatio, a common property that share itself and permeates an environment. In this sense the project of the Opera Museum of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence is revealing, because the perspicacity Palterer shows with the wunderkammer makes itself sublime through the comparison with the concrete testimony of the Florence plastic tradition. This can be noticed not just in the absolute scene domain in artificial-light ambits, but also – maybe especially – in the big inner courtyard: in the twofold decorative "score" – the link elements and the roofing – offered by the artificio to the changeable, sovereign inspiration of natural light. Palterer's objects and architectures are never "absolute"; on the contrary they seem to be more "contextual" and marked by a sharing and yielding pathos in which the provocation melts into sweetness. In Palterer's maturity there's something mild that twenty years ago had not totally emerged. His divertissement, the "asymmetries" and the "insertions" appear to be less forced and bizarre. As if, pervaded with the ecologic consciousness of the worldly prevailing of the "impermanency", Palterer and his projects undergo the stamp of time and rhythm that, as he says, have to be followed. Nothing has to be done too fast or too slowly, otherwise the object will not originate. Palterer 1982-2002. Architettura e altre storie edited by Norberto V. Medardi 2002, Vallecchi, Firenze © 2002 Studio d'Architettura Palterer © 2002 Vallecchi Spa Via Maragliano 6 int 50144 Firenze www.vallecchi.it

Text by: Umberto Rovelli Translation by: Giacomo Occupati I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. In cooperation with: Eneko Aransay Ros TOP