The photographic album of a trip to Yemen by one of the great architects and designers of the twentieth century.
"Some people go around constantly comparing their own experience and culture with what they see: I take the opposite attitude, I let myself go before what I see, I let myself get involved, especially in the landscape and its transformation." This is how Marco Zanuso describes his way of travelling. The Milanese architect travelled the world for work at a time when few people did, but he maintained the pleasure of discovery intact even on his private journeys, during which he would take photographs. This is what happened on a family trip to a Yemen not yet touched by tourism. The curiosity of the architect's gaze is conveyed through the magnificent black and white of the photographs of the walls of Sana'a, of the great towers made of dried mud bricks, as well as of the construction details or the customs of the local population. The texts by Maria Pace Ottieri and Franco Raggi focus on his human and professional qualities, painting a portrait of one of the great architects and designers of the twentieth century.
Marco Zanuso (1916-2001), born in Milan, studied and collaborated with BBPR, before going out to become one of the founding fathers of Italian industrial design. His objects won him seven Golden Compass awards. He was among the first to devote himself to the application of new materials and technologies to everyday objects and to the industrialisation of products in the years a$er the Second World War and the Italian economic boom. As an architect, in addition to a number of private residences, he designed famous buildings for Olivetti (the factories in Argentina and Brazil, as well as in Italy) along with the Italian headquarters of IBM.
