Stadtsilhouette
The city scene as a collective creation.
It took forty Italian stonemasons to create the stone sculpture “Stadtsilhouette”, a design by the architect Max Dudler with Simone Boldrin, which was conceived as a collaborative project.
Showcased at the stone trade fair Marmomacc in Verona, the sculpture will be permanently set up inside the „Baden Powell“ park in San Severo.
The sculpture consists of milled and interlocked blocks of Pietra di Apricena (orito-K66) stone and has the imposing total mass of 4.50 m x 4.50 m x 4.50 m. A stone world that is completely de ned by architecture. Seen from the side, the sculpture appears almost at or two-dimensional. Yet with a shift in perspective the stone cityscape fans out into a complex multilayered ensemble.
A sense of density and depth, conjuring the multidimensional character of an urban landscape. The city as a stage set. Here, the city is scenery and stage at the same time. The language of this stone entity is the same one that informs all Max Dudler’s buildings: A house never stands alone, but is an integral part of a sculptural cityscape, created out of collective processes. This is illustrated by one of his most successful buildings, the Jacob-und-Wilhelm- Grimm-Centre, whose outline integrates into the Berlin cityscape while contributing to the portrait of the city and its identity. A somewhat different example is that of the high-rise ensemble on Ha-genholzstrasse in Zürich-Oerlikon. Here Max Dudler has created a comprehensive cityscape – a place of urban density with multi- dimensional character on the periphery.
The city is not the work of any one individual; it is developed out of the collective work of countless people. In the same way, this sculpture is to be seen as a collective work. The natural stone blocks originated from a stone quarry in Apulia, from where three blocks were delivered to 40 Italian stonemasons – each stonemason in a different city, spread throughout all Italy, from North to South from East to West. All 40 stonemasons worked the raw stone blocks with the same milling machine and the same software. All the stone blocks from all over the country were reunited in Verona and assembled to form the sculpture. In this way, the sculpture is an embodiment of collaborative building, a collective work of art, just like the city itself.
At the end of the Verona fair the work will be permanently set up in the places of origin of stone, inside the San Severo „Baden Powell“ park. A manifesto of Architecture in a peripheral area of the city.
