Monochromatic Milan (Where I live)

Remember how I was saying how Milan has no colors, and everything is black and white, or in between? I was being serious.

Exhibit A: my beautiful, if monochromatic apartment.

From the entrance to the apartment: bathroom and wall. Notice black scarf on the right.

Plant life always manages to mix things up and reaffirm the existence of the color palette.

The bedroom. Look closely and you'll realize it's a color photo, although the same can't quite be said about the apartment.

The kitchen in the afternoon.

My awesome apartment mate Sergio. Sergio is a furniture designer for Antonio Citterio in Milan, but is originally from small town in Puglia, in the south of Italy. Note the white clothing (weekends), which is contrasted from the black clothing he wears to work (weekdays). Also note the video projector that he uses to project movies onto the white canvas he has painted on the opposite wall.
Me, being monochromatic and preparing for the cold. This is Sergio's black jacket against the white wall.

Me on the balcony. In an act of restrained rebellion against the Milan fashionistas, I am wearing my red Oktoberfest shirt (from Blumenau, Brazil) under a black v-neck sweater.

Sao Paulo to Milan

I was thinking of all sorts of witty things to say, all kinds of astute observations to record on my transfer from Sao Paulo to Milan. It's now 11:30 pm in Milan, and although only 8:30 pm in Sao Paulo, I'm really tired. Slept about three hours on the twelve hour plane ride, after dealing with Brazilian bureaucracy/airport security.

Apparently the immigration officer in Foz do Iguacu in Brazil only gave me forty days in the country, even though my visa explicitly states I could stay for ninety days. As a result, I "overstayed" my visa by about two weeks, which amounted to about a $50 USD fine, payable on my return to Brazil. Either that, or I can petition it at a Brazilian consulate here in Italy in the next five days. Both options are less than ideal.


Anyways, I am now in Milan, where I feel safe walking around alone at night with my camera. But I must say, Milan lacks the kind of vitality that is pervasive in the streets of Sao Paulo, for better or for worse. Everyone in Milan walks around in monotones, in different shades of black and brown. They just walk, almost nobody hawking anything, no music, no colors. Nevertheless, it is still beautiful in that kind of elegant European way, and the cathedral is awesome. Witness:


I walked down the main Chinese street, Via Paolo Sarpi, and chatted with a little eatery owner. To my surprise, she also insisted that the U.S. was infinitely better than Italy. What is it about the mystique of the United States?

Oscar Niemeyer

"It is not the right angle that attracts me.
Neither the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man.
What attracts me is the free and sensual curve. The curves i find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous course of its rivers, in the clouds in the sky, in the body of a beloved woman.
The Universe is made of curves, Einstein's curved universe." -- Oscar Niemeyer


The first thing I learned about Brazil I learned from a book at the Concord Public Library, where I worked in high school. I was shelving books in the 700s under the Dewey decimal system, which is full of art and architecture books. Before the library was renovated in 2004, the 700s were located in the Thoreau room, a beautiful room with large windows, magnificent light, and great art books.

I came across an architecture book on Brazil's capital, Brasilia. I started flipping through the book, which had many photos on the construction of Brasilia, a capital that was created during the 1950s under president Juscelino Kubitschek. The main administrative buildings were designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who worked with the famous Swiss architect/urban planner Le Corbusier.

The architecture of Brasilia, an entirely planned city, amazed me. Today I had a chance to go to the Museu Oscar Niemeyer, a great art/architecture museum here in Curitiba.

Here is a photo of Brasilia:


There are some great photos of Brasilia during the 1960s here