Il vuoto riempito
Work that has been documented (by commission) of the development and change of a landscape, (a zone) from a piece of the city that has been taken apart and been rebuilt according to business propisitions.
The photographic work of Marco Garofalo on the great constrution sites of Porta Nuova started in 2007 with a commission on the behalf of the Hines Italia society, principal operators of the project, to make a report on the progress of the work being carried out. The photographer, for his vocation and natural professionalism, integrates a tight documentarial aspect as requested by the purchasers with personal research on the state of the city of Milan and the lives of the people in relation to where they live.
Porta Garibaldi, Varesine e Isola - the latter being particuarly special to the photographer- have been rapidly changing over the last few years under the project that, after decades of immobility, is heading towards filling a large, empty urban space. Whilst the excavating machines mark the blueprints of the original idea on the ground, Garofolo seeks symptoms of imminent change: the construction sites gates open and the passers-by look in, debating fears and expectations. The photographer follows the events and despite adopting different points of view he remains focused on the story of man.
To convey the view is difficult and complex, because everything is made of mirrors that reflect incomplete forms: the windows of the shops, the windows of the apartments and the eyes of the inhabitants looking out onto the wobbly skeletal structures of the buildings that are slowly growing taller around them with the image of what will come already built in their minds.
In the search of a synthesis the focus of camera was raised, first over the old towers of the "Centro Direzionale", then over the structures of the skyscrapers themselves under construction. In this way, Panoramas of a Milano that doesn't exist yet are born, a city that progressively imposes and multiplies its own image in the reflections that the giant glass windows exchange in a continuous swap of light and material.
At the bottom, men that work, that build and that observe, waiting for the staggeringly high cranes to stop.
Text by Giacomo Magistrelli
