“Behind a
column you can hide, you can fall in love, you can kiss someone… Behind a
column you can spy on someone, people can be killed, a date can sprout…”, said
Phillipe Stark about the 43 columns that he envisioned for holding the building
that he recovered in the center of Bilbao, the Alhóndiga.
This
specific part of the work was executed by the Italian Lorenzo Baraldi though,
who draw 800 columns “reflecting the different cultures, architectures, wars
and religions that influenced the man and the human kind work over the time”
before choosing the final 43.
Then it was
time to choose the materials. In some cases the same model was made with
different materials, like two columns you can see bellow (the first and the
last one) that are exactly the same despite the fact one of them was made with
Lecce Stone and the other with Terracotta. This way these 43 columns can better
reflect all the styles and forms of columns that existed since antiquity until
today, also reflecting a little bit of every culture.
But Lorenzo Baraldi’s initial vision only became alive when the 120
professionals that worked in this task started giving form to the columns in
their own studios, spread around Europe. And between that moment and the moment
of putting the columns in situ five months have passed. In some cases the
columns weren’t even built in a studio, instead they were built directly in the
ground floor of the Alhóndiga, like in the case of the columns made out of
bricks. You can see a little bit more about this mission in here or if you’ll go to Bilbao don’t miss the chance to take the free guided
tour (Tuesdays at 7pm if you want it in Spanish) and to know more about this
Patio from the Cultures, an “open museum” that will inspire you as well as
surprise you.
