Towers and skyscrapers
2007-2009
Today the Medea Hotel in Batumi, situated in the centre right on the tip of the promontory where the old city lies, rises with its twenty floors like a lighthouse in memory of past glories. The new hotel replaces the old Soviet building, demolished to make way for its construction. What we designed is a mythological tower with four, superimposed sections, each generated by the other as if in an infinite epic that has overtaken the centuries. I personally took advantage of that occasion to develop my work in new ways using a power saw. And I have created a number of forms for tall buildings with the same technique that I chose for my little houses. So what had started as a totally abstract pursuit, free from all professional restraints, eventually found its way back into real life. And occasionally I glimpse possibilities of realising some of my wildest fancies, for once no longer driving me into the isolation of the studio at Angera but allowing me instead to frequent my new Georgian friends.
Michele De Lucchi, April 2007