Edgar Orlaineta/Mexico City
Making the private public – Making friends.
Whilst walking through the Gropiusstadt I found a group of little uni-familiar homes (Einfamilienhäuser), they were very beautiful in size and proportion and they were delicate in some way. I found them very contrasting to the big buildings around. I thought it was strange to have them here besides the big building with hundreds of apartments.
One of these houses had its garage door open and there I saw a familiar image;
a group of "butterfly" chair frames the kind I have found in México
City streets and used to create a pair of sculptures. I was very impressed to
see them there, originally an Argentinean design from the 30's (1938 by Jorge
Ferrari-Hardoy), I thought the people living there must know something about
their history.
I came closer to the house and found nobody, after doing this I went around
to look through the back yard. The back yard was also beautiful, and there I
saw an old lady. She looked at me and I wave my hand at her saying hello. I
went to the front door, knocked the door and started a conversation telling
her how much I liked her house. I asked her if I could come in, she was hesitant
but she let me in, I took photos of the garden and the ultra-modern decoration
of the living room, she told me stories about the furniture. She got it 40 years
ago (1966-1967) when she and her husband moved to the Gropiusstadt. When they
bought them after seeing them in a store, she and her husband were told "this
is the furniture of the year 2000", I guess the people at the furniture
store were right saying this after all. Then she told me the story of her garden
sculptures. One of them was missing; somebody stole it, leaving the base where
it used to be. She told me it was very strange because nobody had sculptures
at the Gropiusstadt. At the time she tried to find the sculpture by asking and
offering rescue, but the sculpture never appeared.
The project I want to develop for the future is to create a sculpture to replace the missing one, and give it to this woman as a gift and replacement for the lost one.