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Opere Varie

Creative duo
Brussels

«For us, the essence of architecture is […] giving people the emotion of feeling their existence.»

Please introduce yourself and your office?

OPERE VARIE is the creative corpus of the Italian duo Matteo Cor and Ale Cor. We met that day in 2011 in Venice, from that day we are living and making various things together.

The multiplicity of themes that the duo faces, and the multiplicity of media through which the duo clarifies them, give the name to the multiplicity of expressions, various and together coherent. OPERE VARIE brings to the emotion through the experience in front of something contemporary and timeless. OPERE VARIE considers the eternal nature of the materials and the most advanced methodologies, to respond to specific wishes through a contemporary and timeless aesthetic. OPERE VARIE oﬀers people to feel part of the story, through the creation of a contemporary and timeless context. OPERE VARIE is like a deja vu and at the same time a turning point in the way of dealing with the reality of the 21st century in a contemporary and timeless manner. OPERE VARIE is that variety between art and architecture.

What does your working space look like?

We live together 24/24 and 7/7 most of the time; when we are not together, we speak at the phone and text. That means our dialogue is constant and our thinking-space is variable: from the bed that Matteo built for us, to the leather seats of our ’80 cabrio; from the saddle of our ‘90 Vespa, to the table of our favorite caﬀè; from a high-speed train that goes from Brussels to Milan, to a vaporetto that slowly crosses the Venice lagoon.

Then, usually when the deadline is so close that it’s impossible for us to keep on discussing, we use to stop and produce, without speaking anymore. Like playing piano at 4 hands: after practicing a lot, one day we just do it and it happens. The first producing-space was our small atelier in Venice, with no view to the Canal Grande but an incredible light.

In the last years the producing-space is the small house in 3 floors we have in Bruxelles, with one room each level and two cats running up and down the steep stairs.

Sometimes it happens we have to stop discussing and start producing without speaking in random places, but we always try to choose them really beautiful.

What is the essence of architecture for you personally?

Being contemporary and timeless, sophisticated and simple, perfect and imperfect; giving people the emotion of feeling their existence.

Your master of architecture?

Italy.

How do you choose to present architecture?

A person, a story, a drawing, a map, an object, a building, a photograph.

Thoughts, observations and creations are equally part of a unique way in doing architecture, always and already able to improve the perception of the existing.

What has to change in the Architecture Industry?

“No person who is not a great sculptor or painter, can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.”
John Ruskin

“Unfortunately, there are designers and marketing people who intentionally look down on the consumer with the notion that vulgarity has a definite appeal to the masses, and therefore they supply the market with a continuous flow of crude and vulgar design. I consider this action criminal since it is producing visual pollution that is degrading our environment just like all other types of pollution.”
Massimo Vignelli

“Any work of architecture which does not express serenity is a mistake.”
Luis Barragán

Project

VARIE Venezia
CONVIVIO
2018

It’s almost evening, the table is ready.
They are many tables, to form a single, very long table.
The lights are on. They are many lights, to form a single, very long, thread of light. Our guests have not arrived yet.
The wine is ready in the pitchers.

Here they come one by one.

Seen one by one, our guests are all similar. They are the people who live in this world. We invite them to sit together at the table.

Seen one next to the other, our guests are now so different. Do we want to see them the same or different? We want to be together, and be different.

Project

VARIE Venezia
CONVIVIO
2018

It’s almost evening, the table is ready. They are many tables, to form a single, very long table. The lights are on. They are many lights, to form a single, very long, thread of light. Our guests have not arrived yet. The wine is ready in the pitchers.

Here they come one by one.

Seen one by one, our guests are all similar. They are the people who live in this world. We invite them to sit together at the table.

Seen one next to the other, our guests are now so different. Do we want to see them the same or different? We want to be together, and be different.