The Berlage x Bnieuws
THE BERLAGE QUESTIONNAIRE: FRANCESCA TORZO Words Maria Christopoulou and Georgia Katsi
Based on the late-nineteenth-century parlour game, made fabulous by answers from Marcel Proust, The Berlage Questionnaire is a series of questions posed to guests after their public online lecture about their lives, thoughts, values, and experiences to reveal their wit, character, and personality.
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Your favourite character in history. Oh madre mia! I am fascinated by so many historical characters. I am so fond of history that I could go on forever. I’m proud of Martin Luther King and what he stood for. Your favourite virtue. Honesty—which is the ground for freedom. The building you’d like to wake up in. The courtyard of Castel del Monte in Puglia. I think I need spring, so maybe it’s also seasonal, because I don’t have one favourite place, I have many, I really am for plurality. Your most influential teacher. Isabella Linceto, who was my high school Italian teacher and she loved Dante. Your favourite architectural text. I keep on reading over and over again Vitruvius’s De architectura and Alberti’s De re aedificatoria. They are brilliant and full of humour; and I accompany them with Vasari’s Le Vite. Your idea of earthly happiness. I need an open view with a space for a little bit of soil where plants can grow out of control and be alive, extremely beautiful, and elegant. Your favourite colour. My team jokes with me that when it comes to my favourite colour, as all colours that exist around me are messy as life. I have troubles with many colours related to oil painting as they lack mist and are invasive to the eye. It’s great when you can dim your eyes to something, like in Piero della Francesca’s work.
The last book you read. There’s three of them: Francesco Biamonti, he’s from Liguria and seems a little bit tremendous in novels, but his writing is rapid, cinemagraphic like Nabokov. And then I’ve been rereading Metamorphosis by Ovid and Ides of March by Thorton Wilder. Your ideal collaborator. Limpid terse people that are brave and have grace. The natural gift you would like to possess. Being able to sing. Your favourite city to live in. I need the sea, I need openness. I accidentally ended up in Genova, but I’m grateful to live in Italy. You are surrounded by beauty and there is good food, plants grow, and that is gorgeous. Maybe trivial, but quality of life matters for me. The person you would like to invite to the dinner table. Fernando Távora. Your favourite indulgence. Dancing. Your favourite musician. Impossible to answer. The building material you like the least. Glue— especially when used to apply bricks to insulation. That’s indecent!
The questionnaire was adopted by Berlage students Maria Christopoulou and Georgia Katsi after Francesca Torzo’s remote lecture on March 4, 2021, as part of the Berlage Keynotes.
