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Beauty can save us

by ANDREA DI CINZIO

“And then we paint all the walls with the buckets of paint

Houses, alleys and buildings "

Thus recites the song "Margherita" by Riccardo Cocciante, where color lends itself as a means of perception of architecture. Color can become a design tool capable of creating new architectures and urban scenarios, but not only: it can also be an element of general redevelopment.

During the twentieth century Albania lived under the communist regime. With the fall of the regime, it became one of the poorest, most corrupt and most criminal countries in Europe.

Edi Rama , former Albanian artist and prime minister, thanks to a work of redevelopment of the poorest neighborhoods, has redeveloped and freed numerous areas from crime through the use of color, used as the main tool for architectural and social redevelopment.

This theme is also addressed in more developed cities such as Paris, with the "Pigalle Duperré court" project created by ill-Studio with the designer Stéphane Ashpool, or in the suburbs of Brooklyn, with the street art project by Yuko Shimizu together with Sagmeister. & Walsh.

De Gustibus non Disputandum est.

This Latin phrase is certainly difficult to attack in its intentions and in its form. If beauty is linked to perception , then each person based on their sensitivity will find something more or less "beautiful".

Yet the way in which beauty affects architecture and society appears to be entirely objective.

Dilapidated and out of use spaces such as railway underpasses, degraded neighborhoods and peripheral places, used as urban landfills and where crime is greater, thanks to the use of small precautions and minimal works such as the use of color, can become places where communities come together and where positive initiatives can arise.

It is therefore possible to transform places in decay through art and beauty, thus making those who live them better people.

The beauty will save the world.

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