Ulisse_mar

SPECIALE LONDRA EXPLORE
Herzog & de Meuron, Tate Modern, Courtesy Lobster
Pictures Ltd 2010 © Tate
La Tate Modern dal Tamigi
visitlondonimages/ britainonview/ Pawel Libera
Herzog & de Meuron, Tate Modern,
©Hayes Davidson and Herzog & de Meuron
Foster + Partners, Canary Wharf Crossrail Station,
©Canary Wharf Group
I VOLI PER LONDRA • Per raggiungere Londra (hub
Heathrow) Alitalia offre 3 voli giornalieri da Roma Fiumicino e
12 frequenze settimanali da Milano Linate. Inoltre Alitalia collega lo scalo di
London City con un volo giornaliero (esclusa la domenica) da Roma Fiumicino
e 22 frequenze settimanali da Milano Linate. Visita alitalia.com per informazioni
sui voli e l’acquisto dei biglietti.
FLIGHTS TO LONDON • To reach London (Heathrow hub), Alitalia offers
3 daily flights from Rome Fiumicino and 12 weekly frequencies from Milan
Linate. Alitalia also connects London City with one daily flight (not including
Sunday) from Rome Fiumicino and 22 weekly frequencies from Milan Linate.
Visit alitalia.com for flight information and ticket purchase.
ON THE SLEEPLESS RIVER
London’s urban development viewed from the Thames.
The changing reflections of London continue to shimmer ineffably
on the Thames, described in 1899 by the writer-sailor
Joseph Conrad as the “sleepless river”. And in fact, in the
movement of history, the vertical and horizontal expansion of
the city seen from the water leaves no time for the mind to
memorise its outlines. New architecture crowds alongside the
old symbols, and the passing of the ages, in ever-shortening
cycles, at times overwrites them. At the Tate Modern, feverish
expansion completed in 2000 by the Swiss architects Herzog
& de Meuron gave Londoners and tourists back the old power
station designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in the previous century,
in the form of art museum. Symbols change with the changing
eras. On the Greenwich peninsula, south of the broad stretch of
the Thames, the Low Carbon Energy Centre designed by the
Scandinavian CF Møller Architects proceeds towards scheduled
completion in 2016. It will provide heating from sustainable
strategy to over 10,000 homes. The building, which will be
partially open to visitors for educational purposes, will feature
a 49-metre-high tower-sculpture, called Lenticular Dazzle
Camouflage, by the artist Conrad Shawcross, with panels for
a moiré effect. Beginning in 2018, a train beneath the water
will pass from Canary Wharf to the new network that will join
the east and west of the city: the last piece of the roof truss has
just been laid for the four-floor structure designed by Foster +
Partners, which will open in May with roof garden, bars, restaurants
and shopping arcade. Drifting along the Thames, in
the rush of space-time perspective, you encounter the dreams
of a Swiss writer of our day. Alain de Bottom, an architecture
buff and founder of Living Architecture (a rental agency for
special holiday homes), with the help of architect David Kohn
and artist Fiona Banner, decided to install a small boat on the
roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, with panoramic views of
the glorious spires of London and the admirable architecture
of the Third Millennium. The boat-hotel room (A room for
London) is called Roi des Belges, after the ship Conrad used
to sail up the Congo River, in the journey that inspired the novel
“Heart of Darkness”, whose story begins on a “sleepless
river”. A vision that seems extremely prophetic.
ULISSE MARZO 2015 19