I found this staircase decoration in an administrational building in Bolzano. If I compare this kind of spirited architecture and sophisticated and witty placement of art with our precast-concrete-slab ashlar, tears are not far.
Currently I am sitting in Frankfurt airport – having successfully circumvented a police block because of a bomb threat – waiting to board the plane to Tunis, where the almighty superiors have decided to send me for a meeting on inter-communal partnership possibilities with cities of the Maghreb region (not that they, the decisionmakers, would have had any difficulties to convince me). For me it’s the first time to set my feet on African soil, and I am really looking forward to everything that awaits me there, even if it would be only subliminal time slices before, between, and after meetings in probably uniform and/or universal conference rooms. But the organizers have announced a visit of the ancient site of former Carthago, and, having suffered in Latin lessons for five long years, this of course sounds promising. So I am enjoying my last sip of Cappucino for now, for the rest of the week I will probably replace this with Thé Menthe, and with it I will try to dig out the reminiscences of French knowledge, not much used for the last two decades.
I love the wit and style this type artistic architecture reflects.
Enjoy your trip to Tunis and I look forward to reading and viewing post and photos of it.
Humor in Art is to be highly appreciated, as it is really rare! I could imagine it lifts up spirit when you arrive at your workplace passing such an invitation to “think different”
Yes, witty indeed. The black clothes of the climbers fit the art piece, making the composition whole.
Juha, I was lucky again – the second frame allowed to include these ladies in black coats. And as I was under time pressure, I couldn’t afford to check out other combinations, both re. subject or ISO/exposure time.
Frankfurt? No plane from Munich to Tunis? You should have said Hello! to me, really! 😉 Mainz is not that far away …
Hope you have a really interesting time in Maghreb! Look for the colours!
Interesting is your different approach to Bolzano – I have been there in September and found it very dull and ugly. I took 21 photos the whole day, mostly of tags and stencils and different variations of the cathedral’s walls and stones – that didn’t work at all …
Martina, no Maghreb colors unfortunately: when we are allowed outside it’s cold/dreary/dark/wet or all of this together. Talk about winter in Tunis.
But the feeling here is encouraging, talking with people from the councils, in the midst of the process of forging their new constitution. I wish I could see more.
You certainly chose an interesting location for your next business trip! Maybe not from a photographic perspective (this time of the year), but certainly from a societal point of view. Enjoy!
And indeed, somebody seems to have been really creative in that staircase. And that in an administrative building. Amazing, I always thought that administration and creativity are mutually exclusive… 😉