PLANNING + DEVELOPMENT
ARCHITECTURE
The artist and architect Gaetano Pesce has been designing furniture and spaces worldwide for the last 30 years.[ www.gaetanopesce.com ] These projects are in collaboration and largely by invitation only from mayors and competition committees the world over. Collaborated projects include the Lovere Library, La Spezia Marina, the Porto Molino Padua gate tower for Galileo in Italy, and a Saint Petersburg Discotecque, and the International Contemporary Funiture Fair’s Italian furniture pier 90 for Il Salone.
La Spezia Marina create’s a new recreational beach and marina along the existing 2 kilometer harbor dike. The beach is formed on the seaside and marina on the lee side of the dike while a new marina hotel anchors the head of the islands west side and public park anchors the tail. Porto Molino Padua gate tower was Galileo Galilee’s office while teaching in the university of Padua and during the time he discovered Jupiter’s moons. Upon entering the building your attention goes first to the Foucault Pendulum. The pendulum demonstrates that the earth rotates: a 240-lb brass ball, which hangs by a wire 40 feet long, swings in a constant direction while the earth turns beneath it - the pendulum is supported by a bearing that does not turn the pendulum as the building rotates with the earth. Also in the display is The Gravity Well in the center of the towers arm. Its parabolic shape reproduces the gravitational effect the sun has on the planets (or a planet on its moons). The well has a steeper curvature ("stronger gravity") near the center, and this causes objects to speed up as they approach the center and they move faster near the center because the gravity is stronger there. Among the other permanent exhibits is the ‘Camera Obscura’, latin for "dark chamber." A large convex lens focuses light from outside the building onto the walls. This imitates a device invented by Galileo’s best student so that Galileo could view the sun without retinal damage. Another item is a clear ballistic vacuum chamber which fires a rubber cannonball from one side of the tower to another forming a perfect ballistic path.
The Saint Petersburg Discotheque is a penthouse space in one of the city’s newest post USSR buildings. Set as a luxury space the dancefloor is multicolored resin with surrounding discreet sitting spaces formed of foam banquettes. The D.J. booth is over the bar and in true style represents the face of a D.J. made in flowing colors with holes cut for the eye’s of the DJ’s view.