Books
Harvey Molotch, Davide Ponzini, Michele Nastasi (photography)
Seeing trough Gulf Cities. Urbanization in and from the Arabian Peninsula
Trento and Barcelona: ListLab 2022
With an afterword by Nasser Rabbat
Graphic Design by Roberto Libanori
English edition
16 x 23 cm
172pp, paperback
ISBN 978-8-8320-8072-8
https://www.listlab.eu
Michele Nastasi
Arabian Transfer
Berlin: Hatje Cantz 2021
Essays by Shamoon Zamir, Harvey Molotch, Davide Ponzini, Michele Nastasi
Graphic Design by Alessandro C. Busseni, Propp.it
English edition
32 x 22,5 cm
96pp, hardcover
ISBN 978-3-7757-4873-5
https://www.hatjecantz.de
Luigi Ghirri. Il paesaggio dell’architettura.
Catalog of the exhibition “Luigi Ghirri. Il paesaggio dell’architettura”
Triennale di Milano, May 25th–September 9th, 2018
Edited by Michele Nastasi
Milano: Electa 2018
Essays by David Campany, Elio Grazioli, Angelo Maggi, Michele Nastasi, Pierluigi Nicolin
Contributions by Nina Bassoli, Maite García Sanchis, Gaia Piccarolo
Italian and English edition
28 x 37,5 cm
184pp, paperback
ISBN 9788891819888
https://www.electa.it
Davide Ponzini, Michele Nastasi
Starchitecture. Scenes, Actors, and Spectacles in Contemporary Cities
Updated and expanded edition
New York: The Monacelli Press 2016
Text by Davide Ponzini
Photographs by Michele Nastasi
English edition
17,8 x 25,4 cm
216pp, hardcover
ISBN 9781580934688
https://www.monacellipress.com
Italian edition (Milano: Hoepli 2019)
ISBN 9788820388348
https://www.hoepli.it
Michele Nastasi
Suspended City: L’Aquila after the Earthquake
Edited by Maddalena d’Alfonso
New York: Actar D 2015
Essays by Giorgio Agamben, Maddalena d’Alfonso, Michele Nastasi
English edition, Italian edition
29,1 x 19 cm
128pp, paperback
ISBN English 978-1-940291-67-3
ISBN Italian 978-1-940291-68-0
https://actar.com
Davide Ponzini, Michele Nastasi
Starchitecture. Scenes, Actors, and Spectacles in Contemporary Cities
Torino: Allemandi 2011
Text by Davide Ponzini
Photographs by Michele Nastasi
English edition, Italian edition
16,5 x 24 cm
146pp, paperback
ISBN English 978-88-422-1989-7
ISBN Italian 978-88-422-1979-8
Made in Botticino. Architectural Masterpieces in Marble
Photographs by Michele Nastasi
Milano: Leftloft 2013
Essays by Francesco Repishti and Michele Nastasi
Book commissioned by MARBO
Italian and English edition
23 x 28 cm
128pp, hardcover
ISBN 978-88-901152-0-2
Un anno ai piedi dei giganti
Garibaldi Repubblica Porta Nuova. Fotografie 2012-2014
Edited by Michele Nastasi
Milano: MNP with Editoriale Lotus 2016
Essays by Jacques Leenhardt and Michele Nastasi
Conversations with Manfredi Catella, Giovanni Chiaramonte,
Maddalena d’Alfonso, Ada Lucia De Cesaris, Pierluigi Nicolin,
Davide Ponzini, Paolo Rosselli, Ilaria Valente
Photographs by Sofia Ariatta, Andrea Valenti, Daniela Scalia, Maria Valentina Facchetti, Martina Calegari, Martina Canedoli, Marco Gualandris, Filippo Airoldi, Laura Tavola, Daniele Mazzoleni, Elisa Riviera, Claudia Barbazza, Lidia Korotaeva, Manuela Scotti, Ilaria Pisoni, Stefania Dettori, Pietro Frapoli, Federico Birolo, Alberto Mariotti, Staša Radmilovic, Ilaria Paoloni, Aigerim Saduakassova, Shahrnaz Lotfi, Achinoam Weinstein, Marta Tentori, Patrizio Cagnoni, Chiara Signoroni, Francesca Dori, Chiara Saska, Stefan Torreck, Andrea Li Vecchi, Clara Taverna, Sabrina Pozzi, Lisa Loi, Antonio Buonsante, Martino Zanini, Francesca Carino, Francesco Mistri, Nenad Duric, Andrea Michelini, Elena Matossi, Antonio Naitana, Beatrice Del Pelo
Italian edition
24 x 28,5 cm
96pp, paperback
ISBN 9791220007009
Writings
2022
Essay
“Gulf Cities as Lens”
in Seeing through Gulf Cities. Urbanization in and from the Arabian Peninsula
Trento and Barcelona: Listlab
https://www.listlab.eu/en/catalogo/libri-collane-tematiche-main-series/serie-babel-urbanization/seeing-through-gulf-cities/
“What I see through my lens is a wide filed where the urban takes place. Instead of only seeing from high above (a regular point of view which photographers inherited from Romanticism), I shoot from ground level where I can intermix with inhabitants on foot. I am well accustomed to walking and to the human scale, which leads to proximity and realism. I think this better embraces the complexity of all urban places.”
2022
Essay
Introduction to the book Luigi Ghirri “Vedere”
Milan: Editoriale Lotus
http://www.editorialelotus.it/web/item.php?id=90038
“L’obiettivo nella visione sembra rispondere a una domanda decisiva: qual’è il fine del vedere? Come possono i fotografi, gli architetti, vedere il mondo, l’esterno?”
2021
Essay
“Arabian Transfer”
in Arabian Transfer
Berlin: Hatje Cantz
https://www.hatjecantz.de/michele-nastasi-7943-1.html
“And yet I have repeatedly sought out and seized new opportunities to return to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha—I would like to leave again right now, and I have continued to set the alarm clock. Because for me photographing these landscapes is not just a way of witnessing the moment in which history has passed in a certain part of the world, but because in the permanent transience of these new epicenters I perceived something of myself and of my “dislocated” way of life, a condition which identifies the being of my generation more than of any other that preceded it. This state of global “transfer,” of impermanence and exaggeration, is fully realized in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula: to my eyes they are true places of our time.”
2021
Essay
“Fotografie di un mondo che vorremmo. Per De8”
In Unspecialized Architecture. De8 Architetti
Catalog of the exhibition, ASAV, Seriate (BG) 2021
Bergamo: ASAV
“Il risultato di questo incontro è una rappresentazione che aspira ad essere disinvolta, a comunicare un senso di presenza e a sviluppare un potenziale narrativo: qualità non banali per delle fotografie di architettura, che mi pare corrispondano bene all’atteggiamento dei progettisti, e che abbraccino la ricchezza dei paesaggi contemporanei. Perché il senso del lavoro di un fotografo non è tanto quello di realizzare delle belle fotografie di certi progetti, ma di portare avanti nelle proprie immagini l’idea di un’architettura, di una civiltà, di un mondo che vorremmo”.
2020
Book chapter
“Architecture of the Image: Photography Acting in Urban Landscapes”
in About Star Architecture. Reflecting on Cities in Europe. Edited by Nadia Alaily-Mattar, Davide Ponzini, Alain Thierstein
Basel: Springer Nature Switzerland AG
https://link.springer.com
https://www.google.it/books/edition/About_Star_Architecture/MSfXDwAAQBAJ?hl=it&gbpv=0
“Spectacular urban development is closely linked to the photographic images of the designs that circulate globally. A wide array of pictures get used in all the different phases of the projects and widespread at all levels of public. This chapter brings representation and the media to the core of the debate on contemporary cities. It shows that photographic images have an active role in determining iconic and spectacular transformations—an “agency” that takes place, thanks to the multiplicity of professional figures that erode and complement one of the architects. The chapter addresses the theme of the spectacular through examples and analysis of photographic images of three different kinds: photorealistic renderings, professional architectural photographs and “spontaneous” photographs taken by amateurs and uploaded on social media, showing how different types of images are intertwined and functional to the construction of a real and virtual imagery of architectural icons and star architects.”
2019
Essay
“Icone dal web/Icons from the Web”, in Lotus international 169
http://www.editorialelotus.it/web/item.php?id=90027
“It is iconicity, in fact, that is the true guiding thread of web publications, to the point where it could be said that all contemporary architecture is iconic since it expresses itself primarily through images.”
2019
Book chapter
“A Gulf of Images. Photography and the Circulation of Spectacular Architecture”
In The New Arab Urban. Gulf Cities of Wealth, Ambition, and Distress. Edited by Harvey Molotch and Davide Ponzini
New York: New York University Press
https://nyupress.org/9781479897254/the-new-arab-urban/
https://www.google.it/books/edition/The_New_Arab_Urban/kfSADwAAQBAJ?hl=it&gbpv=0
“High-design buildings now attract a great deal of attention, sometimes globally, often becoming icons of the cities in which they are located. One important and prevalent convention of architectural representation leads photographers—including sometimes myself—to deliberately exclude buildings’ surroundings, including the humans who might otherwise be present. The exclusion of context facilitates the spectacle of the building form in itself, now constituting a global scenario of what cities can and should become. Decontextualization of images instills a simplified idea of the city, incapable of encompassing the complexity of contemporary urban landscapes or the lives of their residents and visitors. This is particularly evident in photographs of the cities of the Gulf, which do not just represent buildings but serve as normative inspiration for what cities can be. Whether in celebratory or critical analysis, these images (and their aftermath) influence architectural and urban debates that shape, in turn, developments on the ground.”
2018
Essay
“Ricostruire e conservare. Il tempo lungo della fotografia”
In Ricostruzioni. Architettura, città e paesaggio nell’epoca delle distruzioni
Catalog of the exhibition, Triennale di Milano, 2018. Edited by Alberto Ferlenga e Nina Bassoli
Milano: Silvana Editoriale
https://www.silvanaeditoriale.it/libro/9788836641062
“In questo mare di rappresentazioni alcuni autori hanno la capacità di fissare con le proprie fotografie una figura di quanto c’è di peculiare e irripetibile in ogni catastrofe, un’immagine che ne indica, se già non mostra chiaramente, le conseguenze a lungo termine. Si tratta, credo, di un compito e di una responsabilità dei fotografi, legata al potenziale inventivo della fotografia e alla sua capacità di dare forma alla realtà dando luogo a nuove modalità di comprensione. In questo breve spazio mi limiterò a fare due esempi molto diversi, rileggendo la vicenda di due importanti fotografi che si sono confrontati nell’arco di decenni con il tema della città distrutta e ricostruita. Le immagini vivono un proprio tempo lungo che le lega a ciò che era, e a ciò che verrà dopo, introducendo un’idea di durata che può coincidere con i tempi lunghi della ricostruzione. Il loro significato continua a mutare nel corso del tempo in seguito all’accumulo di nuove immagini ed esperienze, e il passare degli anni fa vedere con maggior chiarezza che le fotografie non rispecchiano soltanto ciò che c’è, ma possono influenzare o essere utilizzate strumentalmente per orientare i processi di ricostruzione del luogo che rappresentano”.
2018
Book chapter
“A Photographic Urbanism? Images Iconizing Cities and Swaying Urban Transformation” (with Davide Ponzini)
In The Routledge Companion to Urban Imaginaries. Edited by Christoph Lindner and Miriam Meissner
Oxon and New York: Routledge
https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Urban-Imaginaries/Lindner-Meissner/p/book/9780367733049
https://www.google.it/books/edition/The_Routledge_Companion_to_Urban_Imagina/eM5wDwAAQBAJ?hl=it&gbpv=0
“Studying images, their circulation and impact on the imaginaries of different urban actors and their seductive visionary power can be a way to understand urban transformation in our contemporary globalized world. The challenge of observing and deconstructing the socio-cultural processes that make, circulate, and use photographic images seems to be a new approach for both the fields of visual studies and urban/architectural studies.”
2018
Essay
“Il paesaggio dell’architettura/The Landscape of Architecture”
In Luigi Ghirri. Il paesaggio dell’architettura. Catalog of the exhibition held at the Triennale di Milano
May 25th–September 9th 2018
Edited by Michele Nastasi. Milan: Electa
https://www.electa.it/prodotto/luigi-ghirri-il-paesaggio-dellarchitettura/
https://www.electa.it/en/product/luigi-ghirri-il-paesaggio-dellarchitettura/
“Ghirri ha portato all’architettura un modo più libero di concepire la realtà, basato non più su una riduzione e un’esclusione degli infiniti soggetti del mondo, ma sulla loro inclusione in un’immagine attuale, una lettura del paesaggio in cui l’architettura, nelle sue diverse forme e nei suoi diversi tempi, è ricollocata nel presente”.
“Ghirri brought to architecture a freer way of conceiving reality, based no longer on the reduction and exclusion of the infinite subjects of the world, but on their inclusion in a timely image, a reading of the landscape in which architecture, in its different forms and different times, is relocated in the present.”
2018
PhD dissertation
Città d’immagini. Fotografia e paesaggi in trasformazione: skyline, rendering, icone
(Image Cities. Skylines, Renderings, and Icons, Transforming Urban Landscapes)
PhD in History of the Arts. Università Ca’ Foscari of Venice, 2014-2018
http://dspace.unive.it/handle/10579/12912
“La relazione tra le immagini fotografiche, l’architettura iconica e la tendenza alla spettacolarizzazione del paesaggio urbano è qui indagata attraverso tre parole chiave – lo skyline, il rendering, le icone -, tre categorie interpretative che strutturano i capitoli principali della tesi e permettono di approfondire e comprendere criticamente le caratteristiche delle immagini stesse e il ruolo che esse ricoprono nella diffusione dell’architettura spettacolare nelle città contemporanee”.
2018
Article
“Amusement Eco Park”, in Lotus international 166
2018
Article
“Chicago Lake Shore”, in Lotus international 166
2018
Article
“Housing as Campus”, in Lotus international 165
2017
Essay
“Sublime e perturbante, alterazioni del paesaggio/Sublime and Uncanny, Modifications of the Landscape”, in Lotus international 164
2016
Essay
“The City of Renderings. Photorealism, Spectacle and Abstraction in Contemporary Urban Landscapes.”
Proceedings of the Inter – Photography and Architecture International Conference held in Pamplona, November 2nd-4th, 2016
Edited by Rubén A. Alcolea and Jorge Tárrago Mingo. Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra
2016
Essay
“People in Motion”
In City after the City, catalog of the exhibition. Edited by Nina Bassoli and Gaia Piccarolo
Milan: Electa.
2016
Article
“OBR”, in Lotus international 161
2016
Essay
“Ai piedi dei giganti. Temi inattuali di fotografia e architettura”
In Milano ai piedi dei giganti. Garibaldi Repubblica Porta Nuova Fotografie 2012-2014
Edited by Michele Nastasi. Milano: MNP with Editoriale Lotus
2016
Essay
“Skyline Rêverie”, in Lotus international 159
2015
Essay
“Destino e prognosi/Destiny and Prognosis”
In Città Sospesa: L’Aquila dopo il terremoto/Suspended City: L’Aquila after the Earthquake. Edited by Maddalena d’Alfonso
New York: Actar D
2015
Essay
“La danza delle cabine/The Dance of the Cabins”, in Lotus international 156
2015
Essay
“La realtà dell’architettura/The Reality of Architecture”, in Viceversa 2
2014
Essay
“La bellezza convulsa degli strappi/The Convulsive Beauty of Detached Frescoes” in Lotus international 154
2014
Essay
“Veronese vs Palladio” in Lotus international 154
2014
Article
“Common Cover. David Hockney, a Bigger Picture”, in Lotus international 153
2013
Essay
“Seguendo la vena del marmo/Following the Vein of the Marble”
In Made in Botticino. Architectural Masterpieces in Marble Photographs by Michele Nastasi
Milan: Leftloft
2013
Essay
“La sindrome della memoria/The Syndrome of Memory” (with Nina Bassoli e Valentina di Francesco)
In La sindrome dell’influenza/The Syndrome of Influence. Catalog of the 6th edition of the Milano Triennale Design Museum, Triennale di Milano, 2013
Mantua: Corraini Edizioni
2011
Essay
“Dentro il grande giocattolo/Inside the Large Toy”, in Lotus international 146
2011
Essay
“La pelle e l’interstizio/The Skin and the Interstice”, in Lotus international 146