Matti Blind

When Mies van der Rohe came up with a building design for the Bacardi Rum Company headquarter in Santiago di Cuba, he probably didn't anticipate that the proposal would eventually be realized in Berlin, as the iconic 'Neue Nationalgalerie' on Potsdamer Platz.

After the Cuban revolution Bacardi stopped plans to build its freshly designed Mies van der Rohe company base in Santiago de Cuba.

The picture shows a dilapidated model caught in the future of a history that almost became reality.
Its specific aesthetic, and the title of the work reflect on the possibility to condense time in the codified formation of an artwork, suggesting a present which includes its future as it questions the universal concepts of the past: A classic, high-modernist shape adapting to the looks of time – inviting corrosive transformation.

 

Matti Blind lives and works in Berlin
mattibi(at)gmx.net