Ciao from Italy!
This post is coming a day late! The last three days have been tumultuous ones.
News of the tragedy in Nice, where our concurrent EIA session is being held, came as a shock to us here at Turin and with a heavy heart I request whoever reads this to stop what they are doing and give all the victims, their families, all those affected, and the seaside town of Nice a moment of silence.
The weather in Turin right now has an uncanny effect of making you feel cold when you walk under a tree, and warm when you’re under the sun. By evening, temperatures drop to create a comfortable and breezy atmosphere. It was Sunday evening, a bunch of us, EIA people went to visit “Parco della Pederina”, a beautiful park with a medieval castle.
After walking through the park, we aimed to reach the top of a cobblestone pathway that led to a quaint church from where we intended to watch the sunset. Tired and surrounded by plazas of food and drink, we succumbed to our hunger pangs and went for dinner. The Italians eat almost even later than I do in India and at 10 pm when the last rays of sun were drifting below the horizon, the plaza came to life.
As Monday came by, uncharacteristically, us university students were eager to start the day. We learnt about revenue models and validating ideas. The lecture was interactive and fun, but I held out so I could give my full blast of enthusiasm to the second lecture of the day.
Flavio Manzoni, the design director of Ferrari gave us a talk. Yes, Ferrari. Until then, I never knew cars could have a metalanguage or a way of communicating. But somewhere deep in my heart I knew it was true, as I remembered my childhood where I would create identities for cars with a gender and name and personality and all based on their shapes and “faces”. I was thrilled when Flavio Manzoni spoke about similar things that involved design elements in the car’s body that were deliberately sending a message to the viewer.
I could go on about this for a few pages, but maybe I will treat you with a picture instead.
That pretty much comes to the end of my post, hope it was informative and fun! I will leave you with a picture of the most Parisian lunch I have ever had with a new friend of mine from Brussels.
Lots of pizza, wine, and love,
AdYA sAdaNanD
