A GIANT HARP

PIETRO D’AMBROSIO

// Pietro lives in a small town in Calabria in Southern Italy, working as a professional photographer, but also privately passionate about the medium. He shared a series of his abstract take on a famous bridge by the architect Santiago Calatrava.

“I love to photograph everything that catches my attention. I love nature and I spend a lot of time contemplating its beauty, but I am fascinated and strongly attracted by the daily images that the road gives,” he says. “Photography has always struck me, I was fascinated by how an image seen today could remain and give the same emotions even after some time … even if I am a professional photographer I am self-taught … I have read and seen many many images of great photographers! I started with landscape photography (which I love like the first day), but I don’t define myself as a landscape photographer, I love photography in every aspect and in all its forms.”

“Your body is the harp of the soul and it is up to you to make sweet music or confusing sounds from it.”

Khalil Gibran

What draws you to the arts?

“I love art in all its forms and in particular I love music in all its genres because there is one for every mood, and I love painting from the most classical to the most abstract.”

What do you like best about your abstract architecture series?

“I was struck by the bridge´s majesty, but I wanted to talk about its greatness by discovering small parts of it. I am obsessed with the geometry of the composition and the precision of the shapes.”

This is a small collection of 13 images of Pietro´s minimalist vision of this impressive bridge in Pietro´s home town. The shape recalls that of a giant harp, symbol of harmony.

The San Francesco di Paola Bridge or Cosenza Bridge is was designed by the world-famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The bridge spans the River Crati to connect two neighbourhoods in Cosenza, Contrada Gergeri and Via Reggio Calabria. Calatrava’s design is a cable bridge, reportedly the tallest in Europe, with a single pylon inclined at a 52° angle. The bridge was built as part of a multi-year ambitious urban regeneration project. Calatrava also designed New York’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub (the Oculus), Rio de Janeiro’s Museum of Tomorrow, and Valencia’s L’Hemisfèric, to name but a few. In Italy, he also designed three other structures: a high-speed railway station in Reggio Emilia, the ensemble of three road bridges in Reggio Emilia, and the Ponte della Costituzione in Venice.

We love this close-up look on the bridge´s shapes and details, the use of symmetry and lines, which creates a more abstract vision than most pictures we have seen of this bridge.

Click on the photos to see a larger image. Some images may be cropped for layout.