Shapeguard
Paolo Pettigiani

In August 1992, hurricane Andrew, one of the most destructive hurricane in United States history, hit south of Florida causing major damage, in particular along the shore. After that, the architect William Lane gave to Miami 29 of the 31 lifeguard rescue towers, ones of a kind, built on the beach from South Point to 87th street. The last two were built in occasion of Miami Beach century in 2015.
These towers are characterized by unique shades that interchange pastel paint with intense dye and by an eccentric architecture that differentiate one from the others. For this reason, these rescue towers had become icons of the city and the territory.
These amazing subjects inspired me and I shoot the new series “SHAPEGUARD”, emulating the style of previous project. Also in this case, the photos of the colourful seaside building seen by a detached perspective, become minimal architectures. I choose the name “shape-guard” to create assonance with “life-guard beach towers”.
When I shoot for my projects, I image a white sheet where I draw shades and colours using my camera. Shades are the way to explore the space, releasing from their real image, to make it more emotional and aiming to decontextualize buildings from the space around. In this way the photos represent a “no place” escaped from the usual context. The towers in my project, as well as in real, are named following the numbers of the streets where they are locate in Miami Beach.

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