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Engineer
Resident in Liguria, but with a piece of heart in Salento
Husband, father, friend and much more …
1. Tell us about your job. What do you do in detail? What studies did you do and how much “apprenticeship” did you have to do?
“I am an atypical engineer,” as 90% of the engineers that I know says. If there was a separated book within the order, it would be crowded! In fact, and I only say it to distinguish myself, I am a typical engineer… in my job I deal with normal things, like sizing structures, but even more particular things that look a bit like what you see on TV on typical programs “Megastructures”. Specifically, on behalf of a large shipbuilding group, I deal with move objects that weigh up to hundreds of tons, even if, in fact, I struggle to move my 100kg from the office chair to the swimming pool / gym … the most particular thing about this part of mine job is to see structures similar in size to a 3-4 floors building flying through the air to be positioned at a height of 15 m. It impresses me every time, despite doing it for 12 years. I have had many particular work experiences, after graduating in civil engineering, the proposal of a pair of doctorates (rejected both, the first because I didn’t want to accelerate mine student path and the second because, two months after graduation, I had already received a proposal for interesting work that took me over the next two years).
I did a lot apprenticeship, really a lot. I’m still doing it and will do more, because the mistake more common, but I think it also applies in other fields of work, is to think that we have “arrived”. Today I can afford to talk at all levels without the reverential fear of the past, gray hair and beard help me, although I always keep a low profile towards anyone since I think anyone has something to tell and teach.
2. If you hadn’t become an engineer, what job would you have wanted to do?
The classical dancer. It is not true, when I was a child I wanted to be a doctor, without any specialization, perhaps even just because my dad, who worked inside the hospital, occasionally went to work and then called us to say that he was hospitalized because of one of his small and large health problems. It was a routine and I looked and esteemed at these doctors who treated my dad and therefore secretly hoped I could become like them. Then, growing up, at the mercy of the many small decisions that lead you to the big ones choices, in a range of options that are an integral part of life, I undertook technical studies attending the professional school for surveyors in my city, with the idea of becoming an architect. Finally my passion for technical and artistic drawing gave way to the fire of the challenge that brought me to become an engineer following a path similar to what I dreamed of for me, but more complex.
3. What are the most beautiful and ugliest aspects of your job?
First the ugliest, related mainly to routine, boredom and bureaucracy. But I love my job too much to criticize it harshly. The most beautiful aspects, however, must be sought and are found in what is the essence, for me, being an engineer; the ability to simplify complex systems, deal with them, understand them and solve them, without losing in safety. It seems a little thing, but for the engineer everything acquires a shape, almost skeletal; we do not think in global terms overall, but reducing the problem to a minimum terms. The consequence of a good design is also the pleasant aesthetics that satisfy the eye and which is imposing in many works by illustrious colleagues also from the past. Then after all this great reasoning, I end with stumbling in the shoelaces.
4. Which is the building that most fascinates you from the architectural point of view?
There are many, but one in particular, La Caixa forum of Herzog & De Meuron in Madrid that I saw on a trip. It is a project that I would have liked to develop. A renovation of an old factory in classic red bricks, to which they added something rarely seen bold, the whole ground floor was eliminated by creating a building that apparently floats in the air. In truth, like a type of Frankensteinnstein, the floor has been replaced by a thin steel supporting structure capable of supporting in just two places like two tree trunks that support the weight of the building. The charm is in the audacity and in the courage of the project. This building brings together every detail of my work, heavylift engineering and structures with a strong wink to the renewal of what needs to be preserved. I love all the jobs of Zaha Hadid who left us too early, a woman who managed to compete and excel in a sexist and predominantly male-dominated world like that architecture. Instead I hate and I can not understand the continuous research in overcoming the physical limits with towers of extreme height, I find that this continuous evolution can bring inevitably to a catastrophe in a transposition of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Sooner or later these systems will collapse on themselves… and we will probably mourn their victims.
5. What was your greatest job satisfaction? And the hardest moment?
I have had many satisfactions, but I remember the first ever. I was 32 years old and I was completely unconscious. I had the lucky to work on one of the largest structures in Genoa, the “Albergo dei Poveri” and I had the support and trust of a great popularizing architect, a mentor for many, Enrico Davide Bona, student of Mangiarotti and friend of Le Corbusier. In this huge building I sized structures of all kinds but the most daring was certainly 236, the library. A structure completely hung on the walls of the building inside a gigantic room. An attic 30mx6m in the shaped of a biscuit. Nobody believed that such a structure could be made and consequently no one had the courage to participate in the load tests on the anchorages at main walls of the building, fundamental moment for the success of the project. The firm, the construction management and university representatives (clients) have disappeared. I remember when I stayed there watching, with Enrico step behind me, while the jacks pulled the anchors. Obviously everything good, otherwise I would not be here to tell … and it was a success. I remember the look satisfied of the architect Bona, I felt proud of that man’s esteem and of the trust he was giving me at that precise moment. The worst period however lasted 3 years from 2012 to 2015 period in which for reasons related to the world crisis I lost everything I had built in the previous years. Life slapped me in the face, but it also gave me in the same moment a cure: Sebastiano Anita and Piera that together with Vera, my wife, were the reason to move on.
6. If you close your eyes and think about your childhood, what noises and perfumes come to mind?
This is a question with a trap. The answer is obvious to me. If I close my eyes I can only go back to my childhood, to the light-heartedness of my summers in Salento, when I had nothing, but I had all. The endless journeys by car, my father who loaded the car beyond belief, with objects that disappeared here to reappear 1000km away, finding a new life (almost infinite because they are still there), as in the comic tales of Franco Nero, where the measure of the limit of load was not in the size of the baggage but in the free distance between the wheel and the wheel arch. When I go back to Salento I breathe twice, the first to smell the red earth, the second to smell the sea. And I seem to be back again in those years. For me, Salento, in addition to containing all my roots, is also a form of comparison, an introspective place where in reiterating the meeting I analyze who I am, what I have done, what I have become and the objectives of the future. Each of us has a similar place. Everyone was there, grandparents, uncles, cousins … from there I took everything and I still have scars on my skin, many, of which I could tell everything, like in the pages of a book.
7. When was the last time you felt lucky?
Today, I have always been lucky and I’ve also always been unlucky. Luck and bad luck for me are completion one on the other, a balance of situations. I spent a lifetime not rejoicing too much, some people would say I have always had Saturn against. I believe that every success achieved has presented a salty account or much more simply an excessive difficulty in reaching. For this same reason every goal reached was a happy goal. The most beautiful thing that happened to me dates back to 2012, terrible year, but, as anticipated, year in which the two different twins of the house Piera e Sebastiano seven and a half years of difference, Piera entrusted to us and Sebastiano from Vera’s belly … together they transformed my and my wife’s life. It was that ray of sunshine that pierces the clouds after rainy days. Then in 2015 Anita arrived, unexpected, a beautiful surprise that forced us to reschedule our lives again. I only limit myself to saying that they are three special people, which I am happy to see grow.
8. What would you like your children to have taken from you?
Surely curiosity about the world. I continue to amaze myself with everything around me. In a way, I’m hungry for curiosity. I always remember what my elementary school teacher said to me: “Remember to always be curious and not be afraid to ask! ” Curiosity forces the mind into a state of continuous search for information that improves you day by day.
9. What are you most afraid of in life?
I’m afraid of losing everything I have, not material goods those come and go, but my family. Or rather, the serenity of my family.
10. The 3 favorite songs?
Linger – the Cranberries reminds me of the first kiss on the roof of a friend looking at the stars of San Lorenzo in Salento
Valvonauta -Verdena This is the very personal singing expression of the duo Vera – Fabio sung out loud in machine;
don pizzica – officina zoé soundtrack of “live blood” as well as my musical alter ego. This song collects all of myself
They are the most evocative songs for me …then the playlist is actually much longer, but you only asked me for three …
11. Life is made of memories, of sensations. An exciting moment that you would like to share and that changed your life and will you remember forever?
I would like not to answer because it always hurts a little. The hospital call at 6 in the morning on March 28, 2002 when after a week of coma the doctors told me that my father was gone. Everything changed there. It was the first time I have realized that there is no going back. We should have the instruction booklet of life for not making mistakes instead we make the most trivial ones such as for example not communicating; I remember that the first thought was that I hadn’t talked enough to my father and he had gone in a moment of incompleteness. He missed my whole degree, marriage, children …
12. If you could be the character of a movie, who would you like to be?
William Tacker (Hugh Grant) in Notting Hill. It is one of my favorite films and the protagonist is characterized very well by the actor, ironic, genuine and sincere.
13. What do you think of the current Italian political situation?
I think politics is trying to come back to be part of this country, but I think it is impossible because of an unclear language like the Italian which in its various meanings is often incomprehensible
14. How did you change compared to when you were 20 and what is present of the Fabio boy in you today?
I am probably the furthest thing from that boy, the work commitments, the difficulties of the life in general, nervousness, make you forget a lot about who you are and especially what you was. One thing above all, however, remained. Irony in general and especially self-irony … originally a little stupid, then became more mature, also because I believe that people should never take too much on serious.
15. A topic that inexplicably fascinates you and one that bores you?
I am strongly attracted to life stories, those full of details, of twists. I like listening to people’s stories that I meet and that, for different reasons, attract my attention. It’s nice to hear people talk. All they have something to tell, something special and unique, these stories help me to exorcise fears. It bores me to have to repeat the same actions over and over again, the static nature of events, to see that things even with commitment, they don’t change.
16. If you could talk to anyone for an hour, alive or dead, who would you choose and what would you ask him?
I would choose to speak to my father, to apologize, because just as he did, he lived his last days, unaware, I was too busy with myself even to speak to him. Tense and sad about a love that has just ended, I didn’t even have time to chat with him, for this reason I now only have memories with a bitter aftertaste. I’d show him Vera and the kids, that he never knew. It would be enough for me to meet for the last time his gaze that was worth more than many words of approval.
17. Do you think the world can be saved? What every individual must do to be able contribute to its survival?
It’s a question I can answer strictly personnel. I don’t think there is a recipe for saving the world. The world will save itself despite us. We just messed it up. In fact, we must try to save our lives on this planet. To do this we increasingly need to live in contact with our planet to recognize its seasons, understand him, help him and respect him. Live more environmentally.
18. A phrase or quote that represents you?
The crisis is the greatest blessing for people and for them nations, because the crisis brings progress. Creativity comes from anguish as the day comes from dark night. In the crisis inventiveness, discoveries and great strategies arise. Who overcomes the crisis surpasses itself without being overcome. Those who attribute their failures and difficulties to the crisis, violate their own talent and give more value to problems than solutions. The real crisis is the crisis of incompetence. The inconvenience of people and of nations is laziness in seeking solutions and ways out. Without crisis there are no challenges, without challenges life is a routine, a slow agony. Without crisis there is no merit. In the crisis there is the best of each, because without a crisis all the winds are only light breezes. Talking about crisis means increasing it, and keeping silent in the crisis is enhancing conformism. Instead, we work hard. Let’s finish it once and for all with the only dangerous crisis, which is the tragedy of not wanting to fight to overcome it
Albert Einstein
19. What are the qualities that a man must have in order to be realized at work today, in your opinion?
I give a very dry answer. Consistency, professionalism and specialization. We are experiencing an epochal change we have grown according to stereotypes which, alas, have revealed themselves completely wrong. There is no less work, simply the work has changed, even for professionals, there is not plus the guarantee of the past. Nothing is due. Today if you want to work you have to be good and there are minimum margins of error and greater responsibilities deriving from errors of past. The advantage is that there are more tools, much more accessible than before, to improve the quality of work, make it leaner and faster.
20. On the Internet I read this sentence “Once I was able to understand what an engineer said, but then for a week I didn’t understand what normal people said ” What do you think about it? Is it true that you are complicated people to understand?
The phrase makes me smile. We are a species apart … born under the sign of bad luck. The engineer think a hundred hours to work one. Sometimes I happen to be so absorbed in my thoughts that I exclude the rest of the world and perhaps in those moments it is difficult to understand what I’m doing. I try to give an example. One day someone invented the wheel. A perfect invention, but with some defect related to rolling. Before the invention of the brake some engineer primordial could have tried to improve the invention by creating the square wheel for prevent the rolling then in the grip of success the same would have improved with the upgrade triangular to reduce jolts during rotation. Now … but had I nothing different to think about?
21. How do you imagine yourself in 20 years?
In 20 years I see myself on a imaginary window sill facing with Vera, that I hope she will have the strength to continue walking with me, watching my children. Intrigued by the road they have taken, hoping not to have influenced them in any way in the choices in the previous 19 years … working, always in the same mess arguing with some architect about the choices aesthetic contrary to every law of known physics … plus I will be an old man pain in the ass …
22. Your tips for a happy wedding?
Respect for your partner. It’s a very concept extended that also transcends that of love! Respect in the most difficult moments allows you to avoid trivial mistakes which, however, are the beginning of the end of many relationships apparently perfect. It is necessary to have the will to overcome the obstacles that life poses together. Every day it is necessary to feed that flame which sometimes turns into a hot fire and other times in a fire to put out. Vera and I sometimes make sparks, we fight so much to make the walls of the house tremble, with sadism we manage to offend ourselves in a surgical way because we know exactly where to hit. Yet at the end of it all we make peace. This always remains our primary need. I would be a disabled person without her. There are periods in which for different reasons one forgets to be a couple pursuing common goals, but it is important to make sure that the couple remains the primary need because, after all the problems faced, when the children are flown away, there is a risk of staying alone as two strangers, aged and made different by the same life and if you haven’t looked at each other in the meantime you risk losing everything.
23. A recurring dream?
I had recurring dreams as a child, I dreamed flying and falling and be alone while everyone was leaving. Today I no longer have recurring dreams. Maybe I have really grown up, many of my most secret dreams have come true and I have them ahead every day.
24. A place in your heart and a place that you would like to be able to see one day?
I would like to return to Argentina, in particular to El Calafate near Lake Argentino, where the Perito Moreno is, a place where time seemed to stand still 10 years ago. Wonderful landscapes and almost untouched nature.
25. Among the topics you wrote about wanting to talk about, you also included cows and theirs poop … So here you are satisfied … A study has recently been done that it would seem to demonstrate that Mycobacterium Vaccae is present in cow poop causes certain neurons to release large quantities of serotonin, which increases well-being and improves mood. According to many, this bacterium would also make it smarter. So it can be really true that “nothing comes from diamonds, from manure flowers was born”?
I should be a genius. My path has always been strewn with shit metaphorical and not … here and there, to be discarded and most of the time I ended up stepping on them. I would add also “what luck!”. Then, my own surname would suggest an origin not exactly pleasant. I believe, however, that greater the quantity of fertilizer, more beautiful and luxuriant the “Flower” is.
credits: a special thank for the help to graphic designers beatrice bressi and Enrico Usberti
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