VIGÉSIMO QUINTO LIVRO
THE BUBBLIES
My architectural casualties of the Mozambican revolution and the Angolan civil war are many. Some of the victims are the half-finished buildings which have been abandoned. They are the wounded. Others are projects which were cancelled in the panic or just forgotten. They are the dead.
The Bubblies are a recent and young family delayed by these revolutions. They are all buildings incorporating curved forms. They start in the paintings and sculptures of jets.
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One of them was for F. Dicca in Lourenço Marques, an office building with curved balconies and elaborate balustrades. Another was the Porto Alexandre Bank - Twins in Southern Angola - the straight and the bent - which were almost completed just before all hell broke loose. There were four other schemes, one for Serpa Pinto with round balconies and screens, one for Mucende, another at Pereira d'Eça; almost on the border with South West Africa and another in Teixeira da Silva. All of these are reported missing.
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There was also a very tall hotel for Alto Mahé in Lourenço Marques which I like so much that I still sometimes work on it.
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The survivors of the Bubblies are alive and well. They keep on growing out of each other and they are intermarrying into the other families.
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