Designer on mission to record architectural history
By Bonnie James
A French architect and computer graphic designer, bicycling from Tokyo to Paris on a year-long mission and making a video documentary on architectural heritage and history, is in Qatar.
“I started my trip in October last year and have covered more than 7,000km, close to half the total distance,” 30-year old Brice Bignami told Gulf Times yesterday.
After covering Japan, he proceeded to China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and India before catching a flight to Qatar a fortnight ago.
“I could not get a visa to cycle through Pakistan, Myanmar, and Saudi Arabia,” he said referring to the disappointments on his path to deepen his understanding of the world’s
local cultures.
Though Bignami, who has been working in Tokyo for four years, had planned to pedal through Pakistan and Iran from India, the denial of entry into Pakistan forced him to fly to Qatar.
“My plan to proceed to the UAE through Saudi Arabia has also been abandoned as I did not get a Saudi visa,” he said.
When he was unable to enter Myanmar on his bike, the adventurer had to return to Kuala Lumpur and board a flight to the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.
Bignami is flying tomorrow to Dubai, from where he will cycle to Oman and back before catching a boat to Iran where he has some friends.
Turkey is the next stop, followed by Syria, Lebanon, and a ferry to Greece before entering East Europe in the final leg of the tour, hoping for a September conclusion before winter arrives in Paris.
“I look to interview architects and homemakers in each country for my documentary on heritage and history of the land,” he said.
The full high-definition video, shot on a Canon 5D Mark II digital SLR camera, is intended to go into an hour-long documentary, to be telecast on TV if possible before being posted online and sent to film festivals.
Bignami asks architects to describe their work, how their city would look in 50 years, whether buildings should be designed for short-or long-term, how they would feel when their creations are torn down.
His questions to homemakers are whether they like the house they live in, what was the heritage they received from their parents, and what their house would be like after 50 years.
The project is titled ‘Bicycle Beyond Bubbles’ (www.bicyclebb.com).
“After a while of living abroad, having the chance to see and experience many iconic international buildings, I started to feel the need to step out of the design concepts of the superstar designers,” Bignami asserted.
With no financial sponsors (Surly bikes donated the frame of his bike), the traveller has a shoestring budget of eight Euro (about QR39) per day. “I am just about managing,” he remarked with a smile.
In Qatar, he has biked to destinations including the northern tip of Al Ruweis.
Bignami is also fighting mastocytosis, an unpredictable allergy covering his body with red marks, which reacts to sunlight, heat, stress, and to spicy food among others.
“I am promoting the French association in charge of medical cure researches, Association AFIRMM,” he said while observing that the disease has recently become really annoying.