Several times I wrote about friends that I miss. Paul, Pieter, Anna, Walter to name a few. With time there have appeared holes in my life that cannot be filled anymore.

A big hole in my life is created by the absence of Mauro. I don’t know why in these days I had to think of him a lot. I am sad and angry. It comes and goes. There are many stories to be told, too many.

I am not an expert on architecture, I love what he designed and constructed, but this will be more of an homage of an outsider, concentrating on the great friend he was.

I went to Florence with a scholarship in 1980.

Through friends in Amsterdam I was able to contact two people there. Thanks to one of them I met Mauro. He was a key figure in a group of mostly architecture students I frequented. From the start on we got along very well (I sort of was integrated/accepted by the ‘top’ of the group, didn’t have to work my way up). Apart from his passion for architecture he loved the arts and as a pathetic crazy Dutch painter I must have made an impression on him.

After a year he left for Paris to work.

I always had problems finding a good place where I could live and paint. I wrote a text about the first years, click on the image of the city to go to the text.

In the second year Paolo (click on his name to get information), a great actor friend, invited me to work in his living room. The apartment was big, he lived there with Francesca and Sandro. It used to be the place where Mauro had lived.

On one of Mauro’s visits back to Florence he rang the doorbell, waited outside for me to see who was there and signaled (imitating the pose of the dancers) that he wanted to buy a painting of mine. It was the first ‘big’ painting I sold in Italy.

I went to visit him in Paris. After having left my suitcase at his place we went for lunch. There was Giovanna too. ‘He had to get back to work quickly’, I was left alone with Giovanna, so later that day I picked up my suitcase and stayed the rest of my holidays with Giovanna. This was typically Mauro… as the 'top lion of the troup' he would 'organize/hustle the members, move them in a nice situation, created opportunities'.

One other thing I remember was that he always had a copy of the Corriere della Sera in his back pocket.

He came back to Italy, went to work for the Gregotti Associati firm in Milan. I returned to Amsterdam and visited him in Milan regularly. He was one of the great promoters of my work. I made many new friends in that firm (Sergio is still a good friend: click on his name to go to his site). Before I’d enter the architecture firm I had to count to ten, take a deep breath, because many of the young architects wanted to buy my work, jumped on my back to see the presentation folder filled with what I had painted.

Mauro bought some ‘key’ paintings of mine. Here are two.

We had long discussions, he had read everything, he knew everything, had a great sense of humor and was the example of a very, very decent person, a golden soul. How many times I told him I was the perverse catholic and he the correct calvinist... He really was somebody to look up to.

He was capable of doing silly things. One night with a couple of friends we visited Walter. When we maneuvered out of the parking space, we ended up backwards on the street, so he drove home backwards for the entire five minutes. Not everybody felt safe.

Years later I visited Milan with my mother and we stayed at his house. There was a great click between Laura, the wife of Mauro, and my mother.

Whenever he saw the opportunity to invite me to one of his projects, he took it.

The first big one was when he designed the San Ireneo church in Milan. I delivered the sketches for the to paint ceiling of the chapel.

For eleven years I discussed with the priest of the parish. In the end there was ‘not enough money’. The priest suggested to paint with very cheap materials and made other ridiculous suggestions… Mauro felt very bad about it even if he was not at all to blame.

Years past by and I went to live in Barcelona. I got the commission for a series of portraits for the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel in Dubai. I portrayed Laura and Mauro amongst the other ‘victims’.

One day I was on a bus and he called with the message that we had won!

Won what? The new to build church in Modena! And the money was there! He had prepared everything without letting me in on it. So I went to see the priest and to show my (quickly improvised ideas made in Mauro’s studio) sketches for the artworks. A couple of years later (between 2006 and 2008) I made the works for the Gesù Redentore.

It was an amazing period in my life (click on the images of the church to see the documantary about the making of the works). Gala, my daughter, was born not long before I started to work and as a friend in Barcelona said, 'when a child is born it carries a bread on its back', which means that it brings luck as far as work is concerned.

The commission was the greatest one (my most beautiful work experience till now); apart from working with Mauro, the team (priest and constructor) was also great to work with.

To show what he was about, how he explained things; when we met in Paris, he dragged me the Orangerie. There he said that the real space was not the room but the paintings. What he wanted to tell me was that I had to over power the space of the chapel, make a painting so strong that it overruled the actual space.

After this dense period I have visited Mauro many more times and to see him was always a feast.

One of the photos shows us prepared for rain and set off to see new constructions and his latest ones in Milan.

I remember a great new years feast in France with him, Laura (his wife) and many others.

There are just too many memories.

Then he fell ill and it was over all of a sudden (was this in 2022? I am so bad with numbers). I lived in Utrecht then and there was no real possibility to see him for the last time. I felt I had to leave him alone with Laura and Huan to finish his life in dignity and peace. I didn’t want to disturb them. And what was there to say or to show? He called me for the last time, telling we should meet again soon. Gala was present during the call so for me it was total confusion.

I went to Milan for the funeral service. There were many people. As a friend said; for many he was a lighthouse on which one sailed. Very true.

When I saw the coffin I had problems realizing his body was laying in it. I couldn’t belief it. Couldn’t accept it.

Milan is not the same for me anymore.

Needless to say that he guided me in my appreciation for modern architecture. Apart from showing me how one should live.

Click on the images to go to his site.

I painted a homage; I miss him. Click on the image to go to the image on the site. I hope one day Laura will accept it.

Click on the image to go to the image on the site.

Barcelona, May 24, 2025.