 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Marco Mario Paolo Casagrande (born 7 May 1971) is a Finnish architect, environmental artist, architectural theorist, former mercenary, writer and professor of architecture. He graduated from Helsinki University of Technology department of architecture (2001).
Casagrande was born in Turku, Finland, to a well-off Italian-Finnish Catholic family. [1] He spent his childhood in Ylitornio in Finnish Lapland, but went to school in Karis, a southern Finland small town, before moving to Helsinki to study architecture.
Casagrande claimed that he volunteered for the Bosnian Croat Defence Forces HVO in 1993 after his service in the Finnish Army. He wrote under the pen name Luca Moconesi a controversial book Mostarin tien liftarit / Hitchhikers on the Road to Mostar (WSOY 1997) [2] about his alleged experiences in the Bosnian Civil War, and based on descriptions of war crimes committed by the main character in the autobiographical book, he came under suspicion as a possible war criminal. [3] The war crimes listed in the book include the murder of a civilian woman in her home, and plotting to destroy a dam to flood a village with civilian inhabitants. After coming under suspicion he claimed that the book was in fact a work of fiction.
Later Casagrande has expressed views condemning war crimes from a military perspective: "Those troops know that they are doing wrong. This is the very opposite of constructive collectivity and group spirit. Anybody can understand that it is by no measures militarily efficient to go kicking the doors of old people's home." Casagrande has been lecturing in the National Defence University of Finland since 2006 on courses of strategy and leadership. [4]
From the early stages of his career Casagrande started to mix architecture with other disciplines of art and science landing with a series of ecologically conscious architectural installations around the world. [5] After being a finalist in the UK journal Architectural Review 's Emerging Architecture competition (1999) [6] Marco Casagrande and his then partner Sami Rintala were invited to the Venice Biennial 2000. The New York Times reporter chose their project "60 Minute Man" as his personal favorite in the Biennale. [7] In the project Casagrande & Rintala had planted on oak forest in an abandoned barge on top of 60 minutes worth of composted human waste produced by the city of Venice. Casagrande's cross-over architectural work encompasses the realms of architecture, urban and environmental planning, environmental art, circuses and other artistic disciplines. [8]
In search for subconscious architecture, real reality and connection between the modern man and nature. He believes that one shall not be blindfolded by stress, the surroundings of economics, the online access to entertainment or information. What is real is valuable. [9]
Casagrande's works and teaching are moving freely in-between architecture, urban and environmental design and science, environmental art and circus adding up into cross-over architectural thinking of commedia dell'architettura, a broad vision of built human environment tied into social drama and environmental awareness. There is no other reality than nature. [5]
Casagrande was nominated as the professor of ecological urban planning in the Taiwan based Tamkang University after the Treasure Hill project, in which Casagrande changed an illegal settlement of urban farmers into an experimental laboratory of environmental urbanism. [10] The overhaul had mixed reactions from the community. In 2017, he was invited-professor at the ENSAV : École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Versailles.
Marco Casagrande is the laureate of the European Prize for Architecture 2013, [11] CICA Award of the International Committee of Architectural Critics for conceptual and artistic architecture [12] and UNESCO & Locus Foundation's Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2015. [13] [14]
Casagrande views cities as complex energy organisms in which different overlapping layers of energy flows are determining the actions of the citizens as well as the development of the city. By mixing environmentalism and urban design Casagrande is developing methods of punctual manipulation of the urban energy flows in order to create an ecologically sustainable urban development towards the so-called 3rd Generation City (post industrial city). [15]
Casagrande utilized the tenets of acupuncture: treat the points of blockage and let relief ripple throughout the body. More immediate and sensitive to community needs than traditional institutional forms of large scale urban renewal interventions would not only respond to localized needs, but do so with a knowledge of how citywide systems operated and converged at that single node. Release pressure at strategic points, release pressure for the whole city. [16]
The theory of the Third Generation City views the post industrial urban condition as a machine ruined by nature including human nature and architects as design shamans merely interpreting what the bigger nature of the shared mind is transmitting. [17] This organic machine is kept alive through continuous and spontaneous ruining processes performed by citizens, to whom Casagrande refers to as 「anarchist gardeners」 by means of urban farming, [18] illegal architecture [19] and urban acupuncture. [20] The element of Ruin is viewed as something man-made having become part of nature. [21] The theory is developed in the independent multidisciplinary research centre Ruin Academy (2010-). [22]
Third Generation City follows the first generation where humans' peacefully coexisted with nature and the second generation built walls and stone structures everywhere in an attempt to shut out nature. In the third generation however, nature, which can never be truly shut out, grows back through the ruins, through the cracks in the wall, sucking human nature back into the wider nature. Third Generation City concentrates on local knowledge and urban acupuncture rather than on centrally governed urban planning. [23] Casagrande describes urban acupuncture as:
[a] cross-over architectural manipulation of the collective sensuous intellect of a city. City is viewed as multi-dimensional sensitive energy-organism, a living environment. Urban acupuncture aims into a touch with this nature. [24] and Sensitivity to understand the energy flows of the collective chi beneath the visual city and reacting on the hot-spots of this chi. Architecture is in the position to produce the acupuncture needles for the urban chi. [25] and A weed will root into the smallest crack in the asphalt and eventually break the city. Urban acupuncture is the weed and the acupuncture point is the crack. The possibility of the impact is total, connecting human nature as part of nature. The theory opens the door for uncontrolled creativity and freedom. Each citizen is enabled to join the creative process, feel free to use city space for any purpose and develop his environment according to his will. [26] The agents of the Third Generation City are sensitive citizens who feel the calling of a sustainable co-operation with the rest of the nature, sensitive citizen who are aware of the destruction that the insensitive modern machine is causing to nature including human nature. [27] Urban acupuncture produces small-scale but socially catalytic interventions into the urban fabric. [28]
Architects’ and designers’ position about organic knowledge is tricky. We are not the ones who carry this collective genetic memory on, but we are in a better position to interpret and negotiate with it, step by step, like a shaman getting answers from the organic side. This can easily go very wrong, when architect starts copyrighting fragments of local knowledge under his ego. I guess often it would be enough to create a platform of accidents for the organic knowledge to surface, start cooking, and finding its own forms and dynamics. Design is not necessarily needed in here, and design should not replace reality – while organic knowledge is close to reality, nature. [29]
Casagrande's works have been selected three times to the Venice Architecture Biennale; years 2000, 2004 and 2006. [30]
Casagrande & Rintala - Marco Casagrande and Sami Rintala - is a Finnish architect and artist group producing architectonic installations 1998–2003 for international venues of contemporary architecture and art. Their works move between architecture and environmental art. [31]
For their landscape installation 1000 White Flags (summer 2002), for example, the artists speckled a downhill-skiing range in Koli Nature Park, Finland, with flags made of used sheets from mental hospitals. Casagrande & Rintala here drew attention to the madness of businessmen who cut down ancient forests. [32]
Casagrande & Rintala's work Land(e)scape was awarded in the Architectural Review's Emerging Architecture Award 1999 competition [6] and chosen for the Venice Biennale 2000. New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp chose their project 60 Minute Man his personal favourite of the biennale. [33]
Casagrande & Rintala design and build all their works by themselves. The design process continued during the construction work.
"The work itself usually changes its shape or obtains more layers during the construction process. We keep ourselves open to changes in the work. When it is finding its shape it usually starts to tell us more about itself." [34]
Land(e)scape (1999), an architectural installation by Finnish architects Casagrande & Rintala, with Marco Casagrande and Sami Rintala, in a former field in Savonlinna. The work is commenting on the desertion process of the Finnish countryside.
Three of these abandoned barns "were driven," the architects explained, "to the point where they have had to break their primeval union with the soil. Desolate, they have risen on their shanks and are swaying towards the cities of the south." [35]
The work was awarded in the Architectural Review's Emerging Architecture 1999 competition and selected to the Venice Biennale 2000. Land(e)scape launched the international career or Casagrande & Rintala [7]
The art work was set on fire by the authors in October 1999. [6]
Land(e)scape represented Finland in the New Trends or Architecture in Europe and Japan 2001 exhibitions. [36]
Redrum (2003) is an architectonic installation in Anchorage Alaska by Finnish architects Casagrande & Rintala. The work is commissioned by Alaska Design Forum. [37]
3 Alaska Railroad oil tanks cut into total 12 pieces and turned into a temple structure opposite the Federal Building of Anchorage in the crossing of C-Street and 7th Avenue. The interior is painted bright red in contrast to the rusty and brutal exterior. The floor is made of 3500 kg of oyster shells, the origin of all Alaskan oil. [38]
"Redrum" is "murder" backwards. The designers intended to comment on the connection of oil, war and environment. Local media described the piece as "a slap in the face to Alaskans". [39]
Potemkin is an architectural park by Casagrande & Rintala for Kuramata village in Japan 2003. A steel made mix between a temple and machine. [40] The work consists indoor and outdoor spaces for post-industrial meditation. [41] Potemkin is commissioned by the Echigo-Tsumari Contemporary Art Triennial 2003. [42]
Potemkin stands as the Acropolis to be the post industrial temple to think of the connection between the modern man and nature. I see Potemkin as a cultivated junk yard situated between the ancient rice fields and the river with a straight axis to the Shinto temple. [43]
The site is a former illegal dumping ground turned into a riverside park. [44] The architecture of the park was drawn on site in 1:1 scale on snow by walking the lines with snow-shoes and then built up when the snow melted. [45]
The park is made out of one inch thick Kawasaki steel and recycled urban and industrial waste. It is 130 meters long and 15 meters wide with a series of outdoor and indoor spaces. [46]
Biennale, Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popularised by Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895. Since the 1990s, the terms "biennale" and "biennial" have been interchangeably used in a more generic way - to signify a large-scale international survey show of contemporary art that recurs at regular intervals but not necessarily biannual. The phrase has also been used for other artistic events, such as the "Biennale de Paris", "Kochi-Muziris Biennale", Berlinale and Viennale.
Marjetica Potrč is an artist and architect based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Potrč's interdisciplinary practice includes on-site projects, research, architectural case studies, and series of drawings. Her work documents and interprets contemporary architectural practices and the ways people live together.
Zvi Hecker is a Polish-born Israeli architect. His work is known for its emphasis on geometry and asymmetry.
Venice Biennale of Architecture is an international exhibition of architecture from nations around the world, held in Venice, Italy, every other year. It was held on even years until 2018, but 2020 was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic shifting the calendar to uneven years. It is the architecture section under the overall Venice Biennale and was officially established in 1980, even though architecture had been a part of the Venice Art Biennale since 1968.
MAD Architects is an architectural design firm based in Beijing, China, with offices in Los Angeles, New York City, and Rome. MAD Architects is currently led by Ma Yansong, Dang Qun and Yosuke Hayano.
Vilen Künnapu is one of the most important Estonian architects of the last three decades, among the first postmodernist theoreticians and architects in the 1970s.
Sami Rintala is a Finnish architect and artist. He studied architecture at Helsinki University of Technology, completing his studies in 1999. Rintala’s own work is based on narrative and conceptualism. The resulting work is a layered interpretation of the physical, mental and poetic resources of the site.
Hsieh Ying-chun is a Taiwanese architect and contractor.
The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial (ETAT) is an international contemporary art festival held once every three years in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. The festival was created by the Tokyo commercial gallery Art Front Gallery (AFG) and is directed by gallery director Fram Kitagawa. It was first held in 2000, and has since become one of Japan's largest art festivals, recurring every three years with the exception of 2021 when it was postponed to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It takes place across six regions of the prefecture, an area known for its heavy snowfall. These six regions—which include Tokamachi, Kawanishi, Nakasato, Matsushiro, Matsunoyama, and Tsunan—together comprise the Echigo-Tsumari Art Field. Since its inception, ETAT has been designed around the close-knit relationship between humankind and nature, and its art installations are chosen and curated to effectively contribute to this narrative.
Ma Yansong is a Chinese architect and founder of MAD architects. He serves as adjunct professor at School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, and the visiting professor at Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture.
Roan Ching-Yueh is a Taiwanese architect, writer, curator and a Professor of Department of Art and Design, Yuan Ze University.
Heikkinen – Komonen Architects is a Finnish architectural firm established by Mikko Heikkinen and Markku Komonen in Helsinki in 1974. Their work is characterised as a fusion between minimalism, high-technology and Abstract expressionism, typified by their design for the Vuotalo Cultural Centre in Helsinki, or the Heureka Science Centre, in Vantaa with the juxtaposition of stark concrete elements against colourful high-tech metal structures and large glazed surfaces. They have also completed a number of small-scale humanitarian projects for Guinea, west Africa, based on local building traditions.
Kris Yao is a Taiwanese architect, and the founder and head architect at KRIS YAO | ARTECH in Taipei and Shanghai.
Nikita Wu is a Taiwanese writer and arts manager. She was the curator of the Future Pavilion in the Taiwan Design Expo 2005 and a project manager in the Taiwan Pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2006, for WEAK! architects in the 2009 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture and in co-operation with the JUT Foundation for Arts & Architecture for the independent research centre Ruin Academy in Taipei.
The Global Award for Sustainable Architecture was founded in 2006 by architect and scholar Jana Revedin. The Global Award Community, which in 2022 consists of the 75 contemporary architects or architect collectives from around the globe who have previously received the award, works towards a sustainable architectural ethics and fosters research, experimentation, and transmission in the fields of sustainable architecture, urban renewal, and academic social responsibility. It defines architecture as an agent of community empowerment, development and civic rights.
Ruin Academy is an independent cross-over architectural research center in the Urban Core area of Taipei City, Taiwan. It is 'set to re-think the industrial city and the modern man in the box' through research and a series of workshops.
Sandworm (2012) is a site-specific art installation and a fusion of environmental art and architecture by Finnish architect Marco Casagrande situated on the dunes of Wenduine beach in Belgium. The curvaceous structure is made entirely from willow. The fifty-metre long organic structure stretches out between the dunes like an enormous wooden worm. It is part of the Beaufort Triennial of Contemporary art.
Bug Dome was a bamboo shelter created for the Shenzhen & Hong Kong bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture in Shenzhen 2009, China by a group of architects calling themselves WEAK!
The Jut Art Museum is an art museum in Da'an District, Taipei, Taiwan. It is managed and operated by the Jut Foundation for Arts and Architecture (JFAA).
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - The European Prize for Architecture 2013 European Centre for Architecture, 2013{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - Camp for Oppositional Architecture 2004{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - Camp for Oppositional Architecture, 2004{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - 3RW Architects: Urban Farmers, 2006
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
