Marco Casagrande

Marco Casagrande at SZHK Biennale 2009

Marco Casagrande (born May 7, 1971) is a Finnish architect, environmental artist, architectural theorist, writer and professor of architecture. He graduated from Helsinki University of Technology department of architecture (2001).

Early life

Casagrande was born in Turku, Finland, to a well-off Finnish-Italian 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.

Mercenary and writer

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. After becoming under suspicion he claimed that the book was in fact a work of fiction. The truth about Casagrande's involvement in the war remains uncertain.[3]

Later Casagrande has expressed views condemning war crimes: "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 an old peoples home." Casagrande has been lecturing in the National Defence University of Finland since 2006 on courses of strategy and leadership.[4]

Architect and artist

Taipei organic acupuncture

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.[10]

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.[11] The overhaul had mixed reactions from the community.

Marco Casagrande is the laureate of the European Prize for Architecture 2013,[12] CICA Award of the International Committee of Architectural Critics for conceptual and artistic architecture .[13] and UNESCO & Locus Foundation's Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2015.[14]

Third generation city

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 city-wide 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]

Collaboration with Rintala

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 are moving in-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[33] and chosen to the Venice Biennale 2000. New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp chose their project 60 Minute Man his personal favourite of the biennale.[34]

Casagrande & Rintala designed and built 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."[35]

Important works

Land(e)scape

Land(e)scape on display
Burning of Land(e)scape, 1999

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.』[36]

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[37]

The art work was set on fire by the authors in October 1999.[38]

Land(e)scape represented Finland in the New Trends or Architecture in Europe and Japan 2001 exhibitions.[39]

Redrum

Casagrande & Rintale: Redrum (2003)
Redrum interior (2003)

Redrum (2003) is an architectonic installation in Anchorage Alaska by Finnish architects Casagrande & Rintala. The work is commissioned by Alaska Design Forum.[40]

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.[41]

"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".[42]

Potemkin

Casagrande & Rintala: Potemkin (2003)
Potemkin interior

Potemkin is an architectural park by Casagrande & Rintala for Kuramata village in Japan 2003. A steel made mix between a temple and machine.[43] The work consists indoor and outdoor spaces for post-industrial meditation.[44] Potemkin is commissioned by the Echigo-Tsumari Contemporary Art Triennial 2003.[45]

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.[46]

The site is a former illegal dumping ground turned into a riverside park.[47] 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.[48]

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.[49]

Other works

Sixty minute man, 2000
Floating Sauna, 2002
Treasure Hill, 2003
Chen House, 2008
Bug Dome, 2009
Sandworm, 2012

References

  1. ↑ Kohuttu palkkasoturi päätyi arkkitehdiksi - Turun Sanomat January 27, 2001 (Finnish)
  2. ↑ The mind of a fanatic - Helsingin Sanomat, 18 September 2001
  3. ↑ taiteen palkkasotureita - Voima 4/2002 (Finnish)
  4. ↑ Anttalainen & Vasaramäki, Casagrande (KALPA, Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu, 2011), 38-41.
  5. ↑ Architektur zwischen Landart und Konzeptkunst - Hochschule Munchen 6/2011
  6. ↑ - Architectural Review 12/1999
  7. ↑ - Adam Mornament: When Attitude Becomes Form Contemporary -magazine 2003
  8. ↑ - Thurrock: A Visionary Brief in the Thames Gateway General Public Agency 2004
  9. ↑ - Berkeley Prize Committee and Jury University of California, Berkeley 2007
  10. ↑ Architektur zwischen Landart und Konzeptkunst - Hochschule Munchen 6/2011
  11. ↑ - Atelier 3: Treasure Hill 10/2003
  12. ↑ - The European Prize for Architecture 2013 European Centre for Architecture, 2013
  13. ↑ - Premios Bienal de Arquitectura y CICA, Buenos Aires International Biennial for Architecture 10/2013
  14. ↑ - LES LAURÉATS DU GLOBAL AWARD 2015 AMC, 2015
  15. ↑ INTERVIEW WITH M. CASAGRANDE ON URBAN ACUPUNTURE - Laurits Elkjær, Bergen School of Architecture 4/2010
  16. ↑ Urban Acupuncture - Urban Applications - Community + Design Placemaking 2013
  17. ↑ - Marco Casagrande: Cross-over Architecture and the Third Generation City Epifanio 9 2008
  18. ↑ The Community Gardens of Taipei - P2P Foundation 2010
  19. ↑ Illegal Architecture in Taipei - Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan, Architizer 2011
  20. ↑ Anarchist Gardener Issue One 安那其建築園丁 – Nikita Wu: Anarchist Gardener 2010
  21. ↑ Chen House by C-Laboratory - Dezeen 2009
  22. ↑ Ruin Academy - Landezine 2010
  23. ↑ Returning Humans to Nature and Reality - Nick Couson, eRenlai 2011
  24. ↑ Urban Acupuncture: Revivifying Our Cities Through Targeted Renewal - Kyle Miller MSIS 9/2011
  25. ↑ Ruin Academy - Marco Casagrande Epifanio 14 2011
  26. ↑ Compost City - Guoda Bardauskait p. 30-31, Sustainable Urban Design Journal 1 2011
  27. ↑ An alternative learning platform: Ruin Academy – Anarchist Gardener - Mizah Rahman, Asian Urban Epicenters 2012
  28. ↑ Ruin Academy - Casagrande Lab - Ariane Lourie Harrison, Architectural Theories of the Environment: Posthuman TerritoryRoutledge, 2013
  29. ↑ Change from organic city - M. Casagrande, International Society of Biourbanism 2013
  30. ↑ - World Architecture Community
  31. ↑ - World Architecture Community Contemporary -magazine 2003
  32. ↑ - Biennale de Montreal: Casagrande & Rintala (Finland) 2002
  33. ↑ - Architectural Review 12/1999
  34. ↑ - New York Times 2000
  35. ↑ - ARCH'IT: Casagrande & Rintala 2001
  36. ↑ - The Architectural Review: A dramatic architectural installation designed to draw attention to the plight of the Finnish countryside., 12/1999
  37. ↑ - Adam Mornament: When Attitude Becomes Form Contemporary -magazine 2003
  38. ↑ - The Architectural Review: Burning Passion., 12/1999
  39. ↑ - Catalog 1: Participating Architects (New Trends of Architecture in Europe and Japan 2001), 2001
  40. ↑ Alaska Design Forum
  41. ↑ Camp for oppositional architecture 25.6.2004
  42. ↑ Ditmars, Hadani (2003-06-21), Artfully pushing the boundaries in Anchorage, The Globe and Mail, retrieved 2007-12-14
  43. ↑ - Tamkang University: 卡馬可 Marco Casagrande 2004
  44. ↑ - Camp for Oppositional Architecture 2004
  45. ↑ - Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2003
  46. ↑ - Archi-Europe: Potemkin
  47. ↑ - Japan-Guide: Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial Festival Highlights
  48. ↑ - Landezine: Potemkin - Post Industrial Meditation Park by Casagrande & Rintala
  49. ↑ - Architecture News Plus: Potemkin - Post Industrial Meditation Park
  50. ↑ - Architectural Review: Little Top
  51. ↑ - ARCH'IT: Casagrande & Rintala
  52. ↑ - Architizer: Quetzalcoatlus
  53. ↑ - Yokohama 2001: Artist Data Sheet
  54. ↑ - Firenze Biennale Press Release 2001
  55. ↑ - Demeter: Dallas-Kalevala (2002)
  56. ↑ - La Biennale De Montreal: Casagrande & Rintala 10/2003
  57. ↑ - Camp for Oppositional Architecture, 2004
  58. ↑ - 6th Cycle of 20+10+X Architecture Awards, 2010
  59. ↑ - Human: Greetings from London
  60. ↑ - Epifanio: Human Layer_Taipei, 2005
  61. ↑ - Taipei MOCA: Chamber of the Post-Urbanist 104, 2005
  62. ↑ - Taipei Times: Design Expo Attracts Curious, 2005
  63. ↑ - C-LAB: The Art of Taiwan in Psychosis, 2005
  64. ↑ - 3RW Architects: Urban Farmers, 2006
  65. ↑ - Taipei Representative Office: An Architect Takes Care of a Stone Garden in a City of Water, 2006
  66. ↑ - World Architecture: Winners / 4th Cycle, 2009
  67. ↑ - Dezeen: Bug Dome by WEAK!, 2009
  68. ↑ - Daily Tonic: Bug Dome at the 2009 Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture by the WEAK!, 2009
  69. ↑ - Designboom: c laboratory: ruin academy, 2010
  70. ↑ Marco Casagrande’s Gorgeous Bamboo “Cicada” Pavilion Snakes its Way Through Urban Taipei - Lori Zimmer, Inhabitat 2012
  71. ↑ Marco Casagrande's bamboo pavilion Cicada wins the RED DOT AWARD 2012 - Finnish Architecture, 2012
  72. ↑ Marco Casagrande Sandworm - Beaufort 04, 2012
  73. ↑ SANDWORM / Marco Casagrande - Diego Hernandez, Arch Daily 2012
  74. ↑ Marco Casagrande's Sandworm - Katrina Tan, Trendland 2012
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