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Futuro Antico. Interview with Carlo Ratti
22 mar 2022
Marco Bassan
Architect and engineer, Carlo Ratti (Turin, 1971) founded the CRA studio, in Turin and New York, and directs the Senseable City Lab at the WITH of Boston. In this interview he reflects on the future starting from the urgencies of the present.
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What are your inspirational references if we talk about art?
Our research group at MIT deals with Senseable City – a name that has a double meaning and which in Italian we could translate as a sensitive city capable of feeling. I like those who explore these dimensions in art. I think for example of Olafur Eliasson, with whom we collaborated for the renovation of the Agnelli Foundation building in Turin a few years ago. Or to Bill Viola, with whom we have had many conversations and who inspired some of the early work in our lab at MIT, now fifteen years ago. Going back in time, I really appreciate Situationists like Constant, with his extraordinary New Babylon traveling utopia. I would add Felice Casorati, but for very different reasons - linked to their common Turin origin.
What project represents you most? Can you tell us about its genesis?
Choosing among the projects completed in recent months, I would say The Greenary, Francesco Mutti's house in Montechiarugolo (designed together with Italo Rota). It is a building that winds around a ficus over ten meters high, and around which all the domestic environments are organized on multiple levels. The name is a syncrasis of "green" and "granary", the original structure on which the intervention was born. Much of our work at CRA ‒ Carlo Ratti Associati explores the intersection between the natural and artificial worlds.
The great Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa he said: “Between a tree and a house, choose the tree” ‒ in this case we chose them both!
How important is the genius loci to you in your work?
I remember Paul Ricoeur's famous j'accuse: "Nowadays we find the same low-quality films, the same slot machines, the same plastic or aluminum horrors everywhere”. The genius loci is an antidote to this drift of the globalized world, and which allows us to return to the local characteristics of architecture.
However, I like to understand genius loci differently than, for example, Kenneth Frampton and his idea of critical regionalism. Together with Antoine Picon and others, a few years ago we proposed onArchitectural Review a different reading, which we called Network Specifism. The idea behind this approach is that it is important to consider not so much the place where the project will develop, but the contributions of the individual professionals who take part in the work. Architectural production thus becomes relational, and the aggregation of the different inputs given to a project - coming from professionals with different backgrounds and specialties - ends up influencing the final result by linking it to the territory. A more contemporary way to mediate between local and global.
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How important is the genius loci to you in your work?
I remember Paul Ricoeur's famous j'accuse: "Nowadays we find the same low-quality films, the same slot machines, the same plastic or aluminum horrors everywhere”. The genius loci is an antidote to this drift of the globalized world, and which allows us to return to the local characteristics of architecture.
However, I like to understand genius loci differently than, for example, Kenneth Frampton and his idea of critical regionalism. Together with Antoine Picon and others, a few years ago we proposed onArchitectural Review a different reading, which we called Network Specifism. The idea behind this approach is that it is important to consider not so much the place where the project will develop, but the contributions of the individual professionals who take part in the work. Architectural production thus becomes relational, and the aggregation of the different inputs given to a project - coming from professionals with different backgrounds and specialties - ends up influencing the final result by linking it to the territory. A more contemporary way to mediate between local and global.
How important is the past for imagining and building the future? Do you believe that the future can have an ancient heart?
Buckminster Fuller, the great American eclectic inventor, said: “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims”. I would add that we must not be victims of the past either. Particularly in Italy, where sometimes there seems to exist a dualism between futurists and gondoliers, to put it in the words of Giuliano da Empoli. We must be able to overcome the polarization between those who would like to throw everything away to launch into tomorrow and those who instead look to the past. The right position to innovate requires us to start from the present.
What advice would you give to a young person who wants to follow your path?
I would use a few words from the film Jules & Jim Of Truffaut. In one scene, Jim recounts the dialogue with his professor Albert Sorel: “But then, what should I become?” ‒ “A Curious.” ‒ “It’s not a job.” ‒ “It’s not yet a job. Travel, write, translate..., learn to live everywhere. Start right away. The future is for the professionally curious”. Here you are: "Travel, write, translate, learn to live anywhere, and start right away. The future will be for the professionally curious”.
SACRED AND POST TRUTH IN THE WORDS OF CARLO RATTI
In a defined post-truth era, does the concept of the sacred still have importance and strength?
I would ask this question to Enzo Bianchi, who baptized me in the forest around the community of Bose over forty years ago. For me, sacredness is what Einstein spoke about: “I believe in Spinoza’s god, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a god who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.” A God who reveals himself in the beauty of the world – and therefore also in architecture.
Architecture can help create spaces that allow people to meet and discuss their positions - keeping dialogue open thanks to the virtues of physical space: a true antidote to the polarization of the post-truth world!
How do you imagine the future? Can you give us three ideas that you think will guide the coming years?
I don't expect futuristic scenarios of flying cars and alienating technologies prophesied by pessimists. I like to think that we can return to a greater balance between city and nature. As we were saying, the Anthropocene crisis we are experiencing forces us to rethink the urban phenomenon, placing sustainability and the circular economy at the center of our work. But then I turn on the computer and see that Russia has invaded Ukraine – and I think that perhaps we should start again from man.