Open Mic. A conversation with Annalisa Metta

Open Mic A conversation with Annalisa Metta

Ashley Aurand

Daniel Brubaker

Tim Coleman

Cole Johnson

Julia Kenny

Isaac List

Samantha Markiewicz

Liz Mazzella

William Mcafee Witherspoon

Katelyn Owens

Ethan Pilarski

Jordan Ramsey

Aaron Rombach

Laney Talaski

Made by students enrolled in the “Video, Media, and Architecture” class taught by Professor Marco Brizzi at Kent State University in Florence in Fall 2022.

Biography

Annalisa Metta is a Landscape Architect and co-founder of OS/A. She earned her Ph.D. in the Architecture of Parks, Gardens, and Land Use. She is an associate professor in Landscape Architecture at Roma Tre University. Throughout her career, Annalisa continues the development of her own experimental research and architectural theory that deals with the design of open spaces at a variety of scales. She authored several publications, including WildandTheCity.LandscapeArchitectureforLushUrbanism and “The Case of the Pontine Plain” (ref. page 31). Additionally, she has given many seminars and lectures internationally wherein she presents her work and progressive architectural research and landscape theory. A couple of Annalisa’s lectures include “A Matter of Bodies and Atmosphere” (given at the American Academy in Rome in 2016/ref. pages 26-27) and “Between Mud and Cosmos: Landscape as an Agent” (given at Kent State Florence CAED in 2022 following the interview).

OS/A (OPEN SPACE / ARCHITECTURE) is a design studio, founded in 2021 from the previous experience of Osa architettura e paesaggio, already established in Rome in 2007. OS/A deals mainly with the design of open spaces, elaborating projects for parks of various kinds and scales, public and private gardens, squares, playgrounds and urban spaces, temporary installations, recovery of historical gardens, archaeological and monumental areas, infrastructures, reclamation of abandoned or under reconversion industrial sites. Its focus is landscape as an agent, in relation with the behaviours of human and not human beings.

AN INTERVIEW WITH FLORENCE 2022

Annalisa Metta

Opening Inquires

Laney Talaski: Why did you choose to focus on open spaces? We live in an age where technology constantly brings us indoors. So, why focus on open spaces when it is significantly harder to find people that truly appreciate the space outside?

Annalisa Metta: This is very important for my life because I have been trained as an architect. I was used to just designing buildings in a very, very traditional way—to make buildings, going from the overall design to the details and so forth. Then, when I ended my training, and I started as a professional, I discovered the world of landscape architecture. Actually, I discovered it during my final degree project. I was completely fascinated by open space design for a very precise reason: for the condition of not being able to control the final output of my work. It always happens, even if you just

design an object, for sure. When you are in the open air, when your roof is the sky, when you have the wind all around, and you have the living plants, animals, and other things, you are always in a sort of conversation. So, your design, your proposal, is just a piece of something that is on a shared table and that is worked on by other authors or designers. This is a bit uncanny, but, at the same time, according to me, it is very exciting. You never know how it will go, how it will end, and it is something that could be used for, say, landscape architecture. So this idea of openness, this idea of uncertainty, this idea of ‘looseness’—to use the words of Alison and Peter Smithson—are the most important reasons that brought me to shift from architecture as building design to architecture as open space design.

Ashley Aurand: As students, one of the first steps we take when we start designing a site is to explore how our building or structures can interact with green space. Do you feel it is more important for our structure to be designed around the existing green space, or should we design a structure and design the green space around the structure?

Annalisa: It is a very good question, but I am afraid that I can’t give you a right answer because, for sure, it depends on many conditions. It is very hard for me to fit design as a receipt or as a rule. I always think that design arises or comes from the site, and so sometimes you are guided from what is already there, and you start

from the green spaces that are around for example. Otherwise, you can even find yourself in a sort of tabula-rasa-condition because some sites of our contemporary landscape are in these conditions for many, many reasons. And so, in those conditions, you are asked to start with a new story, and so, for example, you can start with a new structure and making the green spaces around follows. So, I think that what is very fascinating in design is that we do not have a certain roadmap, and yet every time, we have good accordance with what is there. You can use the same idea or process, as I would, either with success or without success, in accordance with a specific mission.

“So, I think that what is very fascinating in design is that we do not have a certain roadmap, and yet every time, we have good accordance with what is there.”

Architectural Design Studio Projects: Advice and Insight

Thethird-yeararchitecturaldesignstudio obligatesstudentstoexploreItalian/ Europeanurbanenvironmentsandto designinhistoricalcontexts.Withinthe studio,we[theinterviewers]studythe relationshipbetweenabuildingandits context,suchassiteconditions,landscape, accessibility,constructiontechnology, materiality,etc.Thestudioprojectisset inFlorence’sSantaRosaTowerPark, whichislocatedbetweenPonteVespucci and Ponte della Vittoria on the southern

sideoftheArnoRiver.Theobjectiveis todesignanewcommunitycenterand thesurroundingriversidelandscape withtheinclusionoftheexistingSanta Rosa Tower monument. Since we have toworkwithsignificanthistoricaland culturalelementsaswellasuniquesite conditions,wearecurioustohearand learnfromAnnalisa’sinputonthe project,especiallyconsideringherextensive academicbackgroundandin-fieldexperiencewithlandscapearchitecture.

Santa Rosa Tower Park in Florence, Italy. Lies next to the Arno river and the project site takes up the space around the tower itself.

Aaron Rombach: In our studio, we are constructing a building here in Florence, around Santa Rosa Tower, a part of the old city walls. In looking at this site we have to incorporate both sides of the river and currently they are two different types of ecosystems. How in your experience, do you combat two opposites or two areas that have to communicate but not be exactly the same?

Annalisa: I find your situation very exciting because you have a single object as a building that has the chance to deal with these different conditions, and it is a translator for something that has to make different conditions dialog with

each other. This is great because you have to be sure not make an abstract design because you are placing something that is completely different. Also, you have something with different faces. So, from this point of view, I think you can imagine that you are building totally different features because of the specific conditions they are entering. This is super interesting, I think, because in our contemporary situation there is the tendency to think cities are all the same, or they don’t work, or the open spaces are similar. For example, think about our obsession with numbers. We say, ‘so what is the importance in, say, how much trees I put there’ and so on. Instead, I think we have to reclaim the

“The city is exactly the place for conflict; where conflict is not a way to make war, but it is the way to make different things meet.”

idea that cities are made of different stuff, of different places, and this is not a problem, this is an opportunity. I always like the idea, for example, that the greek name for ‘city’ was ‘polis.’ It is the same root and language of ‘pólemos,’ which means ‘conflict.’ So, the city is exactly the place for conflict; where conflict is not a way to make war, but it is the way to make different things meet. And in this meeting of different, there is a wonderful sparkling energy. If your building will be able to reveal the sparkling energy that is there, where different things are together, I think you will do wonderful work.

OS:A, Paranà waterfront in Posadas, Argentina, 2011. A proposal to update the Paranà Waterfront.

Student Interacting with Annalise Metta as she answers his question.

Tim Coleman: Currently we are working on a site with a combination of old and new structures and thinking about how to mix those different styles as well as different materiality in our projects. Something that I think is interesting with recovery and reclamation, especially in European cities, is dealing with the gap between old and new structures and finding a way to preserve the old but still blend new structures in as well. What are some of the ways you are able to deal with this issue?

Annalisa: It is an important issue in Italy because we are obsessed with the past time, so much that we are not always thinking about the future. When thinking about ancient cultures, or Roman culture, they were almost more free, and able to mix and match and to re-use older structures to make something completely new. I think that we need to rethink our present situation; it is not just about maintenance, but it is about the idea of moving. Something that is in the past and the present will be in the future only if it will be able to transform in its meaning. This idea of fixation and anxiety for control is a great problem. If we are able to be more relaxed with the idea of control and let situations change exactly as we are changing, I think that our landscape would be more aligned

with who we are. We would be even able to love it more because we would find ourselves within the landscape. It’s super interesting. In Italy in 1967, it was the time when we established the ministry for culture, heritage, and antiquity. We recognize, in Italy, a photographic campaign to describe the oracle and the situation of our heritage that was transformed by contemporary architecture. It’s super fun for me to think that, only one year after the publishing of Robert Venturi’s Complexityand Contradiction, we had a completely different case, and we said, okay, let’s see what’s happening. Perhaps, with this contradiction it could be a sign—a clue—of a sparkling energy of something that is living and transforming. Today, looking back at those photographs, I’ve found them so beautiful because they were able to speak about this transformance—this moving—of something that was, in such a way, completely different. I think that there, there is a lot of energy so do not be afraid of that mixing and matching. If this is not just a way to make strange things, but it is a way to answer to your deep sensibility and you deep desires according to your future.

“We need to rethink our present situation; it is not just about maintenance, but it is about the idea of moving.”

Cole Johnson: Do you believe we as young architects have a responsibility to change the way people interact with nature through our studio projects or should we allow society and other architects to shape the way we portray it?

Annalisa: I think that you have a great responsibility, and it’s great! I am speaking as a teacher, so I know that I have the responsibility to let you be aware of your responsibility. I think

that your responsibility is to tell us that the 20th century is finished, so that idea of conflict of different worlds, the dichotomy that was so relevant into the 20th century, has really no reason to be here today. And when I say dichotomy, I mean many levels of dichotomy; capitalism and communism is just one of them, but I mean even the many layers of division that are in our world. And for sure, the difference between culture and nature, the difference between nature and humans is part of this dichotomy. I

“I think that your responsibility is to tell us that the 20th century is finished, so that idea of conflict of different worlds, the dichotomy that was so relevant into the 20th century, has really no reason to be here today.”

am deeply convinced that if we do not pass through this dichotomy, we really can not change our design, our way of designing. There are times to say, “Okay, what is artificial, and what is nature?” Typically, what is nature is good and what is artificial is bad. For example, take a look at the biennale in Venice in 2021; it was a matter of feeling guilty as humans, as designers, for all the tragedies that are in the world. I think that is the time to go away and say, okay, we are nature as humans, and so what we do is exactly in accordance with all the other stuff that we call nature, and if we feel inside nature, we completely change our way to think design. For example, the idea of ‘saving nature,’ that we have to ‘protect nature,’ is a very 20th-century idea of an architect as a savior or a sort of superhero that is able to save nature. But if you feel yourself inside nature, you do not need to save anything to collaborate with it, so you are on the same level. You get into dialogue and not into a hierarchy of differential roles. If we as teachers are able to make you think about that, and if you as young generational architects could be able to overcome any separation between artificial and nature, between what is man-made and what is nature, I think we could imagine a completely different landscape; finally, I think it is the time to make that.

OS:A, Stairs garden in Potenza, Italy, 2016. Grass was planted on the stairs, turning the public stairs into a temporary garden.

Samantha Markiewicz: Accessibility is something professors tell me that I need to have in my designs, including things like wheelchair-accessible restrooms or elevators, and ramps to move around my designs. With something like landscape architecture, specifically looking at your Climbing Garden Project, how do you go about making your projects accessible? And, how can we implement these design strategies in our own studio designs?

Annalisa: It is a very different question because something that has to do with accessibility, we have more of a concern as designers, and we have to think about how people can use and access the inside. On the harder side, I can say again we are in a sort of misunderstanding. We think that all the sites of our cities are the same, and so we use exactly the same protocols for every kind of project, every kind of design. But really, if we think about the differences in the idea of conflict, as I was speaking before the idea that the city is so beautiful and so vibrant because it is made of different kinds of places, perhaps we could accept the idea that maybe some places are completely accessible and others are not. Because the cities are made of different conditions, this is again something that is connected with the difference between nature and nurture, between nature and artificial

that I was wondering, that I was speaking about before. For example, in Italy, we have very strict rules about accessibility when you make a square or a park in the city because they are considered public spaces. But when you are in a national park, in a nature reserve, they are public. In legal terms, they are public exactly in the same way as the square is a public space, and a urban park is a public space. But because we think that it is nature we do not expect it to be accessible. So I think that we have a lot of problems to solve and if we think that it’s okay to have some places as inaccessible and others that are, I think that we can spread out our chances as designers behind any ideology. I know that this could sound [sick], but I think that on the other way if we use the same protocols for every single square meter of our city, we’re losing something, and we are losing the idea of difference, of risk, of adventures, of discovery, even of wonder that is in our city. If everything is under control, if you know exactly where you will go, or you will see where everything is, don’t prefer you will never get lost in the city. And the thing that we need to come back to get lost in the city is a sort of arrangement that I’m afraid we are, we are really, really losing.

“... Perhaps we could accept the idea that maybe some places are completely accessible and others are not.”

Annalisa’s Work and Theoretical Practice

Afterstudyingherworkasanarchitect,educator,theorist,andauthor,weareeagerto discoverhowAnnalisagoesaboutherresearchanduniquedesignstrategy.Her fascinationwithandpassionfornatureandhumanbeingspromptthequestionsand driveourdiscussionwhereinsheoffersaglimpseintoherincrediblyvastknowledge andstudyofsuchthings.

OS:A, Italian Garden in Craonne, France, 2018 (implemented). This area was closed off to people and nature was allowed to grow naturally.

Liz Mazzella: How do you measure what the social impacts are on the users of the spaces you design? Is this something that is done during a set part of a project, or something that you study over time from previous projects?

Annalisa: It’s a very fascinating topic really. I’m very fond of this idea to think that people, bodies with their presence, are a matter of architecture. So I always think about the presence of people in the context of the site as something to collaborate with the shape of the site. It’s not a matter of use - so we’re not thinking about people as the users, but I think about people as a part of architecture in terms of their geometry, even of their colors, and how they move. When I imagine a public space, I always try to figure people there that are collaborating and creating the scene. What is very important is to imagine how people will behave, and that’s not so easy. Luckily, it’s not easy because people are free and surprising. What I do is to go on the site and just observe people; what are they doing there? Because typically people are able to express desires - the way they are moving, the places they’re going on the site, or even the places where they are not going - places that are neglected. It’s a way to sort of express a project that isn’t silent, so nobody’s expressing it, but

if you look at it you can observe people behaving, and understand what they want and what they do not want. So the first thing, according to me, is to go there, to take your time, and observe what people are doing. On the other side, what is important for me is to follow their desires, and so to co-design with them because when I try to follow their desires it’s a sort of co-design with people. I always try to not impose behaviors, as I was telling before. So imagine that open space could be a public platform where people can live and decide what they do and what they cannot do. This is a way to leave the design open and even to admit with their future behaviors as a way to co-design the site. I was telling before about our obsession with control, and my fascination with open spaces because I don’t know what will happen. It’s not a matter of plants, and animals even a matter of people, I don’t know what people will do there exactly, and I love to be surprised by what people can imagine to do. And I feel that this is a way to continue the designing of the site. It is never ending, because people are continuously designing the site with their presence. And I do not think about that as a sort of deminutio [in latin, it means decrease] of my role, but I think it’s wonderful to be surprised by your site. So take the time to look at the site before, but please take the time to look at

the site later after the implementation of your project because you will discover a lot of things that you cannot imagine, and you will for sure discover that your design has never ended. It will continue just because people are there and are using it.

OS:A, “Every Nine Days” temporary installation at the American Academy in Rome, 2022. Steel plates were added at an interval of nine days to analyze the effect of nature on man-made structures over varying periods of time.

Julia Kenny: In your lecture, “A MatterofBodiesandAtmosphere” you redefine people as “tools of knowledge, activation, and configuration of urban spaces.” In your experience, why is it important/ beneficial to focus specifically on human behaviors in the realm of landscape architecture?

Annalisa: Yes. I think it is crucial. I admit, it is crucial. There is a wonderful book by Richard Sennett that is titled Flesh and Stone—it is a wonderful title. This is a history of the city going from central to Manhattan, to modern Manhattan, to describe how people are in the city and how their bodies are actually a tool to build public space. It takes into account questions about gender, but even questions about the poor or the rich, the in-power or not. The presence of bodies in public space tells us a lot of things. I started to enter into this topic when I discovered a wonderful couple—Lawrence Halprin and his wife Anna Halprin. Lawrence is a landscape architect, and Anna is a choreographer and a dancer. At a certain point in their life, they started to work together. They realized that they were doing exactly the same job, and that to design a public space and to imagine a choreography is exactly the same thing. The story is wonderful; I am very fond of their story

because, at a certain point, Lawrence Halprin decided to move and to live in the woods. His wife Anna was embedded within in the city, where her heart is with the community. So Lawrence Halprin designed for her a sort of theater in the woods between the trees. It was like a present for her. And what happened is that she started to perform on that stage, and she completely changed the way she danced. She was dancing, not in a building, but in the open air. She started to have a connection with the wind, the humidity, the atmosphere, the sun, the light, and the shade. The way she changed her work as a dancer was so important and influential, that it changed the work of Lawrence Halprin as a landscape designer. He started to see and to be aware of how the presence of bodies was in relationship with the qualities of the space: it was a sort of reaction to the spaces. So, the way of organizing the shades and the temperature, and the shape of the space, was a suggestion for the body to enter into relation with the spaces. I think their lessons are absolutely important and crucial even for our time. But, I think it is absolutely crucial today. We have to stop imagining people just as users; instead, we should think about them as performers. This brings me again to the idea of control. What is the relation between a choreographer and a performer? Or between a musician

by Pierre Bal-Blanc.

as a composer and a musician as a performer? It is the reading. Any performer will interpret the score, and, in this way, there is a dimension of surprise or reenchantment again of something you cannot control. When a musician writes a piece of music, they really do not know how performers will play it. So, I think that open space design could be done in this way—as a dance score or a music score, letting people be the performers of our score.

Lawrence Halprin: Dance Deck

Dance stage for his wife Anna to perform in the open air. Image from Flash Art column: AnnaHalprin’sDanceDeck

Ethan Pilarski: In your experience as a landscape architect, do you feel that it is better when the projects are designed to be explored by people and open to the public, or if they are closed off and are more so used to preserve the nature in the city?

Annalisa: It depends, for example, we have many cases in contemporary cities now in Germany where they decided to close off some parts of the city where nature is going to develop and to wait for the natural biological cycles of nature to happen and to get stronger and then open up to the public. I think it is a way and it’s very important because it has different levels of interest. The first level is we don’t need to design everything and

we can even accept that nature can decide by itself. We can even remake some parts of our land and just fence it and then see what happens there. This is very important I think today for our climate urgence, we are obsessed with the idea of planting trees everywhere. But perhaps we can have the same effects just letting nature do by herself and just enclosing some parks without doing anything, so it’s very important to mention that we don’t need to design everything. The harder part is about another very typical 20th century idea that is our obsession with the use of every single spot of land. There is a sort of obsession that sets the base of our zoning. When you make the zoning of the city you say this is for that, and typically you

“We do not need to design everything, we don’t need to set the destiny, the functional destiny for every single spot of land, and so we can have no use and no design plans.”

have parks because everything has a function. Letting some places for just nature not only for people to gather is even admitting perhaps we can imagine in our cities places with not a specific function. So we do not need to design everything, we don’t need to set the destiny, the functional destiny for every single spot of land, and so we can have no use and no design plans. But what is very important is again to mention that this is not a sort of [renounce], it is not a way to remove responsibility of this issue. But this is a decision, so this is a way to express our views as designers when we decide to elect a place in that way. So it is not a way to get rid of our

responsibility, but to mention another kind of value for our site, so it plays without a function as a value or not. This is a problem. It plays without design, it has value or doesn’t have value. So I think that these questions are absolutely crucial for us, they are even important beyond the questions of nature, but are more general questions that regards our city. The idea of again not having the possession of control to imagine that we can just find some places and they are beautiful, powerful, and have value. I think it is something that could make us do exercises twisting our city to imagine new tools for our future.

OS:A, Southern path on the Palatine Hill in Rome, Italy, 2018. A demonstration of how nature grows around human-made structures.

Katelyn Owens: In one of my past classes we discussed how people view and understand the idea of nature. We found that many view nature as something other than the built environment, or as something untouched by humans. We found that this allows people to easily miss how their actions have a direct impact on nature. How do you propose to adjust this ideology of nature so that it encompasses the landscape and greenery humans interact with or do you think it is something that can even be reshaped?

Annalisa: I’m not able to tell you a single direction because it is advanced in accordance with the site. We were speaking about some cities in Germany, where it is a practice to just fence some places and say people are not allowed to go. But on the other side, we have places, such as London, that are proposing themself as a natural park city so completely overlapping the idea of city and of nature reserve that we usually think, or used to think of, as two separated ideas. I think it is important for us to overcome the ideology of separation. So what is nature and what is people? I am afraid that this idea of nature reserve has something to do with a sort of obsession of originity that are very dangerous even after dealing with

politics, so this idea of going back to the origin because it is something safe. But because the origins or originity doesn’t exist, how can we define what is an artifact? An artifact is something that is transformed, it is manipulated. Is there something in the world that is not transformed by humans or itself? No. So everything in the world is in an evergoing process of transformation. So the idea of coming back to the origin makes no sense because there is not an origin there, and the idea of coming back to untouched nature is again, I think a very weird idea, because nature is not untouched. It is continuously touched by itself, by many kinds of advances that are continuously happening. Climate for example, but even the movement of the soil and the water. So even mentioning that without humans, nature is never untouched, it is continuously transformed. And if you go into this idea again, are nature reserves still something that has any sense or not. Or perhaps we have to think about a certain balance. This is a completely different idea to work in terms of balance, means to set the conditions for a dialogue not of the separation. Instances when you think about reserve, about fences, you are also thinking about separations of people here and nature there. I think that we could try to make something more interactive and more collaborative, and I think that there is a lot to do about that.

“... The idea of coming back to the origin makes no sense because there is not an origin there.”

Daniel Brubaker: In your journal article “The Case of the Pontine Plain,” you mention how facism brought utopian ideas of landscape architecture, making designs more formalized. Does the concept of nature creeping in carefully thought out urban footprints, be considered as the start of a utopia for the natural world? Does this make the human lifestyle less beneficial as before?

Annalisa: Yes, it is absolutely important because it is a conflict between humans and nature. So, what is good and what is not? Do we need to save nature, or do we need to control nature? These are two opposing positions, but they answer the same question. On one side, I want to save and keep nature thriving. While on the other side, I think it is hurtful and dangerous, so I need to tame it. I think both of these opposite positions are absolutely dangerous to us, and we instead need to stay in the middle. What I was proposing in that paper [The Case of the Pontine Plain] was exactly the opportunity to imagine coming back to nature, but not in terms of shapes, while keeping the reasons of what we did as humans. Perhaps, this is the same situation as before when talking about past and future. We are used to thinking about this condition when we think about buildings, but why not nature?

Even nature is a matter of thinking about the past moving into nature. Instead of thinking about such a radical acquisition, what about to merge the condition as to say I can keep Mussolini’s layout, but at the same time I can use it as a platform for making nature again there. It is not a matter of what is good or what is bad. It is a way to create conditions for dialogue; I am completely convinced about that. Many other scholars have made similar research, and if I may suggest to you a new book that was published by MIT Press a couple months ago? It is called Mussolini’s Nature by Marco Armiero. He is an environmental historian and is one of the most important scholars in the field of environmental humanities. He wrote this wonderful book on the idea of nature from a position that describes nature always as a political matter. You cannot think that nature is innocent. When you decide to destroy something, to fence something, to let someone go or not, you are always inside a very precise question. So, be aware. Similarly, everyone is okay with planting trees because it feels so natural; but, it is really not. Our obsession with numbers like CO2, and the number of trees planted, is simply something very political. We are transforming nature, strictly in quantities, and that is something completely absurd. Instead, the real connection of the site to nature is far more important.

OS:A, Fanoi temporary garden in Potenza, Italy, 2013. This project, lasting just one night, allows the public to become the form and life of the garden.

Jordan Ramsey: I have an interest in urban design, specifically on the revitalization of existing buildings/ urban areas. In blighted areas there tends to be overgrowth of nature. People tend to fear what they cannot control such as wild landscapes. What are the processes that you employ to help reshape how accepting people are about the idea of nature and allowing it to exist naturally in our spaces? How do you communicate these principles to the public who do not have the same knowledge as designers do?

Annalisa: Is very important because as you know, we are in a very strange season of things. On one hand, we like what we call, ‘wild nature.’ And it is even a trend in urban design. We have many experiences of new urban parks developed through this idea of wilderness that is designed. So you can understand it’s a product of an intention of human willingness. Instead, when we meet in the city, in a really wild place that is such of neglect, our judgment about the place is completely different, even if its image is not so different. Think about the park in Moscow by Diller and Scofidio that is a sort of wild situation in the city or design by Gilles Clement, for instance. On one side we can recognize human willingness, and on the other, we recognize neglect. So the matter is not aesthetic, it’s moral.

We are expressing a moral judgment on our presence in the city. So if wilderness is the by-product of design, it’s acceptable to us. But if wilderness is the by-product of our absence, it’s absolutely horrible. So which is the problem according to me? We as designers are asked to make people understand this message. For example, when we are facing real wild places, we can use very tiny devices to make people understand that it is not the effect of neglect but the effect of desires. For example, just cutting the herbs along the sides, you are telling people I am just cutting here, I could cut all that, but I’m just cutting here to demonstrate that I’m keeping that part of the wild. It is very little devices, but it is a crucial message that is telling people it is intentional. Or for example, putting other small devices such as benches, into a wild prairie, tells people, why not try to explore the site, why not try to enter, and perhaps there you will enjoy a wonderful situation. It’s a sort of invitation. So we have tools we can use to suggest to people to develop a different image of these places. Sometimes the quality is there, but we don’t see. We can use very simple tools to help people understand that. Some years ago I was in a park, and I was very surprised because I was walking into a high herbs prairie, along a path that was completely covered by the greenest grass I had ever seen in my life. In the film Big

Fish there is a city called Specter that has pavement completely covered in grass. It is completely uncanny. If you think of our city, you usually do not walk on the grass. The paths are paved or soil. If you pass here again over time, the soil will become compact, and herbs will not be able to grow. If I walk on that grass, what does it mean? It means the people that keep these places change the path and geometry. And it is great because it’s a way to keep fertility of the soil, and

realize the different conditions of using this place. So every season, you will follow another direction, and see the site in a completely different way. So that path told me I wasn’t in just a wild place, but in a place that is being taken care of even though it seems just a wild prairie in the city. So little actions are so powerful because they narrate to people what is there. It’s a matter of design as a sort of story telling of nature.

“If I walk on that grass, what does it mean? It means the people that keep these places change the path and geometry. And it is great because it’s a way to keep fertility of the soil, and realize the different conditions of using this place.”

Closing Inquires

William Mcafee Witherspoon: You talk about how you wish for nature to be more prevalent in our environment. What is your ultimate goal with this wish?

Annalisa: The question is what do we mean by nature? What is nature and how do we make nature known in our environment? I don’t know exactly what nature is, to understand that, I would have to research it with a biologist. There is one definition of nature I love very much, that is, nature is what is able to self manage in relation to its observer. This definition is crucial to me because it’s speaking about nature in terms of its behavior, not in terms of materials. Nature is plants, animals,

have to research it with a biologist. There is one definition of nature I love very much, that is, nature is what is able to self manage in relation to its observer. This definition is crucial to me because it’s speaking about nature in terms of its behavior, not in terms of materials. Nature is plants, animals, insects, fungus,

insects, fungus, and so on. The definition follows what nature does and not what it is. It’s not speaking about nature in terms of time, nature is what is original and untouched by man. This definition of nature has changed our very traditional ideas about nature, and that is the reason I love it. The ideas of nature are relative, and change with the circumstances of the observer. I think nature is everywhere, it can be the wind or rain, or the heat. It’s a matter of new relations. What is biological, what is not. What is leaving and what seems to be in the moment. Our question should not be where is nature, because nature is everywhere, but the question we should ask is how can we manage to design in collaboration with nature.

and so on. The definition follows what nature does and not what it is. It’s not speaking about nature in terms of time, nature is what is original and untouched by man. This definition of nature has changed our very traditional ideas about nature, and that is the reason I love it. The ideas of nature are relative, and change with the circumstances of the observer. I think nature is everywhere, it can be the wind or rain, or the heat. It’s a matter of new relations. What is biological, what is not. What is leaving and what seems to be in the moment. Our question should not be ‘where is nature?’ because nature is everywhere. The question we should ask is ‘how can we manage to design in collaboration with nature?’

OS:A, “Every Nine Days” temporary installation at the American Academy in Rome, 2022. An investigation into the behavoirs of nature and time.

“Our question should not be ‘where is nature?’ because nature is everywhere. The question we should ask is ‘how can we manage to design in collaboration with nature?’”

Isaac List: Do you have any projects that you consider to be a failure but it ended up teaching you a lot?

Annalisa: For sure, there are many projects that turned out to be a failure. I think the most important one I designed was the Italian Pavilion in Venice about 12 years ago. We had the idea of transforming the Italian Pavilion into a sort of underfoot space. So we designed it to hold all different kinds of plants that you usually find under the canopy of trees, which corresponds to the title of the project “Bosco Italia” which means Italy under wood. While I am very happy with that project because it was long before the trend of putting plants inside, it was a failure because we wanted to keep the project in the same condition throughout the exhibition as it was when it started. The problem was that the exhibition was four months long, and we did not take into account that no one would be taking care of the site.

So, what happened? Everything died. It was horrible, we had pictures from the opening and it was very beautiful and fantastic, and after a month all that beauty was gone. If I were to make that same project today, I would completely rethink it. I would design it so that the transformation of the plants would be part of the design. Not only using the plants dying as part of the design, but also the transformation of the kind of plants used, and the different biological cycles. Even though it was a big failure, I understood a lot of things, and because of that, in the end I was happy. I am now more confident in the idea of designing with transformation, and with the idea of taking care of the design throughout its life. This is the difference between making an object and making a landscape. A landscape never ends, and so you need to think about the afterlife of the design and not just what is there at the start of its life.

This interview with Annalisa Metta focuses on her development of open spaces and their relationships with nature, while providing insight into her design process, from her first interactions with the site to her visits after a project is completed. Students in the Video, Media, and Architecture course at Kent State University Florence were tasked with interviewing the guest lecturers brought in by the Kent State University Florence College of Architecture and Environmental Design, as a part of the Fall 2022 Guest Lecture Series. The students reviewed Annalisa Metta’s works and publications, as well as other interviews the she has taken part in. They then formulated questions based on her experiences, theories, and relevance to the students’ current studio project. These questions were used as a base for a conversation with Annalisa Metta.