NothingMore than a

Fragile EdgeBlurring the Boundaries

with Mario Cucinella

NothingMore than a

Fragile EdgeBlurring the Boundaries

with Mario Cucinella

The main focus of Mario Cucinella’s work is anoverlapping preoccupation with technology and thenatural environment. In his hands buildings aretransformed into complex climatic machines. Anna Giorgi explains how, when combined withan instinctive sense of place, these concernsallow Cucinella’s buildings to remainopen objects, fragments of a greaternatural or urban system.

The main focus of Mario Cucinella’s work is anoverlapping preoccupation with technology and thenatural environment. In his hands buildings aretransformed into complex climatic machines. Anna Giorgi explains how, when combined withan instinctive sense of place, these concernsallow Cucinella’s buildings to remainopen objects, fragments of a greaternatural or urban system.

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Mario Cucinella’s cult of ‘making’ reiterates a few simple andapparently banal rules that are strictly tied to the act ofbuilding and guaranteeing environmental comfort. His is anemotion without spectacle, though it is derived from a shift inscale, relationships between mass and volume, textures andmaterials, variations between light and shadow andmovements from warm to cold as one crosses a site. This mayperhaps be the result of his training with Renzo Piano, a laicand concrete approach to the profession, critical attention tothe demands of the market, and constant curiosity towardsnew materials and technologies without forgetting, however,emotion, sensations, perception – that extra something thatarchitecture, in order to make history, must offer.

Cucinella was educated during the 1980s at the Faculty ofArchitecture in Genoa where he graduated under the tutelageof Giancarlo de Carlo, a figure who brought the grand themesof intervening in the city to the Ligurian capital, based on thetheoretical and design experiences of Team X and CIAM (theInternational Congress of Modern Architecture). From hisParisian experience with Piano, Cucinella learned the concretenature of design, of rigorous plans, and the sense of operatinglike a workshop, and an approach towards research, the use oftechnology in the practice of making architecture and a methodand vision of construction. Two fundamental lines overlap inhis work: an attention to the necessity of building developedaround a new aesthetic of technology, and a research into thelandscape, in which architecture metabolises with nature.

In 1992 Cucinella opened an office in Paris, and in 1999 hisoffice in Bologna. The work of Mario Cucinella Architects(MCA) has since received numerous awards: an architecturalaward from the Akademie der Kunste in Berlin (1999),Outstanding Architect at the VIII World Renewable EnergyCongress in Denver (2004), the EnergyPerformance+Architecture Award in Paris, and the SpecialAward for the Environment at the Cityscape WorldArchitecture Congress held in Dubai.

MCA’s work is underlined by a clear vision of the principlesof Modernism; those that interpret architecture as a machine‘for dwelling’. The works of architecture are structured on asystem of material and immaterial networks, transformingthe building into a machine of connections that is capable ofinteracting with its context. Technology plays a central rolefor Cucinella, who uses innovation to resolve bothenvironmental and spatial planning issues. The central aspectguiding his design work is curiosity, the ability to learn whilemaking architecture. Contemporary design is an ever moreintegrated process that includes various disciplines, each ofwhich works towards the positive completion andinterpretation of a design, and for years now Cucinella hastested this interdisciplinary method, directing the variousprofessionals with whom he works.

He dealt with the theme of renewable energy and energysavings in 1993 while renovating the Joint Research Centre

(JRC) in Ispra, in collaboration with Ove Arup & Partners. Thissmall project incorporates the research the architect was todevelop further in the coming years.

The office had already dealt with the environment, climateand renewable energy during the previous year in thecompetition for the master plan for the University of Cypruscampus in Nicosia, a 100,000-square-metre (1.08-million-square-foot) project located on a morphologically complex site.

Mario Cucinella Architects, Sino Italian Ecological and Energy Efficient Building (SIEEB), Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, 2006.

Mario Cucinella Architects, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Lombardy, 1996The project for the renovation of the Joint Research Centre focused on findinginnovative energy-efficient and architectural solutions whose cost was offsetby the energy saved by the complex over a maximum period of 15 years. Thedesign phase concentrated on the study of the building and the necessarysteps for taking maximum advantage of natural light and ventilation, whileconsidering the existing volumes.

Mario Cucinella Architects, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus, 1993The master plan for the University of Cyprus interprets the insertion of thenew campus as the creation of a new landscape integrated within themorphology of the existing context. The building, properly oriented, developshorizontally like a ‘second skin’ that extends across the landscape, takingmaximum advantage of natural resources and providing the maximumreduction in energy consumption.

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Cucinella achieved international notoriety in 1997 with ahighly publicised project that has become a manifesto for thework of MCA: the iGuzzini Lighting Company headquarters inRecanati. The project was commissioned after a generationalchange in the Guzzini family and thus the idea of marking anew company line. There are three design themes: thecontrol of natural light, natural ventilation and the use of theexisting thermal mass of the concrete structure.Transparency is used to introduce a new way ofunderstanding the working environment. The Modernistmachine, conceived of primarily as a space that guaranteesthe essential conditions for inhabitation, is transformed intoa complex climatic machine that includes the outdoors andthe interior space of the central atrium.

In 2003 MCA completed a project for the Unified ServicesHeadquarters for the City of Bologna, which called for theunification, under one roof, of offices spread out in 21different buildings. Cucinella here proposed an articulatedspatial and philosophical concept based on a diagram of thefragmentation of a mass into three pieces, each with adifferent size and form. There is a desire, in this fringecondition located along a rail corridor, to create a new urbansite with multiple paths and views. The strongest sign is theroof that rests on and models the volumes located at differentlevels, based on the principles of origami.

MCA reached the apotheosis of its research into the themeof energy and the environment in 2005 with the Sino ItalianEcological and Energy Efficient Building (SIEEB) at theTsinghua University in Beijing. The project, promoted by theItalian Ministry of the Environment and TerritorialConservation, and the Chinese Ministry of Science andTechnology, is the result of a collaboration between the BEST

Mario Cucinella Architects, iGuzzini Lighting Company Headquarters, Recanati, Le Marche, 1997The warm air from the iGuzzini offices is collected and emitted through ventilation grilles located on the sides of theskylights which, together with the control of the openings in the facade, are part of the cooling cycle during the interimseasons. The south- and north-facing facades are entirely transparent, and protection against solar heat gain isensured throughout the building via a steel-fin roof that drops partially down over the facade, providing the necessarylevels of shading/passage of the sun’s rays at different times of the year.

Designed to house iGuzzini’s administrative, commercial and managerialoffices, the building pays particular attention to natural light, naturalventilation and the use of thermal masses. The offices are distributed on fourlevels organised around a central atrium that contains a mineral gardenfeaturing fragments of stone and bamboo stalks.

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Department at the Milan Polytechnic and the Bologna-basedoffice, both of whom worked with the directives issued by theKyoto Protocol regarding the reduction of environmentallyharmful emissions. It is an important result for this Italianoffice and justifies years of research into renewable energiesand the environment. The building, on the university campus,features a complex programme that includes variousdepartments, laboratories, an auditorium and a display spacededicated to Italian technologies. Conceived of like a leaf thatuses and transforms sunlight, the new structure ischaracterised by south-facing terraced gardens that becomegreen spaces, and a mimetic technology of 1,000 squaremetres (10,764 square feet) of photovoltaic panels that providea substantial amount of the building’s energy requirements.Technology becomes a service and the facade is equipped with

a double skin whose external glazing has been treated with aspecial surface that attenuates the effects of the sun’s raysand avoids problems of glare.

The difficult theme of the insertion of new works ofarchitecture within a historical context offered the Bolognaoffice the possibility to affirm its programmatic intentions. InCremona, the office dealt with one of the city’s mostrepresentative buildings, the former Casa di Bianco, whichhad been heavily transformed in the 1920s and during thesecond half of the 20th century. The symbolic value of theintervention was that of eliminating the historicalfalsifications that had been perpetrated over time. Cucinellaoperated with discretion, without altering the volumetricappearance, working from the inside and replacing thestereometric and modular 1970s facade.

Mario Cucinella Architects, Unified Services Headquarters, Bologna, due for completion 2008A response to a competition held by the City of Bologna to design a new unified municipal services building, theintention here was to reunite, in a single functional and efficient building, various offices and more than a thousandemployees who were previously spread out across 21 different buildings. Furthermore, the inclusion of commercialand service spaces for the neighbourhood contributes to the requalification of a portion of the city that needed to bereconnected to the city centre, restitching the fissure created by the location of the railway corridor.

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Mario Cucinella Architects, Sino Italian Ecological and Energy Efficient Building (SIEEB), Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, 2006The SIEEB building is the result of a collaboration between the Italian Ministry of the Environment and Territorial Conservation and theChinese Ministry of Science and Technology as part of the Kyoto Protocol for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and a vastprogramme to deal with environmental issues. It contains various departments, laboratories, an auditorium and exhibition spacesdedicated to the presentation of Italian technologies.

The building is designed like a leaf that transforms sunlight into energy. A series of south-facing terraced gardens ishome to thick vegetation and more than 1,000 square metres (10,764 square feet) of photovoltaic panels that providea substantial amount of the building’s energy requirements. The horseshoe shape is in juxtaposition with the sun’smovements, thus allowing for continuous natural illumination of the offices and reducing energy requirements.

Mario Cucinella Architects, Casa di Bianco, Cremona, Lombardy, 2005Cucinella’s proposal for the renovation of the Casa di Bianco calls for therestoration of the 16th-century facade, the renovation of the tower, and amore consistent intervention on the modern block in the search for arespectful relationship with the historic context. Local materials and elementstypical of the area, in particular shutters and polychrome colours, arereinterpreted in a contemporary way.

A garden is created inside the historic patio, onto which face the balconiesthat provide access to the residences and offices on the upper floors. Thisinternal courtyard is characterised by a continuous facade of glass sheets,fixed to fork-like elements and mounted on steel supports to protect thebalconies used for internal circulation.

Mario Cucinella Architects, eBo Exhibition Pavilion, Bologna, 2003Cucinella’s project for the eBo urban centre meets the twofold need ofpresenting current and future projects and finding a suitable and visiblelocation in which to house them. The site is located in the middle of thecity centre and realised through the recovery of a subterranean spacethat functions as a connection with various surrounding points as wellas providing access to the Piazza Re Enzo. Above ground, on a slightlyraised surface, two transparent pavilions create an entrance andcontain some of the display spaces.

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Still relevant to the aforementioned theme, we find one ofCucinella’s most well-known projects, the eBo ExhibitionPavilion in Bologna, a contemporary intervention located onone of the city’s most famous sites. Unfortunately the projectwas removed following opposition from traditionalists whodid not understand the meaning of this small, contemporarydisplay pavilion, immediately identifiable within the uniformcontext of the urban fabric, within the historical city ofBologna. The concept behind the precious object was theresult of the desire to underline the role of the structureknown as the ‘urban centre’, designed to foster discussion ofurban transformations with the public. Cucinella focused onthe topic of electronic information and created two ellipticalforms, each with a surface area of roughly 200 square metres

(2,153 square feet). The two ellipses were set beside one anotherand rotated until they reached a point of mediation, the spacebetween them becoming the entrance to the pavilion, creatingan element of tension with the site and its history, and definingthe threshold and the symbolic point of access. This was a softdialogue between the past and the contemporary in an areathat had previously been mishandled and heavily transformed,creating a temporary and conceptual distance.

Something different can be found in the response to therequests made by the Hines Company regarding therenovation of its office building on Via Bergognone in Milan.This area, located between the Navigli, the ring road, and theperiphery is characterised by the presence of industrialbuildings that are currently being decommissioned. Thecomplex is made up of four buildings originally used as officesand storage space by the Italian postal service during the1960s and 1970s. The project is particularly complex becauseit calls for the maintenance of the existing volumes and theredesign of the entire site, coordinating it through a singlematerial and spatial image. Cucinella’s approach was to givegreater importance to the new building, redesigning thefacade with a transparent and highly technological envelope.Two fundamental steps were key to this intervention: theredesign of the external skin, with a clear desire to recoverthe modern identity of the industrial buildings, and theimportant and effective work undertaken in the interiorcourtyard, redesigned by demolishing part of the building toreinforce the internal views and perspectives.

Thus we find the key to the quality of Cucinella’s work,which moves between the conscientious and modernapplication of a constantly evolving Rationalism and anattention to the emotion a space can generate. What is more,the space does not become the object of a self-referentialdefinition that is all too evident and closed, but is transformedinstead into a fragment, designed with care, passion andcuriosity, part of an extended urban or natural system.Nothing more than a fragile edge separates the gesture fromthe sign, a building from a work of architecture, the futurefrom history. It is already important that we move in thisdirection, and when the spell functions it creates poetry. 4

Translated from the Italian version into English by Paul David Blackmore

Text © 2007 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: © Mario Cucinella, p 50, 51(b),52(t), 54(t&bl) & 55 photos MCA Archives; pp 51(t), 52(b), 56(b) & 57 photosJean de Calan; p 53 photo Evangelisti Zambrini; p 54(br) photo GabrieleBasilico; p 56(t) photos Ornella Sancassani

Mario Cucinella Architects, Office building, Via Bergognone, Milan, 2004The renovation of the office building on Via Bergognone was the result of aninternational competition promoted by the Hines real-estate company.Located in an area that is dense with industrial buildings currently beingdecommissioned, the project calls for the integral renovation of a complex offour buildings from the 1960s that create an internal courtyard. By interpretingthe blocks as a single urban building, the intervention maintains the existingvolumes, modifying their functions and modernising the design of the overallcomplex through the use of new windows, the opening of double-heightspaces and the new design of the courtyard garden.

Nothing more than a fragileedge separates the gesturefrom the sign, a building froma work of architecture, thefuture from history.