Présentation de l'éditeur :
This is a monograph dedicated to the famous international architect and designer, who was born in Argentina, but adopted the United States as his home. He is known throughout the world for a design sensitivity that skilfully brings together architecture and landscape. Creator of innovative systems and a driver of cultural trends,
Emilio Ambasz re-invents the universe by creating urban ensembles that emerge like crystal volcanoes, pieces of architecture that are natural landscapes and gardens that become a city’s artificial mechanisms – all through entirely original spatial and urban designs.
As explained by Fulvio Irace “fascinated by the eternal story of the foundation myths, Emilio Ambasz’s architecture from the 1970s has the eccentric traces of poetic narration. Preceded by the aphoristic narratives of the “Working Fables”, the first works by this unique Argentinean Aesop are in fact accompanying visual tables to a design didactic that urges us to reconsider the ethical motives of building, and to restore landscapes interrupted by world transformation and changes in society: “I chose to be a writer of fables more than an ideologist – Ambasz says – because there is an immutable core in fables, which is destined to survive ideologies that wither away. The construction of fables is not a literary accessory but a key part of my work method. At times the fable is a design and the descriptive part is purely technical; at other times the imaginary part itself becomes illustration. In any case, the accompanying text to a fable is a ritual and my work is directed to the very illustration of these rituals”.
The monograph documents Ambasz’s creative universe from the 1980s to the present day, from Plaza Mayor in Salamanca to the Houston Center Plaza in Houston, from New Town Center in Chiba in Japan to the Terminus Gardens in Sirmione, from the Modern Art and Cinema Museum in Buenos Aires to the Commercial Centre in Amersfoort in Holland.
Fulvio Irace teaches History of Contemporary Architecture in the Faculty of Architecture at the Milan Polytechnic. He was editor of the architecture section of “Domus” magazine (1980-86), and has been a contributor on several important sector magazines (such as “Architectural Review”, “Lotus”, and “Ottagono”). Presently he writes for “Abitare” magazine and is the architecture critic for “Il Sole 24 Ore”.
The book is published on the occasion of the exhibition:
Emilio Ambasz. Costruire con la natura
Milan, Triennial from 27 May to 24 July 2005
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