This volume collates and presents the key projects, within Italy and globally, which mark fifteen years of activity of the international architectural firm Mario Cucinella Architects. The book has been designed to convey the idea of a large notebook: an obejct which is light, soft, rough and brimming with notes.
From the Ferrara Arpae to Catania’s San Berillo, from the interventions in China, Ghana, Algeria and Palestine to the five sites in Milan, which are destined to change the skyline of the metropolitan city: namely the UnipolSai and the new COIMA headquarters in the Porta Nuova area, the ‘Health and Research City’ in Sesto San Giovanni; the project for the New Surgical and Emergencies Site for the San Raffaele Hospital; the Rovati Foundation Museum in Corso Venezia.
Mario Cucinella, whose projects have won numerous international awards, is currently considered one of the leading architects in Europe. Unrivalled for his attention to sustainability in all of his work—from private commissions to urban master plans—his work is also celebrated for its design excellence.
From the social and environmental perspective, the impact and value of his discipline and of mentorship—as well as his social commitment—have been recognized around the world, most recently by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), which awarded him the prestigious International Fellowship for the year 2016.
Winner of numerous commissions, he has designed transformational civic, commercial, educational, medical and urban projects; not just in Italy, but also in Algeria, China, Ghana, Palestine and more.In summary, Cucinella himself captures his mission with these apt words: “To conceive sustainable buildings is to enter in direct contact with the feel and the concept of ‘place’. We have to imagine low-tech-visibility buildings in order to make the forms and materials which are evolving to become the actors of the resulting space, work harder.
Materials that play an invisible role, a function, which will become part of a new circular economy. This process seems to me to bring us a step closer to the complexity of nature, rather than of the mechanical artifice. Buildings with a high degree of empathy: a creative empathy.“
Published on the occasion of the exhibition at the Milan Triennale, this volume opens with an introduction by Luca Molinari, and includes written contributions by Mario Cucinella, as well as other professionals and experts in the field who for years have collaborated with MCA (namely Samia Nkrumah, Antonella Agnoli, Brian Ford, Antonio Navarra, Marilena Baggio, John Olley and Luca De Biase).
