Arabic

Emilio Ambasz

President, Emilio Ambasz & Associates, Inc.

GREEN OVER GREY or  ARCHITECTURE AND NATURE:  TOWARDS A PACT OF RECONCILIATION

The Greeks' conception of Man's creations as distinct and separate entities in  contrast with Nature,  has exhausted its intellectual and ethical capital. I strive to create a more      a-tectonic notion of architecture, where architecture is conceived as an integral component of that Man-made Nature we are willingly, as well as unwittingly, creating. I see my task as an architect as that task of reconciling our man-made Nature with the organic one we have been given.

The Modern Movement in architecture advanced the ideal of urban redemption by proposing "the House In the Garden," i.e. the house surrounded by the garden (for example, 40% for the house, 60% for the garden), but where each one remains distinct and separate from the other. With my buildings I seek to design a "pact of reconciliation" whereby we have both, "the House AND the Garden," i.e. 100% of the house and 100% of the garden, organically integrated, for in such contract the house "gives back," in the form of communally accessible greenery, 100% of the land it covers