Ferdinando Crespi of Ufficio Stampa writes:

It is a pleasure to announce the new book written by Emilio Ambasz, a great supporter of Greenroofs.com: EMILIO AMBASZ. GREEN ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN FAIRY TALES

EMILIO AMBASZ. GREEN ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN FAIRY TALES

The architect, author and pioneer of green architecture’s latest book, Emilio Ambasz. Green Architecture & Design Fairy Tales, is edited by Fulvio Irace, professor emeritus at the Politecnico di Milano. Collecting for the first time the corpus of writings by Emilio Ambasz, father, poet, and prophet of green architecture: fables, notes, stories, fragments and notes lead to the heart of the poetic and creative Universe of the great Argentine inventor.

Just as Ambasz understands architecture as the search for a spiritual home, the poetic essence of his fables – accompanied by the drawings of Daniela Blandino – “resists time with its core of truth disguised as children’s fairy tales,” writes Irace. An extraordinary personality, Emilio Ambasz has crossed and crosses the world of creativity in the broadest sense of the term in many ways.

With the power of his anticipatory gaze, Ambasz wanted to represent the world of forms of wonderful possibilities combining, with his ‘gentle manifesto,’ spiritual and material projects, nature, and humanity.

Emotional and sensual, his projects are based on ideas and thoughts destined for a different approach to existence, and the collection of texts in this book retraces some of his most iconic creations, together with the tales of loved or dreamed cities and the dialogues with architects and artists with whom he has established a unique relationship of ‘elective affinities.’

“The invention of the fables that I have written in the last fifty years,” – as Ambasz likes to remind – “is the fulcrum of my working methods, not just a literary accessory. The subtext of a fable, after all, is a ritual, and it is precisely in support of the rituals that most of my work develops.”

Sensitively edited by Fulvio Irace, Emilio Ambasz. Green Architecture & Design Fairy Tales brings together the design stories and writings with which the architect accompanied the projects that marked the various stages of his prolific career: an anthology that puts his gentle manifesto into practice – green over gray.

A pioneer of sustainable architecture, the architect Emilio Ambasz has been pushing forward pressing themes and ideas since the 1970s, from urban forestation to the reuse of existing buildings through the revitalizing use of natural elements. Projects and buildings such as the ACROS Building in Fukuoka, Japan – built 28 years ago and awarded first prize by the Japanese Institute of Architecture – have made famous his original approach to architecture as landscape, namely as a landscape that moulds the earth so that it can comfortably accommodate people.

Offered in Italian and English, the vividly colored 176-page hardcover EMILIO AMBASZ. GREEN ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN FAIRY TALES, edited by Fulvio Irace with illustrations by Daniela Blandino, published by Corraini Editore, 2021 is available for purchase at €25.

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