URBAN WILDLIFE SANCTUARY – NATURART PROJECT

In Naturart the architectural garden design finds an harmonious union with the visual arts in a careful and balanced space. Inspired by this challenging purpose, architects Massimiliano Dellamaria and Arianna Dorissa teamed up with Ester Baruffaldi, curator at No Title Gallery, and artist Gola Hundun to design the garden you are visiting.

Naturart aims to be not only a theoretical architectural landscape project, ending on the paper or with a temporary materialization.

It aims to be a replicable model of synergy between the architectural design of an urban public space and the use of art as an instrument of enrichment of the project itself and its future users.

The area is divided into three moments, connected by three paths – axes starting from the edges, going up the gentle slope and guiding the visitors to the top, where there’s a sort of secret garden.

The grassland, the first moment, gradually goes up from the gravel edges to the top, recalling, thanks to the thickets of pear trees, birches and box woods, the configuration of the traditional English garden. Aromatic herbs, such as rosemary, licorice and white thyme, are organically combined, allowing their scents to unravel the garden to the public.

On the grass everyone is invited to get in direct touch with nature, taking the shoes off and feeling the grass beneath the feet, in a sort of symbiotic and harmonious exchange.

The grassland climb is supported by three plasterboard walls, where the work of the artist Gola Hundun comes to life. It has not only a merely decorative function: on the contrary, it aims to stimulate thoughts on the relationship between the human being (the citizen) and the urban flora and fauna. Therefore the second moment is represented by the architectonical confines, characterized by an interesting hybridization of mural painting and vertical garden: natural and human creation melt together organically and symbolically, suggesting a new way of conceiving the artwork in relationship to the architectural design of a public urban space. Each wall is dedicated to a zoological branch that we can find in our cities: insects, birds and animals.

The three walls enclose a triangular space in white gravel, provided with three access points corresponding to the three axes: it’s the third and last moment, meant for rest, observation and meditation on the artwork. Gola Hundun, the artist, sees this hortus conclusus as a “sanctuary for the urban fauna”, a space for both entertainment and relax, with an educational accent given by the interaction of the public with the environment and the artwork.

Pordenone 2016

Curated by Ester Baruffaldi

Photo and video credit  Blind Eye Factory