Mario Cucinella is a pioneer of sustainable architecture, a subject we explored with him in a previous interview on the theme of urban development and regeneration, as demonstrated by projects such as the Casa della musica in the areas of Emilia Romagna struck by the 2012 earthquake, and the recently inaugurated Centro Arti e Scienze Golinelli in Bologna. As a promoter of sustainable practices applied from the individual home to urban master plans, he also founded Sos-school of sustainability in the Emilian capital in 2015, a school aimed at training new professionals in the field of sustainability.

Mario Cucinella at Design Week 2018 with Smartown

We met Cucinella during Milan Design Week 2018 at the Orto Botanico di Brera, where the young architects of Sos-school of sustainability created, under his supervision, Smartown: an installation designed to prompt visitors to reflect on sustainable energy consumption through the metaphor of an imaginary city made up of 700 small, luminous, smart houses. He told us how the path to achieving change is long and complex, but that it is important for the conversation to keep growing.

Read also: Mario Cucinella. Aesthetic value stems from the ethical dimension

Sustainability was one of the central themes of Design Week 2018. To what extent does this reflect a genuine shift in the way we think about the relationship between architecture and the environment, and to what extent is it simply a trend?
Let's say there are two sides to this issue: the first leads me to say that it's good that people are talking about it, because it helps raise awareness and a greater general consciousness. The subject is very important and must be addressed. Even when it is approached in a somewhat opportunistic, superficial or aesthetic way, it has its merits and its drawbacks. The second side is that this is a very serious matter. Compared to the architectural movements of previous years, where there was always a "fashion" strand, here it will be harder to simply follow a trend, because on this subject there is an aspect of expertise that is still far from being truly acquired. The real change is not just the climatic one, which will happen regardless, but precisely the kind of deep cultural change we need to make our own: one in which man is no longer at the centre, dominating nature. When we come to the awareness that we are part of a larger system, that we are just one piece of an equilibrium we need to rediscover, perhaps architecture too will take on a new aesthetic, a new, less forced and less dominant relationship with the world. This still seems the most distant aspect, yet the fact that it is being discussed is positive nonetheless, because changes are slow, difficult and lengthy — so one has to start somewhere.

Read also: Bologna as a new international hub with the Centro Arti e Scienze Golinelli by Mario Cucinella

Is broadening horizons and moving away from a centripetal vision also the concept behind the project for the Italian pavilion at the upcoming Architecture Biennale, which opens at the end of May in Venice?
We chose a theme — or rather, we first chose what not to talk about, namely metropolitan cities, because in Italy we don't really have any. An administrative system was created that produced 15 metropolitan cities that have very little that is truly metropolitan about them. We asked ourselves: if I remove the metropolitan cities, what is left? Sixty-five per cent of the country, and places where the DNA of Italy is still kept alive. What I want to tell at the Biennale is not the usual story, but the fact that Italy has followed a path on the urban question that is very different from other countries. We don't have large cities for the simple reason that we have pursued a centuries-old policy of the relationship between city and countryside, ever since we founded them and built a network of cities. These networks have been great custodians of culture, but they have also grown in terms of competitiveness, which has allowed our culture to develop in a complex way with a very high creative content. Those thousand years of competition between cities to make a better product, to satisfy their citizens, have created a humus that is entirely Italian. This choice also aims to highlight an important shift. I want to make young architects understand that you don't need to have built a building in Hong Kong to be a great architect. An architect is a person who takes part in social and civic life, including through measured, fitting works — small buildings, things that are useful and that serve a purpose. We travelled across the country precisely to find those architects who are less glamorous, a little less accustomed to the pages of newspapers, but who do honest work that serves the country. Architecture must serve the country, and far too little of it does.

Read also: Casa della musica, Mario Cucinella's project for the post-earthquake reconstruction of Emilia Romagna

Perhaps the media should also pay more attention to lesser-known architects?
It is also a question of maturity — of having now realised that we need a great deal of concreteness too, projects that are connected to their contexts. We need to rediscover our origins a little, where you don't always have to shout or be extravagant, but can also be measured. The Italian territory is complex, deeply rooted in history, including in its relationship with the landscape. And there we can create a great school of architecture that is also much closer to sustainability. When we talk about depopulation and infrastructure problems, we are talking about the country's lungs. The inner areas are the lungs that allow us to survive. We are talking about the places with the greatest biodiversity, with values of sustainability that we do not find in cities. We need to place a priority on the agenda: the environment. And then those areas become truly important, fundamental. There is a question of health, of neighbourly relations; we are discovering that being closer together is a way of caring for each other better, that our landscape has great value and we cannot keep wounding it with activities that damage it. We want to tell a story that is entirely our own: in a Biennale where every country represents itself, we represent what we are.

Smartown, the poetic installation created at the Brera botanical garden during Design Week, celebrates the home and the immaterial beauty of energy while inviting reflection on consumption. What is its message?
The theme of this installation is the home, the fundamental nucleus of dwelling. In this context we wanted to tell the story of the beautiful relationship between architecture and nature. In this case nature wins in terms of scale, and that already strikes me as a fine metaphor. Another theme is that of recounting the story of energy: which has a problem in that it is invisible. We try to show how the digital world can help us see it, control it, measure it within a system where digital tools become part of our everyday lives. At that point you perceive energy through instruments that allow you to pursue a policy of energy saving. This is the metaphor of the home as the last space of intimacy, but also as a place that, within the dimension of the city, represents one of the great problems of consumption and pollution. These worlds are drawing closer together and allow you to keep waste in check. That, it seems to me, is the most important message to convey.