INSECT ARCHITECT

Mia Zhang interviewing Marco Casagrande

PRO.DESIGN 01/2014 

ISBN 978-988-12438-8-1

Cicada, Taipei

Marco enjoys insect architecture construction, where the building parts are human scale --- fits a hand and the structure can be woven up together by small scale repetitions, like insect architecture. 

Pro. Design: What inspired you to get into architecture? 

Marco Casagrande (Marco for short): I have always been drawing, playing in forest, building snow cave systems and imagining my own worlds, telling stories to myself. I didn't choose architecture, I just ended up there. 

Pro. Design: What would you prefer to be called, architect, environmental artist, or social theorist?

Marco: I would like to be called something that combines all of those three. Maybe Constructor or Insect. 

T-Factory, Sanjhih, Taiwan

Pro. Design: Insect Architect?

Marco: I enjoy this kind of construction, where the building parts are human scale - fits a hand and the structure can be woven up together by small scale repetitions, like insect architecture. I got very curious about insects when fixing up a Fujian style brick roof in T-Factory, Sanjhih, North-Taiwan and a bee came to steal my cement from my red bucket. This big bee kept coming back and I wondered what he did with the cement --- could he digest it? (I had mixed some lime and sea-weed into the cement for flexibility.) After a couple of months I found the cocoon of the bee in the downstairs of our living ruin. He had mixed the concrete with mud and pieces of straw and wood in order to create a fantastic dome structure with natural ventilation for his offspring, which had flown away. I documented this cocoon and started imagining humans in insect scale and building these kinds of  cocoons and other insect architecture strictly tied with nature for us modern men as industrial insects. 

Wasp cocoon made out of weak concrete.

Pro. Design: Insect Architect? Since 1999, you have created 65 cross-disciplinary, original and radical works within 14 years? It sounds quite a large number. How could you be inspired so much?

Marco: There is no limitation for inspiration. Limitation is a different thing. Life is unlimited inspiration. Inspiration is kind of a thought originating from nature, the life-providing system. This system is one big brain and if you connect with it, you are inspired. Nature thinks through you.

Pro. Design: I saw a picture of you carrying stones during the construction of Bug Dome project in Shenzhen City. Are you always engaged yourself in the whole construction process? 

Marco: Being present is the key of all art. It is a blessing, not a burden. Architecture is not a remote control art, but it requires humane presence. I must be there in order to understand, what the architecture is trying to transmit, what it needs to become. I am a simple architect, not a fortune-teller…I need to be there. 

Bug Dome by WEAK! in Shenzhen, China. 

Pro. Design: Your studio name is Casagrande lab. I mean, Casagrande is your name, of course, but why “lab”? Is experimentation your major focus? Then what do you experimenting on?

We are working more like a laboratory than an office. All our work is project based and cross-disciplinary. Sometimes, when we are really good, you could call us a circus. Art is a constant experiment by its nature. Also the deepest nature of architecture is the unknown. 

Sandworm, Belgium

Sandworm, "Willow Cathedral", interior.

Pro. Design: You used a lot of willow. I have seen willow woven objects like basket. They are adorable, and because they are small they don’t seem to contrast drastically to the modern world. But a large project, like Cicada in Taipei, would contrast a lot to the surrounding, at least to me. So how do you see that contrast? 

Marco: Mixed feelings. It shows how brutal the surrounding city is, but same time offers an escape or retreat to the modern man. In some sense this kind of insect architecture is acting as a mediator between the modern man and nature. You can also see how totally the modern city is lacking local knowledge.

Cicada, Taipei

Pro. Design: How would you describe your style?

Marco: No trends, no style – just architecture. Later, when the transformation is almost complete, my way is insect architecture. 

Pro. Design: What do you enjoy most in your work?

Marco: Seeing the unknown, forgotten and neglected. I enjoy the feeling of freedom and clarity, when you are truly working, when architecture is near. 

Pro. Design: What do you think is the most important quality of an architect?

Marco: There are different ways, not only one. Some architects have the capacity of being a design shaman, interpreting what the bigger nature of collective mind or shared conscious if transmitting. This shamanism is close to nature.

Chen House, Sanjhih, Taiwan

Pro. Design: What are the aspects of architecture you consider most important? 

Marco: Constructing human environment as a mediator between man and nature. This can be both practical and spiritual. 

Pro. Design: What do you think of the current situation of architecture? 

Marco: Boring. Modern architecture is dominated by industrialism and tries to compensate this trauma by flashy images and computer generated mutations. Architecture has become pornography for architects and kinky architecture hangs around politicians and businessmen, who get pleasure in dominating an architect to make their twisted orders come true. In this situation architect is a prostitute, which becomes boring after a while. We really have to focus on local knowledge and the possibilities of bio-urbanism together with normal people and get rid of the power-architecture. 

Ruin Academy in Artena, Italy

Pro. Design: Could you share with us briefly about what you are working on currently?

Marco: I am setting up NOMAD - an environmental art and architecture school with architect Hans-Petter Bjørnådal in Hemnes, Norway and I am setting up Ruin Academy with architects Roan Ching-Yueh and Hsieh Ying-Chun in Taipei and with the International Society of Biourbanism in Artena, Italy. I am starting to design a new wooden house in Taidong, South-Taiwan. This house will be floating in jungle.

Pro. Design: I saw you quoted Bertolt Brecht “In a dream last night, I saw a great storm. It seized the scaffolding….” So you read a lot of Bertolt Brecht? Which of his book is your favourite? What other writers do you like?

Marco: I like Brecht poems. They are good for hang-over. 

    Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness 

    Arkady and Boris Strugatsky: Roadside Picnic 

    Adorno & Horkheimer: Dialectics of Enlightment 

    Burgess: A Clockwork Organge 

    Claude Levi-Straus: The Savage Mind 

    Beckett: Waiting for Godot 

    Lao Tzu: Dao Te Qing 

    Kropotkin: The Spirit of Revolt 

    Kalevala 

    Tolstoy: War and Peace 

But movies are equally important:

    Tarkovsky: Stalker

    Francis Ford Coppola: Apocalypse NOW!

    Fritz Lang: Metropolis

    Kubrick: 2001: A Space Odyssey 

    Eisenstein: Ivan the Terrible

    Bergman: 7th Seal

    Kurozawa: Dersu Uzala

    Herzog: Fata Morgana

    Kaurismäki: Man Withouth Past

    Schlöndorff: The Tin Drum

Pro. Design: What do you believe in?

Marco: Life / Nature, Accident

Pro. Design: Is there any difference between the working you and the not working you?

Marco: I am in the ruins, in the cross-roads, on river banks and garbage dumps. The office-me is nothing of this, but I am constantly aware of it and constantly escape to the jungle. 

Pro. Design: What kind of lifestyle do you prefer? 

Marco: Real Reality. 

Madam Chen at Chen House

Pro. Design: What do you love to do when you are not designing? 

Marco: Fishing. Boxing. Drinking. Sauna. Play with kids. Enduro. Watch movies. Pick mushrooms.

Pro. Design: Do you like music? What is your favorite musician? 

Marco: Right now I enjoy to dance Greek Zorbas with my 9 months old son. 

Pro. Design: You have to expose yourself in nature so as to get inspired. But getting close to nature always reminds me of being wild and adventurous. Would the birth of your son change your way of approaching nature? Would you take a more reserved way?
Marco: Nature is about energy exchange. you have to input some of your own energy in order to receive reality. Other than that is just viewing of nature, which is kind of a fiction. Real nature demands your energy. Flesh is more. My son will not be "protected" from nature; on the contrary, the whole family will be fully sacrificed to nature. One has to die a bit to be re-born. 

Pavilion in a Million

Jennifer Rees. TIMBER iQ, August 2012 p. 26 - 30

Timber iQ's editor talks to Marco Casagrande about his latest addition to the Taipei cityscape and how, through design and material choices, the structure engages with the city and its people

Casagrande was born in 1971 in Turku, Finland, and completed his studies at the Helsinki University of Technology Department of Architecture in 2001. From early on, Casagrande began mixing architecture with various other artistic disciplines, as well as science, which has resulted in his famous eco-conscious installations across the world.

Casagrande’s work and teachings move freely between architecture, urban and environmental design and science, environmental art and circus, culminating in a hybrid of architectural thinking called “commedia dell’architettura,” a broad vision of built human environment tied into social drama and environmental awareness. 

In a highly industrialised area of Taipei, Marco Casagrande’s Cicada pavilion represents a gentle, yet bold and refreshing interjection into the concrete hardness that is synonymous with a working city and offers a welcome cocoon for escape from the city, and industrial meditation.

Jr: 

Marco, how are you Trained and from what or whom do you draw your inspiration? 

mc: 

I studied architecture, but the real studying has been through my work and meeting with people. Childhood in 

Lapland is as important as university, if not more. Child-me keeps me in connection with nature. I am more inspired by movie directors than other architects. Tarkovsky, Eisenstein, Lang, Bergman, Kurozawa, Coppola in Apocalypse Now, Kubric, etc. Books are also important. My biggest inspiration is nature, including human nature. 

Jr: 

What projects and/or events led to the design and creation of the Cicada pavilion and why was this project executed in Taipei?

mc: 

I worked the first time with bamboo and organic structure in Shenzhen Biennial in 2009 together with Hsieh Ying-Chun and Roan Chin-Yueh. This was my first encounter with the South-Chinese local knowledge of bamboo. Cicada’s client visited the Shenzhen Bug Dome and later on wanted something like that in Taipei. The idea is to ruin the industrial city. Ruin is when something man-made has become part of nature. Local knowledge is one of the elements that can turn the industrial machine into an organic machine. 

Jr: 

You sougth to create a structure that is out of place, both in terms of time and material. What instigated the need to do this and how does the Cicada pavilion fulfil this need?

mc: 

Modern man has to take the liberty to travel 1000 years back in order to realize that things are the same. Cicada offers this possibility. High density urban communities have been living in good harmony with the 

surrounding nature, but we have forgotten this. In order to reach the Third Generation City we need to forget this forgetting and let nature in. Modern man in a box is doomed to dementia. 

Jr:

Why did you choose to use a fire pit and benches inside the pavilion?

mc: 

Making open fire inside the modern city is interesting for me. Citizens around the fire sort of melt down and 

become human again. The benches are like insects in this space that can be used for many purposes. The organic form is made for the dramatics of the space and for the way light comes in. The hole is for a vertical axis and in connection with the fire-place.

"Ruin is when something man-made has become part of nature. Local knowledge is one of the elements that can turn the industrial machine into an organic machine."

Jr:

What led you to making use of a vacant site that is awaiting development for the creation of the Cicada pavilion? An will the pavilion be destroyed in time to make room for other developments?

mc:

In Taipei the slow circles of official development offer more fruitful possibilities for unofficial micro-development. Community gardens and urban farms are taking place on similar sites like Cicada – waiting for 

development. Some farms or gardens can be 20 years old on sites that, for example, banks are fighting for. 

Meanwhile, grandmothers are farming and tuning the city towards the organic. This is Urban Acupuncture. Cicada is following this method. The pavilion will get destroyed and the site will get developed and new holes in the city’s mechanical reality will open up for organic growth.

Jr:

Why did you choose to use bamboo in this project?

mc:

The whole structure is bamboo - amazing material when it comes to organic strength. For anchoring, there is 

a pile of top-soil outside as the counter-weight. The bamboo is from Central Taiwan and it is not treated in any way. Similar kinds of structures have been done forever. Only the city is a new thing.

Jr:

Why was ivy planted along the side of the structure? How does this form part of your idea?

mc:

The creepers provide good micro-climate and change the building every day. It is good if architecture can 

become a structure for urban bonsai. Architecture without nature is nonsense.

Jr:

How do you respond to Cicada being "insect architecture"? What does this meat to you?

mc:

I have studied a Phimenes Sp. Wasp making his cocoon out of cement that he stole from me. It understood the structural possibilities, immediately mixing the cement with mud and some pieces or straw and sticks. His cocoon was fantastic and has been the inspiration for Bug Dome, Cicada and more to come.

"Modern man in a box is doomed to dementia."

Jr:

How have people responded to your designs?

mc:

I have been surprised by how much people love this space. This is wonderful, especially when all kinds of 

people from different backgrounds like Cicada. Even children like it. It looks like the organic space is doing 

some magic for the industrial man. He feels good in it. He remembers something, feels hope.

Jr:

Marco, what projects lie ahead in your future? What is the trajectory of your career path and what do you hope to achieve through your work.

mc:

I don’t have a career path. I believe in accidents. In future I will work more with insects and local knowledge. I want to see the Third Generation City, the organic ruin of the industrial city. I will also develop further the possibilities of Urban Acupuncture for punctually tuning the mechanical urban machinery towards the organic. I also want to create more good homes for good people and operate freely in-between architecture, environmental art, ecological urban design and other forms of art and science within the general field of built human environment.

Casagrande views the city as a complex energy organism in which different overlapping layers of energy flows are determining the actions of the citizens, as well as the development of the city. By mixing environmentalism and urban design Casagrande develops methods of manipulation of the urban energy flows in order to create an ecologically sustainable urban development towards the so-called Third Generation City. The theory of the Third Generation City views the urban development as the ruin of the industrial city, an organic machine ruined by nature, including human nature and urban acupuncture as a cross-over architectural manipulation of the collective sensuous intellect of a city. Architecture is in the position to produce the acupuncture needles for the urban chi. Weeds will root into the smallest cracks in the asphalt and eventually break the city. Urban acupuncture is the weed and the acupuncture point is the crack. The theory opens the door for uncontrolled creativity and freedom. Ruin is something man-made having become part of nature.

"It looks like the organic space is doing some magic for the industrial man. He feels good in it. He remembers something, feels hope."

Casagrande’s works have been awarded in the Architectural Review’s Emerging Architecture 1999, 

Borromini Award 2000, Mies Van Der Rohe Award 2001, Lorenzo Il Magnifico Award 2001, La Nuit Du Livre Award 2006, World Architecture Community Awards 2009, World Architecture Festival Award 2009, Architectural Review House Award 2010 and World Architecture Community Awards 2010 competitions.

QUICK FACTS

Architect: Marco Casagrande
Location: Taipei City, Taiwan
Project Mangers: Delphine, Peng Hsiao-Ting / JUT Group, Nikita Wu / C-LAB
Casagrande Laboratory for Cicada: Frank Chen, Yu-Chen Chiu, Shreya Nagrath, Arijit Sen
Dimensions: 34m long, 12m wide, 8m high
Interior space: 270 m2
Project year: 2011
Building time: 4 weeks

The article is originally published in the Timber iQ, August 2012 issue.