An exclusive interview to Lucien Kroll for Nemeton by Anna Lambertini
“Kroll is a very talented architect. Throughout his life he has doubted it, choosing a job permeated by a feeling of human solidarity towards any person or thing that was different, exploited, poor, neglected or polluted. His language, similar to rock music discordances, has quickly shifted to the adoption of vernacular patterns, as they were closer and more easily understandable to his interlocutors, namely not the public customers, but the end users. At the same time, even though he has never joined an organized political movement, he has anticipated the claims of many environmentalist and anti-globalisation battles. Being technically very competent and innovative, he has overhauled the means and the ends, such as the sophisticated and early use of computers as tools to multiply diversity”.
These are the words used by Franco Zagari in 2007 to paint a bright picture of the Belgian architect on occasion of his 80th birthday. We have decided to use this extract to introduce a short interview to Lucien Kroll released last March in Milan for Nemeton, during a break in the proceedings of the meeting “A Sustainable Beauty – High Green Tech Symposium 2010”, in which Kroll took part as lecturer.
Recognised as one of the greatest masters of our time, internationally acclaimed as one of the most representative figures in the field of sustainable architecture and participatory design, what really strikes about Lucien Kroll is his calm voice, his sharp irony and his communicative energy: a tall and thin cultivated gentleman, who has been able to carry out his battle against the “architectural militarism” with great constructive force, active imagination and an extraordinary ability to listen.
Sitting at a table in the crowded cafeteria of the Triennale Palace, where Lucien Kroll seems not to be annoyed at all by the noisy chaos of people, food and objects whirling around, we start our conversation.
Mr. Kroll, what is an “ecological city” in your view? And how do you think it is possible to create “ecological cities” in the 21st century?
The city based on the culture of modernity is basically anti-natural; in the context of modernity the relationship between nature and city does not exist at all. Cities designed in a merely theoretical way on the basis of the official town planning guidelines are just bureaucratic, geometric and flat cities, in which any depth is cancelled, the scale of the place is abolished and there is a stubborn search for rational solutions to irrational questions, such as the poetic nature of habitats, the magical dimension of places…
The first environmental quality of a neighbourhood or a city is its ability to let life flow through human and social relationships, hence to allow the existence of differences, of continuous changes, of irregularities.
It is not about bringing nature back to cities, but it means designing natural cities, making them rich in diversity, just like what happens in nature, leaving room for what is unforeseen or unexpected and above all, giving its inhabitants the chance to intervene directly. We may say that the starting point of the ecological urban planning is the idea of establishing relationships with and among inhabitants, which means enhancing the actions of the neighbourhood committees, listening to their needs and involving them in the ideational processes that transform their habitats.
Designing natural cities does not mean providing them with “mixed borders of civilized plants”, but rather to create urban realities that are “humanly” natural.
These remarks bring us directly to the concept of “biodiversity”, which has now become of great importance in the urban policies related to the idea of environmental sustainability, but which indeed you have introduced in your working philosophy for long time, providing an interesting interpretation.
Yes, biodiversity is indeed a concept that can be effectively applied to contemporary urban planning.
Usually politicians, administrations and citizens themselves tend to suppress diversity.
People are different, but they usually prefer not to see it and wish they were not: diversity is not well thought of. You cannot be divergent, lateral, leftist, unhappy…
Yet “rebels” are indeed those who, thanks to their unconventional imagination, are able to create diversity and, if they commit themselves, they succeed in accomplishing it, also together with the public administrations, if the latter are really able to accept it.
Usually neighbourhood committees are taken in great consideration: yet I have rarely encountered situations in which they have been able really to obtain what they wanted. This is how it usually works: there is a bad plan, the committee stands up against it and the best they can achieve is that the project is abandoned, but they never succeed in taking part in the planning. There is not a cooperation between administrations and citizens.
Yet it is necessary to listen to citizens and encourage them to take part in the transformation processes regarding the places in which they live. The image of a neighbourhood cannot be the result of a mechanical organization or a technological planning. It has to be the expression of the network of multiform relationships among the people who inhabit it.
Biodiversity exists in a neighbourhood when work, trade, houses, the rich and the poor are mixed together and not when they are confined in limited and separated areas. Unfortunately traditional urban planning has not taught us to mix differences and has led us to be afraid of spontaneous creativity…
Rebels, neighbourhood committees, outcasts, wild plants and weeds that grow between sampietrini are usually the natural victims of the “official” urban planning!
Continue in Nemeton 5, april 2011, in italian / english
Tags: architecture, landscape, philosopy
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