As Baumann says: we are living in a "liquid society"...
An interview with Gruppo A12
They have been around for about 15 years (quite a long time for the kind of things they do). Finally, we got to meet some members of the A12 group to talk about them & their work. An interesting conversation that touches art, architecture, time, senses and more...
Location: A trattoria in the Navigli area in Milan. Lunch time, January, 2007.
Q. Can you describe what do you do as "Gruppo A12"?
A. We work with the space of living and its transformations. In our view, this is not so different from what Aldo Rossi in the Architettura della Città, defined as "architecture": the creation of an environment more propitious to life, with aesthetic intention, inseparable from the civil life and the society. In order to work with architecture in this broad sense we have experimented different tools and forms: architectural and urban projects, research, art installations, exhibition projects. Tools, places, occasions and scales are different but the object remains the same.
Q. Why is 12 and not 8 or 16?
A. We started working together in 1993, when we were studying at the Facoltà di Architettura of Genova University. We choose the name A12 for different reasons. First, A12 is the name of the highway which connects Genova to Rome. It goes east, which reminded us of Le Corbusier's ”Voyage d'Orient”, and we liked to evoke something related to him. Moreover, the A12 highway is still unfinished: to reach Rome you have to change roads in Livorno. So it is a road under construction, a work in progress. And this was a good metaphor for our way of working. Finally, when A12 was founded there were 12 people involved, and even if the number of people grew up (to 14) and decreased (to 6, like today) the name remains.
Q. Are you artists, architects, designers or something else?
A. We are architects, not only because we have a degree in architecture and a professional license, but because we approach every project starting from the point of view of architecture. In this regards, the specificity of our approach is that when we think of space, we have whoever will inhabit it as the starting point, the centre and main reason of every transformation. Every action outside the traditional boundaries of architecture can be read as an instrument of analysis and experimentation on architecture, space, the use of space, the city, etc.
Anyway, we suspect that very often the most interesting things are the ones that are not so easily defined, and they come from people that cross the borders of disciplines.
Q. Is the previous question relevant or not?
A. It is relevant if it can help explain our attitude, it’s not relevant if it used to classify our work. As Baumann says, we live in a “liquid society”, why we should be solidified in one specific definition?
Q. As a group, you are quite an exception: you started in 1993 and you are still up and running. How did you manage such a long life as a group?
A. We have a family dynamics, somewhere between the Rolling Stones and the Bradford family (of “eight is enough”). People meet, stay together and then they realize that such a long time has passed... We do not have a particular recipe for lasting in time. Probably it is because between us there is mutual trust and esteem, and we still believe that common discussions on new projects can generate something better. Another thing that probably helped is that during these years A12 people have also worked outside of A12 itself: this let us increase our competence, experience different ways of working, and it also prevented us from getting bored.
Q. Twenty/thirty/forty years now... Still the same people doing the same kind of projects? Would it be a dream? A nightmare? Both?
A. Neither a dream, nor a nightmare. It is a matter of fact, and probably the point is that neither people, nor projects are exactly the same. We grew up, we changed, some A12 people have left the group, but some of us have found a reason, a way and a balance to keep working together. Our projects too changed and evolved, even if from outside this is not necessarily evident. What it is still the same, because it has been built and clarified during all these years, is our defining approach to the work.
This is the main difference between works done at twenty and works done later: at twenty, we did things as we wanted, with an experimental attitude, often reacting to the different conditions of the context and without having a precise idea of where it would lead us. Ten years later, we find that all our works have a fil rouge connecting them, and that this fil rouge stays consistent. Whether it is an art installation or architecture work, as long as it is shared and discussed it is all on the same level. During all these years we have set up exhibitions, created art installations and designed urban projects always with a similar approach.
Q. What are the most important projects you did as A12? Why?
A. Projects are important for different reasons: in 1997 the metropolitan intervention “Epidemie Urbane” at the Biennale of young artists in Turin was our first incursion in the contemporary art world; in 1998 we won an Europan international competiont, and that was an important acknowledgment as architects; in 2003 the temporary pavilion “La zona” at the Venice Biennale was a sort of synthesis of our way of working between art and architecture. It has been one of the more discussed and shared project in A12, and it had great visibility; in 2004 we can list for similar reasons also the “Lab” pavilion at the Kroller Muller Museum in Otterlo. Different projects where we could put in different forms our ideas regarding the design of public spaces, the interaction between people and spaces, the importance of a strong and comprehensible concept, the role of materials and colors, etc. But in general we like to think that the next one will be our most important project.
Q. Are you successful in what you do? How do you define success in your field? Is it about money? Visibility? Media coverage? Self-esteem?
A. Not easy to answer. Maybe others should do. Success is probably a combination of all those aspects. The rock and roll half of our spirit would say that we can’t get no satisfaction... this pushes us to go ahead.
Q. What are the artists/architects/designers with whome you feel some similarities?
A. As a group we have lots of references. Each of us has their “most liked”, and not always they are the same. Years ago, in a book edited by 2A+P, Marco Brizzi e Luigi Prestinenza Pugliesi, “GR la generazione della rete, sperimentazioni nell’architettura Italiana” each of us filled two different list of people important for our work: a yes-list and a no-list. Of course we shared passions and hates, but it was very impressive to notice that sometimes the same reference was in both list... This is to say that it is not easy to find someone that you feel completely similar with. It is always a matter of selection of different aspects. Some years ago, to meditate about our roots in a work (“in the name of the father”) for an exhibition at the Sonia Rosso Gallery in Turin, we played the surrealist game Cadavre Exquis with our references: the result was a series of collages made of pieces of architectures that we like, many of them taken from the past. A summary of what we would like to be similar.
Q. Recently (Otterloo, Korea...), it seems that you are adding some new layers to your design attitude. Your projects have been always very strong on a conceptual level, now you seem to be adding more: materials, nature, sensoriality... Is this true? How so?
A. It is not an evolution, simply a matter of occasions to express in a more visible way something we have always had in mind, as architects. Strength of concept and physical features of the project (in all the different dimensions: the material, how people use the space, perception, nature...) are at the base of our idea of design. In the latest works you mentioned, this research about materials as expressive tool for the project is probably more evident, but even in other previous works, more conceptual (for example, the CCA project) the role of the physical aspect of the installation (a big wooden table, that people have to pass under to reach the documents showed) was an important issue, in terms of materials, and in terms of how people react to them.
Q. What will be next project?
A. At the moment we are working on different projects. A new square dedicated to children in Trento where a playground is a tool to design a public space not a sort of fenced enclave inside it. The renewal of the main square of Impruneta (FI): a competition where the jury selected 4 groups formed by architects together with artists. We were selected as a single entity with both competences. A project at urban scale in Zermeghedo (VC), where the need of protecting the town from the factories becomes the device to create a new urban park and to redesign the industrial district. We are also working on a couple of interiors, some exhibition design and a project for a book.
Interview by StefanoMirti
Links
Image Credits
All images are from Gruppo A12 website