Arte Sella, the contemporary art park in Borgo Valsugana (Trento, Italy), expands its permanent itinerary with Discrete Landscape, a new site-specific work by Mario Cucinella Architects. The installation, born from the confrontation between architecture, nature and the philosophy of the place, is located downstream of the park of Villa Strobele, home of Arte Sella since 1986, and is a sinuous path leading to a contemplative cavity, an open space designed to frame glimpses of forest, sky and water. The work reflects a desire to measure oneself against the power of the landscape through artificial elements, conceived as a synthesis of thought and matter. Discrete Landscape consists of 415 3D printed blocks, divided into 58 modular types that recall basaltic columns. The blocks have irregular shapes, sometimes hollow, sometimes solid, allowing them to create seating or soil pockets for small native tree species. The typological variety of the modules allows them to interlock themselves, generating a self-supporting structure without mortar or binders, in continuity with the dry construction tradition and reinterpreted in a contemporary key thanks to the use of advanced digital tools.
Production of the blocks was entrusted to Erratic (Valdagno), which developed in-house printing technology. A robotic arm layers mixtures made from natural lime and local aggregates, developed with the collaboration of Calchèra San Giorgio di Grigno Valsugana and the Politecnico di Milano. Underlying the project isextensive materials research, focusing on symbiotic supply chains and the reuse of waste, which led to the filing of a patent on innovative formulations. For Discrete Landscape, waste Tonalite from the Adamello region, supplied by the Trento-based company Graniti Pedretti , was used. The residual fraction, with no commercial value, was crushed to form the inert component of the compound. The end result returns a porous texture, chromatically similar to the limestones of the valley, which varies with light and humidity, creating plays of shadows and spaces that establish a delicate and poetic relationship with the surrounding landscape.
The work is in the tradition of Arte Sella, where architecture and contemporary arts dialogue with nature without imposing their presence permanently. Discrete Landscape suggests a balance between permanence and mutability, in line with the park’s resilient philosophy. The choice of local materials and industrial waste, together with the use of advanced digital technologies, highlights a sustainable and experimental approach that focuses on the relationship between humans, architecture and the environment. The route proposed by the installation does not follow a linear path but invites a slow and careful fruition, where the perception of space changes depending on the angle of observation, light and weather conditions. The central space, conceived as a refuge, offers a place of contemplation immersed in nature, capable of returning differentiated glimpses of forest and water. In this sense, the work becomes a sensory and intellectual interaction with the environmental context.
The inclusion of Discrete Landscape in Arte Sella’s permanent itinerary represents a concrete example of dialogue between architecture and landscape, where material choices, technology and design combine to define a work that evolves over time along with its natural context, without overpowering its identity. The work is thus configured as an intervention that encourages reflection on the relationship between built space and the environment, a theme that has always permeated the work of Mario Cucinella Architects.
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| Trentino, Arte Sella is enriched with a work by Mario Cucinella |
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