Once upon a time in Rome there was the sea - Interview with Luca Catalano, landscape architect

Luca Catalano, in 2021 co-founder of the OSA design studio in Rome, tells us about the specific nature of his profession in relation to a vision of the landscape as an organism in continuous transformation and evolution. OSA specializes in the enhancement of architectural and landscape design.

Among the speakers who animated the stage of ARCHITECT@WORK Rome 2024 was Luca Catalano, landscape architect and founder, with Massimo Acito, of the OSA design studio. We interviewed Luca about landscape design and one of his latest projects: the open spaces and outdoor areas of Camplus San Pietro in Rome, as part of the redevelopment project by Roselli Architetti. “We will be talking about all the parts of the area on which rain falls”, says Luca.

Luca, tell us about your latest design experience. How does this activity fit into the broader context of an architectural project?

“The entire design process, i.e. the architectural part and landscaping skills, covered a period of seven years, three of which concerned only the realisation of what was planned in the project. The collaboration with the Roselli studio was particularly stimulating and productive, because the various stages of the work were based on collaboration and coordination from the very beginning. This led to a balanced and integrated realisation of the various aspects that characterize this project. The landscape is literally an open field where many disciplines and professional figures meet, gather and exchange ideas.”

What are the specific features of a design process that focusses on the landscape?

“The landscape, unlike architecture, must be seen more like an organism than an inert body. It is something that is in continuous transformation and evolution, and is not always classifiable and measurable through the definition of rules and factors that are stable and fixed over time. Landscape design, therefore, must be imagined as a constantly evolving process. It is never completed, but consists of a progressive exchange of relationships between the parts, where variability and unpredictability are the basis of the rules of the game. We are in a field that often disregards certainties, predictability, measurability, reliability, etc… It shows itself, so to speak, more akin to the randomness of systems with many variables. What matters is to trigger the processes and then let them develop independently, even admitting the unpredictability of the results.”

What is it like to be a landscape architect in Rome?

“Rome is a special city in many ways. More than many others, it proves to be resistant to change. This is certainly due to its multi-layered history, but also to the cultural and political reasons that have always characterised it. Rome is a reactionary, ancient, often tired city, that has its gaze more turned to the past and is not used to change. And yet, if we measure change in geological terms, Rome is a newborn baby and the sea here has lived millions of times its age. What I often enjoy doing as a designer is to challenge the belief that everything is eternal. As Luigi Ghirri said, I prefer a festively temporary light to eternal light. After all, the key to everything lies in the interpretation and narration of the change, of the evolution that we are willing to make.”

Would you advise a young person entering the world of architecture and urban planning to follow a profession like yours? What are the positive aspects and the reasons that can fill it with passion and enthusiasm?

“Of course I would recommend it! My job allows me to interact with specialists in the organic sector and to consider elements that are, in a certain sense poetic, distinct from qualities such as transience, temporality/temporariness, unpredictability, incompleteness. Another beautiful theme that lends itself to design and interpretation is scalar, multitemporal geography. Landscape designers have the privilege of working on various scales, from geographical and territorial to urban and detailed. They can also go back in time to periods that don't just belong to the last three thousand years, but to geology, and be aware that once, in fact, there was a sea where Rome now stands.”

“On the other hand, I know that, taken together, these elements of indefiniteness, elusiveness, incompleteness and partial lack of control can be frightening and off-putting. Those who design the landscape must have a strong propensity for temporariness and work considering that an organism - the landscape - is never complete. It evolves continuously until, in the end, it dies in order to begin again. The work of the landscape designer is therefore closely linked to triggering the process and he never fully knows what the final order and outcome of things will be, because in the end things - all things - are festively temporary.”

Luca, did you already know about ARCHITECT@WORK before you were asked to participate in the 2024 edition in Rome as a speaker? What do you think of the event?

“Yes, of course, I was already familiar with the event and its specific format. What I appreciate about it is that, in the exhibition context, space is given to the narration of the product. In fact, the product is not only sold, but its values, even the most hidden ones, such as social, economic and political ones, are also narrated. Those who present a product at ARCHITECT@WORK are, in fact, storytellers and are therefore responsible for the way in which the sector's audience can get to know the product, develop a critical thought around it and foresee it in a future application and design scenario.”