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I was born in Chaco,

the subtropical province of Argentina.

It rains never failingly in the afternoon

and you can use the rain

to adjust your watch to 4 p.m.

When I was seven years old

my parents moved from Chaco to Buenos Aires.

My room was on the second floor

of a new apartment house

and it opened directly on to the leafy branches

of a tree that was on the street.

I used to stay up late,

in the darkness of my room

looking at the reflection of the streetlights on the tree.

I was truly fascinated.

I was entranced by that tree.

To this day,

I revere its brethren.

Emilio Ambasz is an amazing curator,

an amazing inventive organizer of people, of ideas,

but most importantly, of scenarios.

I think scenario is key to everything that Ambasz does.

But throughout all of it,

he has become simultaneously famous

and remains completely enigmatic.

And the fabrication of scenarios,

which is part of the persona

of Emilio Ambasz

is almost, I would say, his fourth main activity in life,

creating exhibitions,

creating industrial design,

creating extraordinary architecture,

proto-green architecture,

but creating the personage of Emilio Ambasz,

which is one of the great,

enigmatic narrative constructions of the late 20th century.

Let me tell you a fable.

It's about a little village.

This little village was in the grip of fear,

fear of divine rages

and of human passions.

One of the men in the village

started to build a construction.

When he finished his travails

he came back

and told the group

that a building he had erected was in the shape of the universe.

Then, using a rod that he took from the temple

he made a circle around the village

and with the help of others,

he encircled it

with a high wall

built of earth and stones.

That construction he called his “home”

but the villagers called it “the palace”.

Some people say that this was how architecture started.

To me, this house is connected to nature.

Standing here, in this place,

you feel the connection between the house and its surroundings;

you hear the rustling of the wind,

the sound of birds and water.

You feel in communion with this place.

And I really think that, through light, this house

perceives the movement of the earth

connecting with all the stars,

and you can feel its dialogue with the system around us.

Emilio prodigiously designed this house in the Seventies,

a magnificent conceptual work

when all the most famous architects in the world

were making postmodern architecture.

No one cared about nature,

whereas he, in his thoughts,

elaborated on a minimalist architecture bound to landscape,

perhaps the brainchild of all the work made by Land Artists.

But he reached a higher – so to say – conceptual level,

meaning that he was inhabiting nature in a contemporary way,

i.e., not in a tent in the countryside,

but inhabiting nature through architecture.

In this way I think he's been a pioneer.

I really believe he is looking for that lost paradise

that is deep inside our minds,

in our subconscious, that always appears as the idyllic place

where we all used to feel very happy, didn't we?

I think it is an almost ancestral well-being,

something that dwells deep in our memory

That idyllic nature that welcomes you like…

I don't know, almost like a womb?

The house in Seville,

in one way,

is a kind of house of lost paradise,

to the sense it's Adam's house.

The house that Adam wanted to build for himself in Eden,

that he never got around to because we know

he shouldn't have eaten that apple.

So this, I think, is a sort of almost a vision

of a house before the fall,

when mankind could build

a symbol of a symbiosis with nature.

But at the same time,

it's an absolutely assertive presence

of mankind on the landscape,

visible from the moon, probably.

There is in my work a quest.

And the quest is for that which is infinite,

eternal

and ever present.

I suspect it means that quest may be contained

in designs which have very few lines

but which manifest themselves with great economy of expression.

Those lines

I hope might acquire the fascinating power

of mythical structure.

Hello, Luke.

Just to let you know,

I'm going to dip into the Palm Pavilion

and check to see that the fans are back on.

Thank you.

One of the beauties of this facility

is that it's a building

or a group of buildings for nature.

And so it was a perfect combination

to pick Emilio,

who deals with nature and buildings

and brings them

so that the green becomes primary.

The building is secondary.

I was the local architect on the project

and also, frankly, that was Emilio's first building.

And that's fun.

I mean,

as an architect,

the first building you get to do

is in some ways the most important.

So then you arrive at this point,

in which you really understand the whole complex

that's centered on the courtyard.

In this climate, courtyards are natural.

It helps cool the space,

it helps establish a place that's apart

that can be calm and thoughtful.

You can see the sort of sloped edge of the walkways

above the battered walls for the two ramps

that come down on the edges.

And then, obviously, the rise and transparency

of the glass rooms themselves.

On a nice sunny day you see through it,

and it has this wonderful transparency to it.

You know, there is a sort of primordial sense to being down here,

which I think is really important to Emilio.

And a feeling of being

any time in history and probably ancient.

And I think that's important to him,

relative to trying to find that

inner nature of us

as well as the nature of nature.

The San Antonio Botanical Garden

is really the first time that Ambasz

was able to pursue an idea that he'd already explored in,

let's say, in visionary design,

which was essentially to bury a building.

So he doesn't actually so much dig a building into the Earth,

but much of the building is essentially put underground

through a system of berming,

which later on Ambasz calls

Green over Gray.

I think almost the dialectic

between the quest for how can we occupy the Earth more responsibly

and how nonetheless do we exploit

modern technology

is part of the dialectic that fascinates Emilio Ambasz.

It's part of the way his mind works,

which is always to try

to keep contradictions in play with one another.

Something that I've learned about Emilio Ambasz'

architecture in this particular space

is that it inspires him

to go from a dark tunnel into a light area.

So he's done that in many different places in the conservatory,

especially this walkway coming from the Palm Pavilion.

It's a one way route.

So you come out the top of the building

and you come right back down

to enjoy the rest of the conservatory.

But you come from this light place

into this really dark tunnel, even on a sunny day.

Plants need their rest, too.

So in these dark spaces,

we can talk about that rest period.

And when there's light again,

they ramp back up and their flowers open...

And that's something really special about plants

and it's emulated through this architecture.

Working in this space is really magical.

I feel like it, kind of, has presence of fate as well for me.

It almost feels like a temple that...

You know, it's something temple.

So that's kind of a magical feeling.

Cool.

I love being like a steward of this garden.

I mean, it’s not my garden, it’s a public garden

but to be the one who comes in

we're one of the people who comes in

and unlocks the door, tells the plants good morning...

Absolutely.

And you know...

I do feel in a sense that there's kind of spirits here...

The spirits are in the plants:

someone 30 years ago decided that

this is where this cactus was going to go.

I believe in the spirituality of plants,

and so in part of the...

You know...

It's the spirit of the place,

they are alive

and we react to them.

It's our reactions that say something about what they are

and where they are

and what's going on.

And I think that all ties together in terms of what the experience is.

I feel like I've heard

that this place came to Emilio Ambasz in a dream.

Do you know?

I talked to Emilio about how he designs.

He told me that he doesn't draw

which I thought was interesting.

He said they pretty much come to him full blown.

And so whether that's in a dream or whether it's simply contemplation

it wouldn't surprise me if that's the way it comes to him.

I think he thinks a lot about myth.

And so that would be interesting to see

how the thought, the dream, the myth,

you know, his poetry comes together in terms of reality.

I've always thought

that our way of life

had a fundamental underlying problem,

which was the fact of having no plants,

I mean,

throughout history, from an evolutionary-biological standpoint,

our species

and our forefathers have always lived among plants;

even on plants, before that.

We have now become Homo Urbanus,

I wouldn't know how else to define us.

A species living in an entirely artificial environment,

where there are no plants at all.

So the idea was bringing the plants back

together with us.

I think it's an extraordinarily powerful idea,

not only for its effects on the environment,

on global warming, and the uptake of carbon dioxide,

but also and especially for the effect

of the presence of plants on us.

In a 1976 Japanese magazine,

Emilio Ambasz says

"An architect can be the guard of the man-made desert of the city,

or he can be the magician to create eternal forms."

The ideal gesture would be to arrive at a plot of land

which is so immensely fertile and so welcoming

that slowly the land would assume a shape

and that shape would provide us with an abode.

And within this abode,

since it is such a magical space

it would never rain,

nor would there be any inclemencies of any other sort.

Regrettably, we must build our house on Earth

only because we are not welcome on the land.

Every act of construction is a defiance of nature.

Every morning, for 30 years,

I climb here.

This place was built by the city of Fukuoka.

About 33 years ago, they planted a lot of small trees

and now they're growing.

Many citizens of Fukuoka are climbing.

Acros Fukuoka had a competition

and was completed in 1995.

At first, it was called “the pyramid of concrete”

and was severely criticized.

At first, all the plants were saplings

so when people looked at them from below

there was almost nothing but concrete

and the prefectural government was very disappointed.

But when the plants started to grow

after about 4 years

the Urban Landscape Award of Fukuoka City was given to ACROS.

At that time, people realized what was going to happen in Fukuoka.

When Acros Fukuoka was built more than 25 years ago

it had a great impact not only on architects throughout Japan,

but also on ordinary people outside of architecture.

If I define a green architecture in my own way

I think Green Architecture is not an architecture

where greenery is simply planted

but an architecture where

the organic system of greenery can be felt.

The ascent of the Fukuoka building

is absolutely extraordinary.

You're climbing a manmade hill of greenery

to get to an observatory platform at the top.

Occasionally you get a glimpse

through the second layer of glass

and you realize that the people in the offices outside

are also looking into this garden.

So the garden of the Fukuoka facade

is simultaneously a public park

and a green scrim,

a green kind of foreground

for the users of the offices within.

The thing that I really respected about Emilio in the beginning

is that he was always incorporating the environment into the building.

I think a lot of what happens now

it's vegetation and things like that, that's kind of décor.

You know, it's like postmodernism.

You decorate.

So let's put some trees and decorate.

And none of us really had that idea in mind at all.

The idea was to look at the context as a whole

and then decide what the context was telling you,

you know, what kind of information you were receiving

from a situation,

not just the act of planting trees or plants.

And in that regard, I think that that makes him a real pioneer.

There’s no question about it.

Plum. It bears fruit.

It is Castanopsis Sebolii, self planted.

It grows very big.

It's a Red-leaved hornbeam (Akashide).

It grows also big, it is about 5 meters now.

This is Konara.

This is a tree where acorns grow.

Instead of managing gardens

selecting trees one by one

we manage them as mountains.

We treat them like “satoyama” (mountain in the village).

Fukuoka is surrounded by mountains.

In the middle there is the city of Fukuoka.

If there is a mountain

that has the same vegetation as the surrounding mountains

birds will come

and stop there.

In that way, the area around ACROS

will become an ecological hub

to the surrounding area,

and some species will be transported.

This place is based on an artificial soil called Aquasoil

which has both water retention and drainage.

There is a permeable mat

and a permeable layer

and there's drainage under it.

So the water that seeps out when this rain falls

flows through here to the floor below.

ACROS Fukuoka is hardly using artificial water.

It is in the same condition as a normal mountain: only by rain.

Five years after the completion of the ACROS,

we conducted a survey on the thermal environment.

Then, in the middle of the night in midsummer,

from the top to the bottom of the ACROS

downward currents of wind were observed.

It was a mountain wind.

It has really become a mountain-like environment,

and I think it is cooling the surroundings.

Usually Ambasz' architecture is already placed in natural environments

but the Fukuoka's building is located in the center of the city

and surrounded by buildings.

It was a surprise as if a green mountain,

a green hill, suddenly appeared.

Modernist architecture separates nature from architecture

believing that nature can be overcome by technology.

Mr. Ambasz is probably the first person who has done something

that brings together and harmonizes green and architecture.

This is a building that

almost builds on the idea of Le Corbusier,

the modernist, that if you build a building,

you must give back the ground that you took.

So he figures out a way

to actually create a public garden,

a public square

that increases the amount of green space in the center of Fukuoka,

coming up with the idea

that this is a building that you can climb.

Nowadays, there are many buildings that are integrated with nature,

however, there is no such architecture in the world.

Mr. Emilio Ambasz says that architecture is not only about architecture,

but also about the surrounding environment.

At the same time, it is also about the natural environment.

In other words, the environment grows,

and of course, architecture also grows.

If you go to Kyushu or Fukuoka now

there are many people who want to see this building by all means.

ACROS is shining.

When I think about the reason of this shining

I think it's because architecture has life.

…when I woke up.

When you woke up, your ear hurt.

I bought that dinosaur myself.

What did you say?

I bought that myself.

Really? By yourself, with your own money?

Yes…

No, without money.

Without money? Ah!

And where did you find it without using money?

Tell me, I'll go get one too.

It was there.

I understand…

Careful, now we'll look into your ear.

Good.

Lie down…

So now we'll massage your tummy.

Does this hurt?

Yes?

Poor thing.

Great! You were really great.

Can I help you?

Go on.

We're used to seeing hospitals,

most of which

are rather impersonal places;

they are a bit cold,

a bit unwelcoming from an emotional point of view.

Actually, seeing a hospital such as this,

I think those who suffer and hurt, perhaps…

I can't say this is the solution,

but surely it might be…

something more

to support suffering people.

Being in contact with plants

has a direct impact on our health,

which has been studied

more or less from the mid-1980s onwards,

when 'Nature' released

a rather peculiar article.

It was by an economist who had issued a study

on a particular hospital

and realised something:

that the hospital featured a small number of rooms

where

anyone being there, over the decades,

came out earlier, happier

and using less painkillers.

He found out that the only difference

between those rooms and the others

was that you could see plants from their windows,

you could see the trees.

One of the extraordinary things about Emilio Ambasz

as his way of thinking is

he tries to imagine how he can create

an extraordinary extra gift in his architecture.

Within a budget.

So, at first,

you can imagine that a client

the first time he says, I'm going to build you a hospital.

And before you get to the rooms for the operating rooms,

the rooms for the patients, the people,

and the services, the offices,

I'm going to build an enormous botanical garden

that everyone will come through on their way to the hospital.

You can imagine the client would say,

we didn't ask for a botanical garden.

We need a hospital. This is our program, these are our requirements.

My work is a search for primal things

like being born, being in love, and dying.

It has always been my very deep belief

that architecture and design

are both myth-making acts.

Really. It's not hunger,

but it is love and fear

and sometimes wonder,

which makes us create.

The milieu of the architect may have changed over the ages

but their task, I believe, remains the same:

to give poetic form to the pragmatic.

As pre-term babies, in our NICU we take in

patients from the 28th week of pregnancy.

Beyond this door there are the delivery rooms

and the NICU.

Clearly it is close to the place where children are born.

It is our pride and joy

that we feature rooming in here,

i.e., the fact that babies are in the same room as their mothers,

24 hours a day.

Which means the fusion of the mother-baby dyad

is very well taken care of.

Last Friday there was a national convention

that we convened, as Giotto Cooperative,

where therapeutical gardens were discussed in depth,

as well as their beneficial effects on people.

Among the best plants for this

are hydrangeas, like this one.

They must be perfumed plants,

and plants that trigger the patient's memories when touched,

because offering greenery, especially in the case of Alzheimer patients,

means most of all awakening the feelings they used to feel in the past.

Can you see the movement here?

It looks like there are bees.

This is good.

Look, a whole lot of bees.

Look how many bees we got.

Look.

There's a message of thriving, of renewal,

of rebirth, of continuity through those plants.

And the amazing thing is,

usually if you enter into a hospital after X number of years,

the hospital is beginning to show signs of age.

That hospital is so beloved that it looks as though it was,

except for the fact that the plants have achieved maturity.

It looks as though it was opened yesterday,

so carefully is it cared for.

There they are.

The ducks.

Ah, look at the ducklings crossing.

Emilio lives and thrives

in a world of paradoxes and contradictions.

And one of them

is spelled out very loudly

in his drawings and in the models he makes of projects.

All of them are much more about the idea of the building,

the narrative of the building, the story of the building,

the creation of the fable of the building.

The fables are terribly important for Emilio

whether they're the ones that he recites,

because he knows them from anywhere from Aesop to the Bible,

or they are the ones that he's created.

And I think he likes their very enigmatic nature

because he's a person who doesn't,

I think, really believe in the end

in a definitive answer to any problem.

I've invented fables and the invention of the fables

that have written in the last 50 years

is really at the heart of my working methods

and it is not a literary accessory.

It is complimentary and very integral

because after all,

the subtext of a fable is a ritual

and it is precisely in support of rituals

that most of my work develops.

Emilio Ambasz tells us these stories

so that everyone understands,

and especially because

the technique and representation of the fable

are the opposite of theory and ideology

of which Emilio is very wary.

On the contrary, fables stem from archetypes,

they tell us about man and his fears,

his hatred and love, of universal feelings

like any children's fable.

Emilio prefers fables to tragedies,

which is very uplifting

because, in fact, we are living currently

in an absolutely existential tragedy

and the existential tragedy is

that the writing was on the wall

about the ecological disaster

that we are now living.

And we didn't do anything about it.

And he was proposing solutions.

He was worried about this issue at a very, very early time.

And unfortunately,

some of the things he was asking

for, like others in his generation,

went unheeded.

And now we realize just how much terrain has been lost

in all of the time that no one was listening.

The Botanical Gardens,

Fukuoka,

the Casa de Retiro Espiritual,

and the Angel's Hospital

are the tip of an iceberg

of an enormous quantity of projects

that took up more than fifty years

in Emilio Ambasz' career.

These projects are immensely important today

not because they represent an archaeology,

but, on the contrary, because they can be read, interpreted, and seen

as a handbook for good architecture,

for ecology,

not just as entrusted to words

but practiced with feeling.

Anyone who seeks to speak in a new language

should not be surprised at all not to be understood.

Solitude truly does not frighten me.

I do not care for the honor that men may bestow

but I do really care

for the smile of angels.