Marco Mario Paolo Casagrande (born 7 May 1971) is a Finnish architect, environmental artist, architectural theorist, former mercenary, writer and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

. He graduated from

Helsinki University of Technology Helsinki University of Technology (TKK; ; , HUT in international usage) was a technical university in Finland. It was located in Otaniemi, Espoo in the Helsinki metropolitan area, and it was one of the three universities from which the modern d ...

department of architecture (2001). Casagrande has been identified as an

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

architect.

Early life

Casagrande was born in

Turku Turku ( ; ; , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the Aura River (Finland), River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately , while t ...

, Finland, to a well-off Italian-Finnish

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

family. He spent his childhood in

Ylitornio Ylitornio (; ; ; ) is a municipalities of Finland, municipality of Finland. It is located in the provinces of Finland, province of Lapland, Finland, Lapland along the Torne (Finnish and Swedish river), Tornio River, opposite the Sweden, Swedish ...

in Finnish Lapland, but went to school in

Karis Karis (; ) is a town and former municipality in Finland. On January 1, 2009, it was consolidated with Ekenäs and Pohja to form the new municipality of Raseborg (). It is located in the Finnish province of Southern Finland and is part of U ...

, a southern Finland small town, before moving to

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

to study architecture.

Mercenary and writer

Casagrande claimed that he volunteered for the

Bosnian Croat The Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina (), often referred to as Bosnian Croats () or Herzegovinian Croats (), are native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and constitute the third most populous ethnic group, after Bosniaks and Serbs. They are also one of ...

Defence Forces HVO in 1993 after his service in the

Finnish Army The Finnish Army ( , ) is the army, land forces branch of the Finnish Defence Forces. The Finnish Army is divided into six branches: infantry (which includes armoured units), field artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, Combat engineering, engineer ...

. He wrote under the

pen name A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

Luca Moconesi a controversial book ''Mostarin tien liftarit / Hitchhikers on the Road to Mostar'' (WSOY 1997) about his alleged experiences in the Bosnian Civil War, and based on descriptions of

war crimes A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...

committed by the main character in the

autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...

book, he came under suspicion as a possible war criminal. The war crimes listed in the book include the murder of a civilian woman in her home, and plotting to destroy a dam to flood a village with civilian inhabitants. After coming under suspicion he claimed that the book was in fact a work of fiction. Later Casagrande has expressed views condemning war crimes from a military perspective: "Those troops know that they are doing wrong. This is the very opposite of constructive collectivity and group spirit. Anybody can understand that it is by no measures militarily efficient to go kicking the doors of old people's home." Casagrande has been lecturing in the National Defence University of Finland since 2006 on courses of

strategy Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "troop leadership; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the " a ...

and

leadership Leadership, is defined as the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "", influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or organizations. "Leadership" is a contested term. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the co ...

Architect and artist

Taipei Organic Acupuncture by Marco Casagrande

From the early stages of his career Casagrande started to mix architecture with other disciplines of art and science landing with a series of ecologically conscious architectural installations around the world.Architektur zwischen Landart und Konzeptkunst
- '' Hochschule Munchen '' 6/2011 After being a finalist in the UK journal ''

Architectural Review ''The Architectural Review'' is a monthly international architectural magazine. It has been published in London since 1896. Its articles cover the built environment – which includes landscape, building design, interior design and urbanism � ...

''s Emerging Architecture competition (1999)
''

'' 12/1999. Marco Casagrande and his then partner Sami Rintala were invited to the

Venice Biennial The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

2000. The

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

reporter chose their project "60 Minute Man" as his personal favorite in the Biennale. - ''Adam Mornament: When Attitude Becomes Form'' Contemporary -magazine 2003 In the project

Casagrande & Rintala Marco Mario Paolo Casagrande (born 7 May 1971) is a list of Finnish architects, Finnish architect, environmental artist, architectural theory, architectural theorist, former mercenary, writer and professor of architecture. He graduated from Helsi ...

had planted on oak forest in an abandoned barge on top of 60 minutes worth of composted human waste produced by the city of Venice. Casagrande's cross-over architectural work encompasses the realms of architecture, urban and

environmental planning Environmental planning is the process of facilitating decision making to carry out land development with the consideration given to the natural environment, social, political, economic and governance factors and provides a holistic framework to a ...

, environmental art,

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicy ...

es and other

art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

istic disciplines. ''In search for subconscious architecture, real reality and connection between the modern man and nature. He believes that one shall not be blindfolded by stress, the surroundings of economics, the online access to entertainment or information. What is real is valuable.'' Casagrande's works and teaching are moving freely in-between architecture, urban and environmental design and science, environmental art and circus adding up into cross-over architectural thinking of ''commedia dell'architettura'', a broad vision of built human environment tied into social drama and environmental awareness. ''There is no other reality than nature''. Casagrande was nominated as the professor of ecological urban planning in the

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

based

Tamkang University Tamkang University (TKU; ) is a private university in Tamsui District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. It was founded in 1950 as a junior college of English. Today it is a comprehensive university with 11 colleges that serves nearly 25,000 students ...

after the Treasure Hill project, in which Casagrande changed an illegal settlement of urban farmers into an experimental laboratory of environmental urbanism. The overhaul had mixed reactions from the community. In 2017, he was invited-professor at the ENSAV : École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Versailles. Marco Casagrande is the laureate of the European Prize for Architecture 2013, CICA Award of the International Committee of Architectural Critics for conceptual and artistic architecture and UNESCO & Locus Foundation's

Global Award for Sustainable Architecture The Global Award for Sustainable Architecture is an international architecture founded in 2006 by architect and scholar Jana Revedin. Description Each year, the award honors five architects who "contribute to a more equitable and sustainable d ...

2015.

Third generation city

Casagrande views cities as complex energy

organism An organism is any life, living thing that functions as an individual. Such a definition raises more problems than it solves, not least because the concept of an individual is also difficult. Many criteria, few of them widely accepted, have be ...

s in which different overlapping layers of energy flows are determining the actions of the citizens as well as the development of the city. By mixing

environmentalism Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecolog ...

and urban design Casagrande is developing methods of punctual manipulation of the urban energy flows in order to create an ecologically sustainable urban development towards the so-called 3rd Generation City (post industrial city). Casagrande utilized the tenets of acupuncture: treat the points of blockage and let relief ripple throughout the body. More immediate and sensitive to community needs than traditional institutional forms of large scale urban renewal interventions would not only respond to localized needs, but do so with a knowledge of how citywide systems operated and converged at that single node. Release pressure at strategic points, release pressure for the whole city. The theory of the Third Generation City views the post industrial urban condition as a machine ruined by nature including human nature and architects as ''design shamans merely interpreting what the bigger nature of the shared mind is transmitting.'' This organic machine is kept alive through continuous and spontaneous ruining processes performed by citizens, to whom Casagrande refers to as 「anarchist gardeners」 by means of urban farming, illegal architecture and urban acupuncture. The element of Ruin is viewed as something man-made having become part of nature. The theory is developed in the independent multidisciplinary research centre Ruin Academy (2010-). Third Generation City follows the first generation where humans' peacefully coexisted with nature and the second generation built walls and stone structures everywhere in an attempt to shut out nature. In the third generation however, nature, which can never be truly shut out, grows back through the ruins, through the cracks in the wall, sucking human nature back into the wider nature. Third Generation City concentrates on local knowledge and urban acupuncture rather than on centrally governed urban planning. Casagrande describes urban acupuncture as:
'' cross-over architectural manipulation of the collective sensuous intellect of a city. City is viewed as multi-dimensional sensitive energy-organism, a living environment. Urban acupuncture aims into a touch with this nature.'' and ''Sensitivity to understand the energy flows of the collective

chi __NOTOC__ Chi may refer to: __NOTOC__ Greek *Chi (letter) (Χ or χ), the twenty-second letter of the Greek alphabet Chinese * ''Chi'' (length) (尺), a traditional unit of length, about ⅓ meter *Chi (mythology) (螭), a dragon * Chi (surname) ...

beneath the visual city and reacting on the hot-spots of this chi. Architecture is in the position to produce the acupuncture needles for the urban chi.'' and ''A weed will root into the smallest crack in the asphalt and eventually break the city. Urban acupuncture is the weed and the acupuncture point is the crack. The possibility of the impact is total, connecting human nature as part of nature.'' The theory opens the door for uncontrolled creativity and freedom. Each citizen is enabled to join the creative process, feel free to use city space for any purpose and develop his environment according to his will. The agents of the Third Generation City are sensitive citizens who feel the calling of a sustainable co-operation with the rest of the nature, sensitive citizen who are aware of the destruction that the insensitive modern machine is causing to nature including human nature. Urban acupuncture produces small-scale but socially catalytic interventions into the urban fabric.
''Architects’ and designers’ position about organic knowledge is tricky. We are not the ones who carry this collective genetic memory on, but we are in a better position to interpret and negotiate with it, step by step, like a shaman getting answers from the organic side. This can easily go very wrong, when architect starts copyrighting fragments of local knowledge under his ego. I guess often it would be enough to create a platform of accidents for the organic knowledge to surface, start cooking, and finding its own forms and dynamics. Design is not necessarily needed in here, and design should not replace reality – while organic knowledge is close to reality, nature.'' Casagrande's works have been selected three times to the Venice Architecture Biennale; years 2000, 2004 and 2006.

Collaboration with Rintala

Casagrande & Rintala - Marco Casagrande and Sami Rintala - is a Finnish architect and artist group producing architectonic installations 1998–2003 for international venues of contemporary architecture and art. Their works move between

and environmental art. For their landscape installation ''1000 White Flags'' (summer 2002), for example, the artists speckled a downhill-skiing range in Koli Nature Park, Finland, with flags made of used sheets from mental hospitals. Casagrande & Rintala here drew attention to the madness of businessmen who cut down ancient forests. Casagrande & Rintala's work Land(e)scape was awarded in the ''

s Emerging Architecture Award 1999 competition and chosen for the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

2000. ''New York Times'' architecture critic

Herbert Muschamp Herbert Mitchell Muschamp (November 28, 1947 – October 2, 2007) was an American architecture critic. Early years Born in Philadelphia, Muschamp described his childhood home life as follows: "The living room was a secret. A forbidden zone. ...

chose their project 60 Minute Man his personal favourite of the biennale. Casagrande & Rintala design and build all their works by themselves. The design process continued during the construction work.
"The work itself usually changes its shape or obtains more layers during the construction process. We keep ourselves open to changes in the work. When it is finding its shape it usually starts to tell us more about itself."

Important works

Land(e)scape

Land(e)scape (1999), an architectural installation by Finnish architects Casagrande & Rintala, with Marco Casagrande and Sami Rintala, in a former

field Field may refer to: Expanses of open ground * Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes * Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport * Battlefield * Lawn, an area of mowed grass * Meadow, a grass ...

Savonlinna Savonlinna (, , ; ) is a town in Finland, located in the eastern interior of the country. It lies in the Finnish Lakeland, the South Savo region. The population of Savonlinna is approximately , while the Savonlinna sub-region, sub-region has a pop ...

. The work is commenting on the desertion process of the Finnish countryside. Three of these abandoned barns "were driven," the architects explained, "to the point where they have had to break their primeval union with the soil. Desolate, they have risen on their shanks and are swaying towards the cities of the south." The work was awarded in the

's Emerging Architecture 1999 competition and selected to the

2000. Land(e)scape launched the international career or Casagrande & Rintala The art work was set on fire by the authors in October 1999. Land(e)scape represented Finland in the New Trends or Architecture in Europe and Japan 2001 exhibitions.

Redrum

Redrum (2003) is an architectonic installation in

Anchorage Anchorage, officially the Municipality of Anchorage, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska. With a population of 291,247 at the 2020 census, it contains nearly 40 percent of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolita ...

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

by Finnish architects

. The work is commissioned by Alaska Design Forum. 3

Alaska Railroad The Alaska Railroad is a Class II railroad that operates freight and passenger trains in the state of Alaska. The railroad's mainline runs between Seward, Alaska, Seward on the southern coast and Fairbanks, Alaska, Fairbanks, near the center of ...

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

tanks cut into total 12 pieces and turned into a

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

structure opposite the Federal Building of Anchorage in the crossing of C-Street and 7th Avenue. The interior is painted bright red in contrast to the rusty and brutal exterior. The floor is made of 3500 kg of

oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but no ...

shells, the origin of all Alaskan oil. "Redrum" is "murder" backwards. The designers intended to comment on the connection of oil, war and environment. Local media described the piece as "a slap in the face to Alaskans".

Potemkin

Potemkin is an architectural park by

for Kuramata village in Japan 2003. A steel made mix between a temple and machine. The work consists indoor and outdoor spaces for post-industrial meditation. Potemkin is commissioned by the Echigo-Tsumari Contemporary Art Triennial 2003. ''Potemkin stands as the Acropolis to be the post industrial temple to think of the connection between the modern man and nature. I see Potemkin as a cultivated junk yard situated between the ancient rice fields and the river with a straight axis to the Shinto temple.'' The site is a former illegal dumping ground turned into a riverside park. The architecture of the park was drawn on site in 1:1 scale on snow by walking the lines with snow-shoes and then built up when the snow melted. The park is made out of one inch thick Kawasaki steel and recycled urban and industrial waste. It is 130 meters long and 15 meters wide with a series of outdoor and indoor spaces.

Other works

1 Chen House Marco Casagrande Frank Chen Photo AaDa

*60 Minute Man, architectonic installation, Casagrande & Rintala, Venice Architecture Biennale 2000 ** ''50 meters long abandoned barge into which is planted an oak garden on top of 60 minutes worth of human waste produced by the city of Venice.'' * Uunisaari Summer Theatre, temporary architecture, Casagrande & Rintala, Helsinki Finland 2000 **''A temporary round theatre building on Suomenlinna -island outside of Helsinki.'' * 1000 White Flags, environmental art installation, Casagrande & Rintala, Koli Finland 2000 **''White flags out of used sheets from mental hospitals mounted on a downhill skiing range to cure the hill.'' *

Quetzalcoatlus ''Quetzalcoatlus'' () is a genus of azhdarchid pterosaur that lived during the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous in North America. The Type (biology), type specimen, recovered in 1971 from the Javelina Formation of Texas, United States, ...

, installation, Casagrande & Rintala, Havana Biennale 2000 **''A 300 kg iron bar stretched between two university building with 10 km of fishing line.'' * Bird Hangar, architectonic installation, Casagrande & Rintala, Yokohama Triennial 2001 **''A re-bar and hemp rope silo releasing balsa birds attached to meteorological balloons carrying seeds of Japanese vegetables to the city.'' * Installation 1:2001, public installation, Casagrande & Rintala, Firenze Biennale 2001 **''A round wall of 15.000 political, philosophical and religious books from around the wall title backs out, white paper in. The work was originally intended to be installed in Cuba, but Government resistance forced the project to Italy. '' *Dallas-Kalevala, art journey, Casagrande & Rintala,

Demeter In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Demeter (; Attic Greek, Attic: ''Dēmḗtēr'' ; Doric Greek, Doric: ''Dāmā́tēr'') is the Twelve Olympians, Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over cro ...

Environmental Art, Hokkaido Japan 2002 **''A land journey from Finland to Japan with car collecting polaroid photos of grandmothers, old axes and local radio sound.'' *Chain Reactor, architectonic installation, Casagrande & Rintala, Montreal Biennale 2002 **''A 6 x 6 x 6 meters cube of I-beams and recycled steel chain to frame a fire place.'' *Anarchist Gardener, performance art and installations, Puerto Rico Biennial 2002 **''A parade of an invented God to stop highway traffic in order to construct a series of industrial Zen gardens.'' *Floating Sauna, temporary architecture, Casagrande & Rintala, Rosendahl village Norway 2002 **''A floating transparent sauna in the end of a fjord as the public space of a fishing village. 6th Cycle of 20+10+X Architecture Awards winner.'' *

Treasure Hill Treasure Hill () is a community in Taipei, Taiwan. Originally an illegal settlement, it was founded by the Kuomintang military veterans at the end of the 1940s and served originally as an anti-aircraft position. After cooperating with non- ...

, housing area restoration, Taipei Taiwan 2003 **''Ecological rehabilitation realization for an illegal housing area.'' *Post Industrial Fleet, naval architecture, CREW*31, Venice Architecture Biennale 2004 **''Architectonic recycling strategies for industrial ships out of duty.'' *Human Layer, urban acupuncture, Greetings from London- Helsinki Festival - Taipei on the Move 2004 **''A series of urban acupuncture plans for the cities of London, Helsinki and Taipei.'' *Chamber of the Post-Urbanist 104, life style installation, Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art 2005 **''Steel made furniture for post urban cave man style living.'' *Future Pavilion, Taiwan Design Expo **''Cross disciplinary art-architecture exhibition in a ruin of Wei Wu Military Camp, Kaoshioung 2005'' *CityZenGarden, installation, together with 3RW Architects, Venice Architecture Biennale 2006 **''Oriental stone garden out of recycled glass in the Venice prison. Video documentation of Taiwanese urban farmers.'' * Chen House, Datun Mountains, Taiwan. World Architecture Award 2009. **''Ruin is when man-made has become part of nature. With this house we were looking forward to design a ruin.'' * Bug Dome, WEAK! for SZHK Biennale 2009. **'' Unofficial social club for illegal workers; insect architecture.'' * Ruin Academy, Urban Core area in Taipei, Taiwan 2010. **''Independent cross-over architectural research centre 'set to re-think the industrial city and the man in the box'.'' * Cicada, Taipei City, Taiwan 2011 **''Organic bamboo pavilion providing urban acupuncture to the surrounding industrial city.

Red Dot The Red Dot Design Award is an international, annual design competition for product and industrial design, brand and communication design as well as design concepts, in which the Red Dot quality label is awarded to winners. The Red Dot Design A ...

Award 2012.'' * Sandworm, Beaufort04 Triennial of

Contemporary Art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

, Wenduine, Belgium 2012 **''Willow cathedral finely tuned to celebrate the site specific conditions of the Wenduine tidal beaches. Part architecture, part environmental art, the whole piece is made out of willow and uses what is described as "weak architecture".Marco Casagrande's Sandworm
- '' Katrina Tan, Trendland 2012''''

References

External links

*
e-architect

World Architecture

Architizer

Casagrande's Work Chronology

Interview with Marco Casagrande
Linda Bennett, Archi-Ninja, Aug 2009

Jirawit Yamkleeb, art4d, Oct 2009

Nathalie Pozzi & Rebecca Jones, Epifanio 11, Nov 2009
Cicada
Nikita Wu, Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Dec 2009 * Robin Peckham, Kunsthalle Kowloon, Dec 2009
HUMAN
C-Laboratory, free newspaper, London 2004
ar2com talks with Marco Casagrande
about his architecture, urban acupuncture, teaching and real and unreal spaces, Mar 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Casagrande, Marco 1971 births Living people People from Turku Finnish Roman Catholics Finnish people of Italian descent Finnish contemporary artists Finnish installation artists Writers from Southwest Finland Aalto University alumni Finnish male novelists Finnish-language writers Architectural theoreticians 20th-century Finnish architects 21st-century Finnish architects Land artists 20th-century Finnish novelists Croatian Defence Council soldiers Expatriates in Taiwan Finnish expatriates in Bosnia and Herzegovina Mercenaries