Emilio Ambasz Research Institute MoMA New York City, Manhattan Building News, Design

Emilio Ambasz Research Institute MoMA New York

Nov 26, 2020

Emilio Ambasz Research Institute at MoMA NY

The Museum Of Modern Art Of New York (MoMA NY) announces the establishment of the ‘Emilio Ambasz Research Institute’ – The Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and the Natural Environment – (EA/RI) in the MoMA NY.

In the attached press release, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) announces the establishment of the ‘Emilio Ambasz Research Institute’ (EA/RI) for the joint study of a new architecture that will reconcile nature with the artificial environment.

photos courtesy of Compasso d’Oro

The Institute, based in the MoMA Department of Architecture and Design and funded by a major gift from the LEAF Foundation, will be dedicated to understanding the interaction between architecture and ecology.

The Argentinian Emilio Ambasz – considered the father, poet and prophet of green architecture – together with MoMA aim to further develop and enrich the global debate about the urgent need for an ecological recalibration.

ACROS centre Fukuoka, Kyushu Island, Japan, design by Emilio Ambasz:

image courtesy of Emilio Ambasz & associates / ambasz.com

The press release from the Museum of Modern Art in New York states that: “The establishment of the Ambasz Institute offers an important opportunity for MoMA to continue its global leadership on sustainability issues while celebrating and cultivating a deeper public understanding of architecture and design. Research opportunities and a variety of programs including public lectures, conferences and symposia, many of them online, will bring together and prompt conversations amongst architects, designers, policy makers, social thinkers, historians, and the general public. The Institute will specifically study creative approaches to design at all scales of the built environment – buildings, cities, landscapes, and objects – in order to work toward an ecological future and environmental justice.”

Emilio Ambasz says: “Every building is an intrusion into the plant kingdom and is a challenge to nature: we must devise an architecture that stands as the embodiment of a reconciliatory pact between nature and construction, designing buildings so intrinsically connected to their surroundings that they are unable to disentangle themselves from each other.”

Ambasz has designed projects all across the globe that have become benchmarks and provided inspiration for modern green architecture.

This year is the 25^th anniversary of the inauguration of the ACROS centre in Fukuoka (Japan), one of the most innovative, spectacular and best-known green buildings in the world. “There is, I believe, no prior example of nature governing architectural creation with such poetic power and haunting seduction […] Emilio Ambasz has taught us to see a dimension in which nature and architecture are inseparable, a realm that goes from nature created by God to one forged by man […] Ambasz‘s research has inspired a new development in the recent success of many among his fellow architects,” in the words of Tadao Ando.

Important Emilio Ambasz solo exhibitions have been held all over the world, from MoMA in New York (twice) to the Milan Triennale (twice), to the Reina Sofia in Madrid, not to mention Tokyo, Geneva, Bordeaux, Zurich, Chicago, Philadelphia, Mexico City, San Diego and Saint Louis, celebrating his unique design, creative flair and moral commitment.

He was formerly the curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA (1969-1976), where he organised the hugely successful exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, bringing Italian design objects to the attention of the whole world. He is an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects and the Royal Institute of British Architects.

In September 2020 Emilio Ambasz won his fourth Compasso d’Oro, this time for his extraordinary career, as “a pioneer of the relationship between buildings and nature that has created genuine ‘living’ manifestos for a culture of sustainable development.”

The MoMA will soon be staging a large exhibition about green architecture by various architects illustrating the great influence of Emilio Ambasz‘s decades-long research to find symbiosis between nature and buildings and to combat the destruction of the environment.

Emilio Ambasz Compasso d’Oro award 2020 images / information received 109020

Previously on e-architect:

Emilio Ambasz Architecture

MoMA Emilio Ambasz Research Institute, New York, NY, USA

photo courtesy of Emilio Ambasz & associates
Emilio Ambasz Compasso d’Oro award

ACROS centre, Fukuoka City, Kyushu Island, Japan
Design: Emilio Ambasz Architect

photo courtesy of Emilio Ambasz & associates
Fukuoka’s ACROS centre by Emilio Ambasz

Italian Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition
Casa de Retiro Espiritual, 41880 El Ronquillo, Seville, Spain:

photo courtesy of Emilio Ambasz & associates
Italian Pavilion Venice Biennale 2021