Botanica Temporanea | The Art of Invisible Gardens
An interactive exhibition-workshop curated by landscape designer Antonio Perazzi. The project illustrates the plants’ intrinsic ability to regenerate their habitats while coexisting with humans, following a design plan that is shared by humans and nature.
From 18 June to 19 September 2021, free entry.
Exhibition Opening Hours
monday-friday, from 10:00 to 17:00, by appointment by writing to: info@manifatturatabacchi.com.
Saturday, from 10:30 to 19:30 (no appointment is required).
The exhibition will be closed on the 14th and 21th August.
Special Opening (18-20 June): 3 days of talks, workshops, film screenings, and a flower and plant market to explore and reflect upon the relationship between Humans and Nature.
Special Opening Program | 18-20 June 2021
Friday 18 June – from 18:00 to 00:00
h 18:00 – Exhibition opening.
h 18:30 – Talk “Botanica Temporanea, from planning to participation. The garden as a community practice” with Antonio Perazzi (Landscape designer and founder of Studio Perazzi), Anna Lambertini (Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture), Robert Pettena (Visual Artist). Gregory Eve (CEO of GreenApes) will moderate the panel.
h 21:30 – Cinema | Secret Screening (original versione, sub. ita)
Saturday 19 June – from 10:00 to 00:00
h 11:00 – Talk “The city and the transition challenge. Manifattura Tabacchi as a prototype for urban regeneration” with Antonio Perazzi (Landscape designer and founder of Studio Perazzi), Michelangelo Giombini (Head of Product Development at Manifattura Tabacchi), Cecilia del Re (City Counselor Environment, and Tourism Comune di Firenze) and Ezio Manzini (Architect and Italian Design Theorist). Marco Tognetti (CEO of LAMA Impresa Sociale) will moderate the panel.
h 16:30 – Theatral show “Storie selvatiche” by Lorenza Zambon.
h 18:00 – Ezio Manzini presents his new book “Abitare la Prossimità” with Giordana Ferri (Executive Director at Housing Sociale Foundation) and François Jegou (Founder and Head of Strategic Design Scenarios).
Marco Tognetti (CEO of LAMA Impresa Sociale) will moderate the panel.
h 19:00 – Theatral show “94 passi in giardino” by Lorenza Zambon.
h 21:30 – Cinema | Landscape Film: Roberto Burle Marx by Joao Vargas (2018, 72′)
Sunday 20 June – from 10:00 to 00:00
h 11:30 – Talk “Kachōfūgetsu: Flowers Birds Wind Moon” with Yuki Seli (Photographer and Artist) Rossella Menegazzo (Professor of East Asian Art History and Visual Arts, East Asian Entertainment and Design at the University of Milan) and Luca Bartolozzi (Curator of Entomology department at the University of Florence’s Natural History Museum). Antonio Perazzi will moderate the panel.
h 16:00 – Urbarïum Narrative workshop
h 21:30 – Cinema | The Tree Line, J.Manley (2018,91′).
On Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 June, from 10:00 to 21:00, there will be the market and the flower market with Vivaio Giardino Signorini, il Posto delle Margherite, NOP, I campi di Ninfa and Vivaio Borgioli.
There will be also the Frab’s Magazine, Colla, Mattattoo and Mono_Graff stand with prints and screen printing workshops open to the public and Todo Modo selling books on Botanica Temporanea.
Talks will take place in the Giardino della Ciminiera underneath the canopy of Building 8. Participation at the talks is free, with limited places. The access to the exhibition is limited in compliance with the measures taken by the Italian government in order to contain and control the epidemiological emergency COVID-19.
The Botanica Temporanea Finissage will take place during God is Green, the festival dedicated to sustainability and the future, conceived by Manifattura Tabacchi and produced by Nam – Not a Museum.
In those days the Botanica Temporanea exhibition will be open on both Saturdays and Sundays, from 10.30 to 19.30.
Botanica Temporanea Finissage
Botanica Temporanea is the interactive exhibition inspired by the principle of gentle, low-impact environmental regeneration, aimed at encouraging the growth of spontaneous flora and fauna to recreate a mutually beneficial, long-term balance between Humans and Nature. The design approach of Botanica Temporanea is reflected in the exhibition through the installation of greenery with 1555 plants and over 50 botanical species, provided by Giorgio Tesi Group, and through design documents, materials and testimonials.
The Botanica Temporanea exhibition-workshop is a preview of the concept of Officina Botanica, the roof garden designed for the Factory’s Building 11 – which is to become the heart of the new Manifattura Tabacchi which will open in 2022. Officina Botanica’s scope is to encapsulate the themes and challenges of sustainable development of the space. Antonio Perazzi’s design focuses on the micro-flora and botanical rarities that characterise the Florentine and Tuscan landscape and celebrate the manifold qualities of Mediterranean vegetation. The new landscape will adapt to Manifattura’s innovative functions, interacting with the architecture in a unique space in which a veritable urban jungle can flourish.
The inauguration of Botanica Temporanea includes a 3-day programme from 18 to 20 June featuring talks, workshops, film screening, a flower and plant market, as well as the creation of a garden in Piazza dell’Orologio and an open design space, conceived as a hands-on laboratory in the iconic greenhouse space designed by Studio Q-BIC inside the loggia that separates Piazza dell’Orologio from the Giardino della Ciminiera.
Botanica Temporanea will flourish in Manifattura Tabacchi’s spaces in two phases: during the design phase in which a research workshop took place in April-May 2021, a garden was built that will thrive in the spaces of Manifattura Tabacchi for the entire summer, growing and expressing itself according to the principles of Botanica Temporanea.
This process involved Studio Antonio Perazzi together with the students of the Master’s Degree Course in Landscape Architecture from Università degli Studi di Firenze’s School of Architecture, led by Prof. Anna Lambertini.
In the second phase, June and September 2021, the design area will be transformed into an exhibition space that is open tot the public, together with the temporary garden created by the student’s workshop projects. A rich programme of activities will be offered to investigate and delve deeper into the philosophy behind Botanica Temporanea.
TALK
Friday 18 h 18:30
Botanica Temporanea, from planning to participation. The garden as a community practice.
Botanica Temporanea aims to describe plants’ intrinsic ability to regenerate spaces in collaboration with people as they follow a shared design plan between humans and nature. Plants that are free to grow, flower, claim their space. Collective and conscious human action allows for the transformation of a space whose newfound identity emphasises what naturally exists around it. The garden becomes a means of involvement and shared creation which evolves over time with the community that created it. This talk will explore the potential temporary gardens offer in providing a contact point between people and spaces which are in the process of defining their identities.
Saturday 19 h 11:00
The city and the transition challenge. Manifattura Tabacchi as a prototype for urban regeneration.
Manifattura Tabacchi’s new landscape design represents a meeting between science and culture and plants’ and humans’ reciprocal knowledge towards a new vision of coexistence. No more exploitation, oppression and hostility: a modern and innovative coexistence between people and nature takes root, bringing mutual benefits from a holistic integration of nature and architecture. This talk explores how we can apply this approach on a larger, city-level scale.
Sunday 20 h 11:30
Kachōfūgetsu: Flowers Birds Wind Moon
It would never occur to a European to describe a landscape using these four words, yet in Japanese, this four-character term connotes and refers to all representations of nature, pictorial and otherwise. How do we relate to Nature? How do we observe Nature? What feelings arise within us as we do so? Japanese art poses profound questions that Professor of Asian Art History Rossella Menegazzo and Japanese artist and photographer Yuki Seli will explore from differing yet complementary perspectives.
CINEMA
Friday 18 h 21:30
Secret Screening
Saturday 19 h 21:30
Landscape film: Roberto Burle Marx
The journey follows the trajectory of the painter, sculptor, and landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx, who designed squares and gardens by discovering, rediscovering and enhancing native plants and many new species of different places he visited. A careful search that has become his signature.
Sunday 20 h 21:30
The Tree Line
Treeline takes us to the enshrined cypress groves of Japan, the towering redcedars of Bristish Columbia, and the ancient bristlecones of Nevada, following a handful skiers, snowboarders, scientists and healers as they move through thee giants and explore a connection older than humanity.
“Manifattura Tabacchi, an ex-industrial space, was first exclusively dominated by humans, with an anthropocentric order based on the logic of factory production. Then, when the factory closed, it was overtaken by plants which grew freely and naturally according to Nature’s design. Today, twenty years after Manifattura’s closure in 2001, this new landscape project opens the doors to a scientific and cultural meeting in which a reciprocal exchange of knowledge between plants and humans can take place. We envision a shared use of the space in which all species can co-exist. it will not be taken advantage by either, it will be a modern and innovative cohabitation between people and nature born from the integration of nature and intelligent architecture of the space”
– Antonio Perazzi
Antonio Perazzi is a landscape architect who studied at the Politecnico di Milano and the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens in London. Through his work and teaching activities, he formulated the concept of Botanica Temporanea. In 1998, he opened his own design studio with which he has signed projects and consultancies for important architectural firms and engineering companies. Perazzi designed the landscape at Manifattura Tabacchi.
Studio Antonio Perazzi