Carlo Ratti on the Future: Between Nature and Technology

Architect and engineer Carlo Ratti, founder of CRA in Turin and New York and director of the MIT Senseable City Lab, discusses his inspirations, key projects, and vision for the future. He cites Olafur Eliasson (collaboration on Fondazione Agnelli renovation), Bill Viola, Constant's New Babylon, and Felice Casorati as artistic references. His most representative recent project is The Greenary, a home for Francesco Mutti in Montechiarugolo designed with Italo Rota, centered around a ten-meter ficus tree. Ratti advocates for "Network Specifism," an approach emphasizing the contributions of individual professionals over site-specificity, proposed with Antoine Picon in the Architectural Review. He rejects the polarization between futurists and gondoliers, quoting Buckminster Fuller and Giuliano da Empoli. For young professionals, he recommends Truffaut's Jules & Jim advice: "Travel, write, translate, learn to live everywhere." On sacredness, he cites Einstein's Spinoza quote and sees architecture as an antidote to post-truth polarization. He envisions a future balancing city and nature, centering sustainability and circular economy, but notes the urgency of the Russia-Ukraine war.