Landscape design and protection

Un PREMIO officina di idee e laboratorio scientifico

The Torsanlorenzo International Prize – Landscape design and protection promoted by Mario Margheriti and the Organizing Committee has grown in importance, in part due to the high quality of the prizewinners from all over the world, from the United States to Austria, Jordan, Slovenia and Australia. The prize’s merit consists in the construction and promotion of a landscape culture in the sense of a space to inhabit and live in, and around which to plan a city, or as a place which is capable on its own of upgrading a degraded environment. Many of the prize-winning projects confirm this vocation, such as the first prize in Section A regarding landscape design in territorial transformation, which went to architect Rainer Schmidt, author of the Gymnasium Paulinum project in Schwaz, Austria. The same architect also won the first prize in Section C for the restoration of a private garden at Wolfgangsee in Salzburg, Austria.
The second prize in Section A was assigned for the restoration of the “Sforza Cesarini in Genzano” garden (to architects Virgilio Melaranci, Cinzia Giuliani, Dimitri Ticconi and Ilia Monachesi).
The project for the recovery and upgrading of ‘Collina della Pace’ at Finocchio, a suburb of Rome, commissioned by the municipal authorities, is also of social interest and won the first prize in Section B, for the culture of urban green spaces. The project is the work of a team of professionals (architects Mirella Di Giovine, Stanislao Cocchia, Luigi Franciosini, Paola Porretta, Antonella Fittoni, Giovanna White and engineers Paolo Uliana and Fabrizio Freddi). In the same Section, the second prize was awarded to the restoration of the “Memorial Park” at Ljubno Ob Savinji in Slovenia.
Australia left its mark, represented by architects Adrian Mc Gregor and Larissa Ward who won the second prize in Section C for their project for the restoration of green spaces in a condominium in Sydney.

The prize, sponsored by the Italian National Commission for UNESCO and in accordance with the UN decade of Sustainable Development Education, presents ideas that go beyond the goals of protection and preservation of green spaces. This is confirmed by the acknowledgements of the Prestige Prize to Katy Moss Warner, who has taught millions of visitors to the Walt Disney World to appreciate the importance of beauty, of gardens and of food growing and who now, as representative of the American Horticultural Society, aims to turn her country into “a nation of gardeners and a land of gardens”, as well as encouraging young people to grow food as a member of “The Growing Connection” committee; to the Jordanian Nabal Nezar Yaseen Qattan, who has devoted a major part of his work to checking desertification in Jordan, his native country, by successfully cultivating 450 hectares of land and creating important parks in the city of Amman; to the Dutchman Niek van Rest, a major figure in the domestic and international flower and plant growing sector. One of his most successful ideas is “Plants for people”, that is the promotion of plants in hospitals and offices for their beneficial effect on human beings. Education also plays an important role in the nursery gardening sector and the Prestige Prize also acknowledged the work of Romano Tesi, for his passion and skill as university teacher and researcher.

His Eminence Cardinal Paul Poupard, President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Culture and of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, made a touching speech about his Angevin peasant origins and outlined a brief but intense history of the relationship between man and nature in the course of our millenary history. From “homo faber”, who becomes aware that human existence is the centre of reference for everything in the natural world (Leonardo da Vinci, Bacon, Cartesius, Galileo) to “homo religiosus”, like St Francis of Assisi, patron of Italy and of ecology whose Canticle of the Creatures strongly expresses the sentiment of God’s universal paternity of all living creatures and enables him to humanise reality and recognise in all objects of contemplation, even inanimate ones, a brother or a sister. In conclusion, Cardinal Poupard outlined a gratifying portrait of the “man of the Vivai Torsanlorenzo”. Still “homo faber and homo sapiens, homo religiosus and homo serviens”, since he is not a despot who attacks nature – as his note says – but serving God and his creatures to produce an ever more complete and perfect cosmic harmony.

Torsanlorenzo International Prize therefore represents a constructive and positive answer to the increasingly alarming data supplied by Earth Day, celebrated a few days ago. In 2050 the consumption rate of the human population will be twice the capacity of the Earth, and with regard to environmental protection Italy is the last country in Europe, though the Italian Confederation of Farmers has drawn up a Decalogue for sustainable agriculture.

Yet again, this Prize is more than a series of acknowledgements. The event is reported by the principal national and international scientific and professional associations operating in the sector and attracts hundreds of participants from every continent.