The annual Bergamo Green Square installation, which is part of the International Landscape Festival, sees a different designer invited to create an installation in the central square of the city’s old town each September.
Nigel – who follows designers including Piet Oudolf, Andy Sturgeon and Luciano Giubbillei – created this year’s design on the theme From Nature to Nature: a Journey in the City of the Future.
The theme was chosen to raise awareness of the value of green in combating climate-change, promoting biodiversity, enhancing human health and stimulating economic activity, following the severe restrictions and high death rates endured by the city due to the coronavirus.
Nigel said: “the concept started with the idea of completely filling the whole of the square with the most uplifting, joyful and beautiful naturalistic planting - to create the impression of the square being flooded with the most beautiful wildflower meadow, using exuberant and vibrant colour to capture the imagination of people.”
“Within this flood of green, I wanted to carve out gathering and meeting spaces for people, create immersive natural experiences and produce a range of different experiences - from calm and restful to bright and energetic.”
“To make these spaces, I used organic forms and shapes, linked by a network of paths, to create a sense of mystery and exploration.”
The landscape was installed over a period of 10 days at the end of August and into September 2021. Nigel worked with a team of local gardeners and horticulture and agronomy students, during the build and planting phases, alongside lighting, irrigation and furniture specialists.
The design attracted a great deal of interest from city politicians and for the first time in the history of the Green Square, there will now be a permanent version created in the city that embodies the same themes.
Nigel has been asked to advise on the transformation of one of the main streets in downtown Bergamo, to create a new, heavily planted ‘green street’ with a similar naturalistic character to the 2021 Green Square.
Nigel said: "it was illuminating and so satisfying to see how people responded to the abundance of colour, forms, textures, movement, and being surrounded by an enhanced and amplified form of nature, with so much detail to discover within the bigger spectacle. Of course, it gives just a hint of what our towns and cities could be like, if we infiltrate beautiful and functional green into our surroundings, on a transformational scale."
"It’s no longer something that we should be seeing as an optional extra – it’s something that we have to do as an essential and non-negotiable element in how me make and shape places for the future."
Space to dwell, space to linger
We asked Nigel to tell us a bit more about the design of Bergamo Green Square
He said: "the square, Piazza Vecchia, was described by the architect, Le Corbusier, as the most beautiful square in Europe and is surrounded by wonderful architecture, bars, cafes and restaurants. The edges of the square are highly activated, but the central space is largely a ‘walk-through’ space, with little reason to dwell or linger.
I wanted to change this – to make the central areas as active as the edges, and to create a sequence of spaces where people would stop, engage, meet, dwell, and become animated themselves, surrounded by the vibrant planting.
To give three-dimensionality to the installation, I made several ‘hills’ from wooden pallet build-ups, over which the planting was placed. The hills and valleys reflected the surrounding mountainous landscape, but also created plantings that were higher than person height, meaning that each separate space became visually self-contained from the others.
Two main colour themes were used with the planting – yellows, golds and reds – and cooler pinks, purples and blues.”
Exhibition
Alongside the installation, was an exhibition dedicated to Nigel’s work, organised by Professor Salvatore Falci from Bergamo Academy of Fine Art.
“The exhibition was like nothing else I have seen,” said Nigel. “Students of the academy were given phrases, keywords, or pieces of my writing, together with examples of projects I’ve worked on, and were asked to develop interactive exhibits and interpretations of that initial inspiration.”
“The result was a joyous and creative exploration of ideas.”
Salvatore Falci said: “It’s great to see what young students have achieved, inspired by an author like Nigel Dunnett who has been working for a long time on an innovative idea to improve the relationship between humans and nature. It’s even nicer if this becomes a trigger for everyone to enter into creative confidence with the nature around us and the nature within us.”
Bergamo Green Square was supported by Arketipos, a body of local landscape designers, architects, planners, plant nurseries and community members, with the mission of promoting the field of landscape architecture and environmental horticulture.
All the plants for the installation were provided by local perennial nursery Valfreida, and were returned to the nursery after the installation was taken apart at the end of September.
For more information about this project, as well as other examples of our work - from student projects, staff research and professional collaborations - helping to address the climate crisis, check out the Hopeful Greener Futures page below.