Have you ever wondered what it would be like?houses in ten years? And in twenty? Today you will find out what the famous Italian architect Cino Zucchi thinks about this. Houses of the future are a relevant and incredibly interesting topic. After all, each of us is curious about what our habitat will look like in a few decades. What will the materials be? How much will the forms we are accustomed to change? Or maybe the need for houses will disappear altogether, and everyone will live under a huge glass dome, as good old Stephen King bequeathed? At the annual furniture and design exhibition i Saloni WorldWide, our editor-in-chief Oksana Kashenko managed to talk about the future with the popular Italian architect Cino Zucchi, and now you will find out his opinion. Cino Zucchi, architect Cino Zucchi was born in Milan in 1955. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978 and the Milan Polytechnic in 1979. He is the author of such projects as the complex of commercial exhibitions in Abbiategrasso, residential buildings in Abbiategrasso, Venice, Ancona, office buildings in Casorezzo, Lucca and Montevideo. Cino also teaches, writes articles for many specialized Italian magazines, and runs his own architectural bureau Cino Zucchi Architetti.
- How do you see the home of the future?— I will tell you a true story. One architect built a house of the future. He got a kind of flying saucer. He thought it was very interesting. He built thirty such houses, but today no one lives in them. And all because man does not exist in the future, but in the present. And I think that there is no point in talking about a single future for everyone. The future is individual, everyone sees it in their own way. I am a member of a research group that was created in Austria. The group was tasked with determining what a house could be like in 20-30 years. During the last meeting, I noticed that a modern person divides a house into a bedroom, a living room, a bathroom... However, many things in our lives are changing. For example, now I have four children, and almost all of them spend most of their time on the computer and watching videos on YouTube. Traditional family life has changed. If before everyone regularly gathered at the same table, now in the evenings everyone does their own thing. A few days ago my wife asked me what I was doing while sitting at the computer. I answered that I was chatting with my daughter. "But she's behind the wall!" my wife flared up. "Yes, but I send her music files," I replied. And that's normal. I remember both electronic and mechanical houses... There is a film by Jacques Tati, "My Uncle," from 1958. In it, the director made an extremely successful joke about all the "gadgets" in the house. But today's technology seems to dissolve in man and the world around us. We cannot live without it. And we already treat electronics differently. If you observe, you will notice that the first thing people do upon arrival in another country is send an SMS or make a call. I still can't stop being amazed by modern technology. Therefore, perhaps the house of the future can be described as a Palladian villa with an iPod.
— What materials will be used?in the house of the future? - Someone has already said that we live in the era of plastic and synthetics. Modern technologies allow us to create materials that have previously unseen characteristics. For example, if we take the production of ceramic tiles, now many companies offer tiles that look like natural stone. At the same time, they do not just create a structure with a pattern, they manage to create randomly located veins. There was a time when peasants, townspeople, artisans took materials in the forest, at the quarry ... And the harmony that we now observe in rural settlements is largely due to the fact that the set of materials is limited. A modern person has a wider choice, but the likelihood of making a mistake is much higher. Therefore, modern cities often make us feel some kind of confusion. I believe that it is unlikely that we will be able to come to some kind of unified model for the use of building materials. There is such an architect - Joseph Frank, he is a Jew, and during the war he immigrated to Sweden. So, he said: the modern era is a combination of all past eras. In his vision, the modern city is the Tower of Babel. Futurologists and utopians imagined a sunny future of a single architectural model. In reality, cities are very different. In megalopolises, there are Chinese and Indian quarters. Therefore, in the future, there will be a certain combination of models proposed by architects. If you take today's 17-year-old Japanese, he will look more like an American than his own grandparents. My exhibition "Customs" is currently taking place in Italy. And in the introductory part, I tried to emphasize the contradictions between traditional ethnography and architecture. It turned out that there is an inextricable connection between the material, culture and place of residence of people. If today a type of ethnography is possible that is not tied to geography, I mean subcultures (cyberpunks, goths). In England, for example, groups like "mock aristocracy" (they wear lords' suits) are very popular now. Or there are those who consider themselves macho. However, this does not concern a single country, it can be seen everywhere.
— Plywood is very popular in Russia asfinishing material. How can you comment on this? - Right now in Vienna they are building a completely wooden high-rise building. Because modern technology allows building high-rise buildings from such material. But its facade will not be made of natural materials due to maintenance problems. Wood is a well-known material to man, we all build from it, if not a house, then at least a summer house. Multilayer wood (plywood) is stable, it keeps its shape. On the one hand, we all love solid wood, but there are situations where it simply cannot be used, and that is when we use plywood. As for finishing facades and the outside of buildings, for example, one Spanish company produces panels for cladding buildings made of wood. In reality, this is plywood, which is processed for strength, and it becomes more like plastic than wood. Of course, building entire cities from wood is not practical now. Because after some time either major repairs will be required, or the building will have to be torn down and a new one built. Wood has very interesting characteristics, which is why architects are now experimenting with it a lot. Tastes change, something new is constantly appearing, but sometimes you want borscht. The same with materials - sometimes you want to go back to what was already there. Cino Zucchi, architect
By the way, the Milan edition of the i Saloni (Salone del Mobile) exhibition will take place very soon this year – from April 12 to 17.
What will the houses of the future be like: architect Cino Zucchi tells us – etk-fashion.com
