Mental and emotional processes in two post-Bomarzian parks: Buzzi's La Scarzuola and Saint Phalle's Tarots' Garden

• Published in: Creating Through Mind and Emotions pp. 365 - 371
• Main Author: Centineo, Santi
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: CRC Press 2022
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Moderna Museet; Young Man; Tarots' Garden; Contemporary Society; Vice Versa; Bernardo Buontalenti; Open Construction Site; Polyester Casts; Dense; Vilanova Artigas; Martial Raysse; Timeless; Vaccine Hesitancy; Tomaso Buzzi; Cape Verdean; Pirro Ligorio; Violated; Stone Park; Hanged Man; Daniel Spoerri; Mental Environment; La Scarzuola; Niki de Saint Phalle; Saint Phalle; Sculptural Park
• ISBN: 9780367279936; 9780367495381; 0367279932; 0367495384
• DOI: 10.1201/9780429299070-48

In central Italy, near the Bomarzo Garden, there are two parks, different in consistency and conception, which in some way express a territorial and ideological continuity with the famous Mannerist garden. The first one, La Scarzuola (Montegabbione), has been designed by the architect Tomaso Buzzi (Sondrio 1900 - Rapallo 1981); the second one, the Tarots' Garden (Garavicchio), by the artist Niki de Saint Phalle (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1930 - San Diego, 2002). They have been and built over a long period, not following a complete and pre-established graphic project, but entrusted to the logic of the open site that represents the vision present in the minds of the two authors: two amazing and, at the same time, disturbing works, also for the type of design process. The first one, marked by an attempt to rationalize, effectively empties the architecture of its housing instance, transforming it in fact into a sculpture; the second one, on the contrary, based on an emotional process, extends the plasticity of sculpture to a space in which the human presence is continuously compared with the scale difference, ending up revealing an architectural nature. This request for the completion of sense activates in the user a mental mechanism of completion and positioning of meaning that arouses an alienating sense of accurate reflection. In central Italy, near the Bomarzo Garden, there are two parks, different in consistency and conception, which in some way express a territorial and ideological continuity with the famous Mannerist garden. The first one, La Scarzuola, has been designed by the architect Tomaso Buzzi and the second one, the Tarots' Garden, by the artist Niki de Saint Phalle. This chapter describes these two parks as example giving rise to a series of considerations that interlace and contrast among them, compared to a speech to be conducted on that balance between rationality and emotionality, between the scientific and artistic spirit. La Scarzuola can be considered an architecture that crystallizes into a sort of sculptural park, while the Tarots' Gardena large sculptural park soon reveals how it is a series of architectures. Walking in these two parks, not during the crowded tourist visits but in the privileged context of solitude, arouses a continuous disquiet, dictated by the estrangement of the visitor.