Emilio Ambasz: Curating a New Nature

A timely reevaluation and synthesis of this ecologically minded trailblazer and vibrantly interdisciplinary figure of contemporary design.Famously labeled the “father, poet, and prophet” of green architecture and a proponent of the idea that any project in architecture or design must present new or better ways of living or be deemed immoral, Emilio Ambasz is an award-winning architect, industrial designer, and protean maker of forms. He has invented highly efficient engines, modular furniture, streetlights, flexible pens, expandable suitcases, ergonomic door handles, wrist computers, and 3D posters. In collaboration with Giancarlo Piretti, he created the Vertebra chair, the first automatic ergonomic chair in the world, now part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.Long a pioneer in architecture, Ambasz has retained a belief in the environment, or rather the larger ecology, as fundamental in viewing the world: as the aut