Ambasz, Emilio

Emilio Ambasz (born 1943) is an Argentinian-American architect and industrial designer. Ambasz has been called "the father, poet, and prophet" of green architecture by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. His style is characterised by a combination of buildings and gardens, which he describes as "green over grey". He bucked the trends of the 1970s, hiding his buildings under gardens and grass or putting them on boats. From 1969 to 1976 he was Curator of Design at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York. Ambasz reconciles "technology and primitivism" (Terence Riley, former director of the Department of Architecture at MoMA, NY), is "creator of sophisticated earthly paradises" (A. Mendini), and his poetic research merges the natural and artificial: "It is an ethical obligation: to demonstrate that another future is possible. To affirm a different model of life to avoid perpetuating the present." The MOMA was established in 2020 at the Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and the Natural Environment. Curator, writer, and educator, Carson Chan was appointed as its first director.