Visiting the Sicilian architecture bureau NOWA.
A day with Marco Navarra.

By Francesca Oddo,
photos : Salvatore Gozzo / studio NOWA

Meeting a Sicilian architect deep into his homeland
gave me the chance to witness its enchanting
countryside.
While rolling down the road to Caltagirone, toward
Marco Navarra’s studio, I realize how deeply such
environment might charm any architect and influence
his works, being so rich in light, colour hues and
scents; even my interview’s questions will be
“attracted” by such a poetry.
Marco himself must be inspired every day by this
bright and soft colour palette; I think I’m getting
“enlightened” as well.
This is a brand new experience for my eyes.
Parco lineare - pista ciclabile and San Michele di
Ganzaria’s recent city square, Navarra’s latest
projects, testify his dialectical exchange with the
land, and his love proposal to Sicily’s landscapes,
now being elevated to Stage Scenery in the Act
of Life.
Every Sicilian inherits this strong bond with Mother
Nature, making it impossible to choose another
place to work or live other than their beloved Island.
Being there is a cultural statement, indeed.
I embrace this mood entering Caltagirone, and am
greeted by its brightly coloured pottery, its Baroque
urban boudoirs, its finely wrought iron balconies
guarded by sullen tom-cats. It’s a privilege, being an
architect in such an inspiring environment.

That’s my mind while I open NOWA’s [ Navarra
Office Walk Architecture ] office doors, and start
my interview with Mr Navarra.

Could you describe our Webreaders a typical day
in NOWA’s office ?
KEY : SHORT TIME
Our bureau’s time table is made up by people’s
meetings, different teams going their own separate
ways, gathering for a job or a briefing when needed.
It’s thusly hard to describe a daily routine : every
working day is different.
We have a weekly sort-of scheme : first days are
destined to planning, last one is usually de-briefing
and studio cleanup / re-arrange.
Some days appear sluggish and still, others fast and
overwhelming. Finally, some are neverending
(that’s when coffee-breaks are regenerating for the
whole crew).

Your project named “Parco lineare - pista ciclabile”
won Italian Architecture a Gold Medal, and has been
nominated to participate 2003’s Mies Van De Rohe Prix.
Have these international Awards changed your work
or habits ?
KEY : RAPIDITY
Thay have influenced my perspectives, as far as
relationships, either in numbers and importance.
We have been contacted from outside Italy, as
soon as we won the Gold Medal; that gave us the
chance to apply our “ localized” experience to
elaborate “foreign” solutions. We faced though a
faster pace in working habits, pushing us to improve
our “fasts” and “slows”, their correct use being an
important ingredient to develop all different aspects
in our projects.

Your bureaus are embraced by Caltagirone’s lusty
coutryside. How do these colours, intense light
and scents affect your teams and their acts?
KEY : SUBSTANTIALITY
Everybody cares for our little garden, carefully
mantained by our neighbors. Its beauty lies in its
variety, being an harmonious co-existence of flowers,
fruit trees and vegetables. Seasonal changes
contribute to de-structure its nature modifying
colours and visual importance between items.
A small fauna, little creatures enhance its inter-racial
character : cats, birds ( magpies, robins, blackbirds
and swallows), lizards, butterflies, spiders and ants
often meet our admiring looks, sometimes they do
capture us like a first time sight.
This tiny living world, in its rich variety, helps us
keeping a simple profile in our works, as complex
as it might be.
I recall Alighiero Betti’s 1969 “Cimento dell’armonia
e dell’invenzione” , a straightforward masterpiece of
semplicity made up retracing, on a blank sheet, all
the tiny blue lines of a checked copybook page.
To my eyes, it’s a proof that repeated simple actions
can can lead to new discoveries. Retracing is an
essencial premise in my job.

Other than rulers, drawing boards, tools, models and
computers, your bureau is decorated with a huge
book collection. Do you often spend your time reading,
at the studio ? If so, what would you read ? Please
tell us how did you gather your books, amgazines and
treatives.
KEY : CARTOGRAPHY
Books are a pair of glasses to read the world “, Marcel
Proust wrote.
Often we don’t read to look for a message, but in
search of answers to solve many problems emerging
from every new project. I’ve always loved Aby
Warburg’s image of a library, where books are ordered
following a “neighbor’s law “ : your cannot find your
answers in the book you’re spotted, but in the one
next to it! Sometimes I bring my private collection
(literature, philosophy, art, cinema, science, even
comic books ) here in the studio, to form casual piles.
Rather than fully reading each work, I prefer to look
for answers or ideas by fastly browsing many; all
these tiny pieces start gathering, and suggest new
directions and clues to fulfill our working needs,
melting with our sketches, notes or models.
Books here are regarded as a meeting point between
every day habits and our urgency to solve intellectual
problems; swift encounters that are uncontrollable
most of the times.

Italian-English tranlsation Courtesy of
Fabio Cesarone