CULTURA
Redesigning nature Antonio Pio Saracino
By JONATHAN TURNER
“Design is the place between humans and nature,” says Antonio Pio Saracino, the award-winning designer, architect and artist. Many of his projects, ranging from furniture, product design, lighting, jewellery, interiors, public art commissions and large-scale architectural blue-prints, are inspired by such natural forms as bones, horns, plants, shells and coral. His particular style also makes references to high-tech innovation, Roman mythology and genetics. “I have always been interested to create from nature, to build a bridge between the natural and the artificial,” he says. “We see many forms of life evolving from the structures of ribs, sectioning of bones, the spines of fish, snakes and other animals, the columns of interlocking bones that carry life and allow movement. And GENIUS PEOPLE MAGAZINE
architecture can be seen as a method of making our own exoskeletons, created from the same logic as the protection offered by a shell or scales.” Born in 1976 in Puglia, Saracino now lives between New York and Rome. His projects are infused with Italian classicism, mixed with the spirit and dynamism of the New World. In any case, Saracino is something of a contemporary Renaissance man. His talent incorporates computer-manipulated photography, outdoor illuminated installations and monumental sculptures including his two Guardian statues in Bryant Park in Manhattan: Hero carved in layers of Carrara marble based on Michelangelo’s David, and Superhero made from ribbons of mirror-polished stainless steel mimicking the self-confident silhouette of Superman in a flowing cape. 110