KOOZ Let’s start from the title of your respective publications, which share the notion of the Grand Tour. Both books challenge this aristocratic rite of passage, albeit through distinctly different perspectives — from housing in Italy to the indictments of modernity at a world scale. What prompted these reinterpretive studies?

RICHARD WELLER I'm not a historian; nor am I interested in mocking those historical practices we might, for whatever reason, find unacceptable today. I am, however, interested in certain conceits that help frame research projects and open up aspects of contemporary culture. The research question for this book was simple: where would the student of culture go today to learn about and confront the reality of the Anthropocene? The connection to the original Grand Tour was at first just semantic — but the more I thought about it, the richer and more valid the connection became. To draw an arc from the original Grand Tour to today is to draw a line through modernity, one that underscores certain ideas of humanity, nature and aesthetics.

KOOZ Whilst The Last Grand Tour focuses on the Italian territory as a frame of reference for universal themes of architecture and culture, To the Ends of the Earth is a planetary investigation into the Anthropocene and its anti-monuments. How do the two projects approach notions of local, global and planetary and their interrelations?

RICHARD WELLER One obvious similarity is that both books are place-based. That is, they use actual places — with an emphasis on buildings and landscapes — as evidence of historical, sociological, political and philosophical themes. In the case of To The Ends of the Earth, all these places are of the 20th and 21st century; the argument is that these 120 places, whilst culturally specific to their contexts, also present issues which are germane to the broader conditions of late modernity, conditions which are at once global and planetary. By “global” I mean contemporary cultural and economic conditions that transcend nation-states and by “planetary”, I mean the earth system. The degree of symbiosis between the global and the planetary, as Bruno Latour and many others teach, will determine the fate of the Anthropocene.

AP | MO We started with an inquiry: which national phenomena might provide answers to questions of a global dimension? The Grand Tour is of exceptional importance for architecture and planning, sowing the seeds that spread classicism throughout Europe: the work of Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Berlin, for example, would have been inconceivable without his trips to Italy. The influence of sojourns in Italy would prove enduring. For a long time, the Prix de Rome — a scholarship allowing for a stay of several years in Rome — was the most sought-after prize for French architects and artists. Bernard Rudofsky’s thinking was significantly influenced by his impressions of Italy in the interwar years, and more recently, we can see in Peter Eisenman’s architecture the influence of his stays in Italy and his studies of Terragni. Likewise, a knowledge of the impact on Robert Venturi or Louis Kahn of their stays in Rome is essential for understanding their work as a whole. In conclusion, our exploration and reinterpretation of the Grand Tour tradition within the context of contemporary Italy underscores the enduring significance of this historical phenomenon in shaping architectural and cultural discourse.

By delving into the multifaceted realities of Italian landscapes and spatial productions, we aim to offer alternative narratives and perspectives on pressing global issues, particularly surrounding housing and urban development. As architects and scholars, we recognise the profound impact of Italy as a crucible for architectural ideas, from classical antiquity to modernity, and how these influences continue to reverberate in the work of architects across generations. Through our inquiry, we strive to not only understand Italy's role as a frame of reference but also to critically engage with its complexities, offering insights that resonate beyond its borders. The reality check offered by a redefinedGrand Tour prompts us to confront the realities of contemporary challenges, while drawing inspiration from the rich tapestry of Italy's architectural and cultural heritage.

KOOZ The overarching theme of The Last Grand Tour is the question of housing, which is explored as a barometer of economic, political and social conditions. What informed the specific lenses — from geographical associations of The Alps, to cities like Milan, Naples or Rome, and critical phenomena like migration — through which you unfold the complexities of our living environments?

AP | MOWe view the necessity of housing as a crucial barometer of economic, political and social conditions. Housing is a complex construct affected by diverse interests and needs, but also by historical legacies. The spatial aspect of housing is a crucial building block of these reflections, which can have massive implications for both land resources and the landscape. In the spirit of ‘learning from’, various proposals and strategies are opened up for discussion, leading to different places and themes. It proposes, quite literally, varying scales of critical contemplation: from the bird’s eye view of the periphery to the self-organised occupation of vacant buildings for emergency housing.

KOOZ To the Ends of the Earth is structured through a taxonomy of seven chapters: hyperobjects, paradises, utopias, machines, monsters, ruins and instruments. How does this taxonomy shape an understanding of the Anthropocene?

RICHARD WELLER Hyperobjects, per Timothy Morton, are important because they set up the geography, materiality and temporality of a contemporary ecological sense of place. Every object has its hyperobject: one polystyrene cup in your hand is the object and ‘all the polystyrene cups in the world’ is the hyperobject. The Anthropocene necessitates that we try to better understand how the two are interconnected. The book accepts this notion as a kind of given, but the other kind of hyperobject referred to in the opening chapter also just describes really big, complex things — the universe, the internet, climate change and so on. These serve as lenses through which to interpret and contextualise the 120 places presented in the six categories.

Of those six categories, then: Paradises are mainly gardens and landscapes where themes of transgression, hubris and loss prevail. The Utopias are typically urban design experiments and include dystopias and ecotopias. The Machines, whilst including some mechanisms such as the crop harvester and the bulldozer, mainly consist of landscapes which have been engineered to do prodigious amounts of work: landscapes of food, energy, manufacturing and information. The Monsters tend to be examples of the sorts of places left in the wake of utopian machines, which in turn lead to landscapes of ruination. There are signs of hope in the Monsters and in the Ruins, places where large-scale ecological restoration is now taking place. Finally, the chapter on Instruments relates to a selection of tools that humans in the Anthropocene deploy to better understand the earth system.

KOOZ In contrast to the ruins of classical antiquity that inspired the original Grand Tour, the Ruins taxonomy in your book refers, in part, to environmental damage. Can you expand on this paradigm shift?

RICHARD WELLER The Grand Tourists were fascinated by the ruins of classical antiquity and the romantic melancholy of ephemerality that ruins signify. The original Grand tourists were also drawn to places such as Mount Vesuvius, sublime landscapes, where they felt close to nature’s awesome power.In our cultural moment, whilst architectural ruins are still fascinating, what is more pressing and interesting is the possibility that through human induced climate change, we could ruin the entire world. We have also surrounded ourselves with a new kind of ruin, namely environmental ruins — a form of techno-sublime. So, there are similarities between the original Grand Tour and the new tour put forward in the book, but my colleague Oliver Atwood (who produced all the maps and drawings in the book) and I have tried to present the contemporary situation in a way that is more matter-of-fact than romantic. I mean to say that the images and text are intentionally dead-pan; we have tried not to indulge in what I would call an emerging aesthetic of ‘anthro-porn’.

KOOZ Contrary to the practice of travelling physically, as per renaissance tradition, both of these journeys are intended as travels of the mind. To what extent is this a reflection and a critique of the act of travelling today and an industry which fuels both the climate crisis and access to affordable housing?

RW To The Ends of the Earth is not a critique of tourism or the tourism industry — it just so happens that the places I have selected as constituting a comprehensive tour of the Anthropocene are in many cases hard to reach. But yes; though deploying the format of the travel guidebook, this book was always intended as a mindscape rather than a physical journey. However, I think we could reverse the critique you suggest and argue against disembodied experience. I could argue that many of our existential and ecological problems today are because we increasingly do not experience places in person.

AP | MO The influence of (mass) travelling is multifaceted, affecting both the physical landscape and the socio-economic dynamics of the community. Tourism can significantly impact the fabric of a city or territory, particularly in the realm of housing. This often leads to the commodification of housing in popular destinations, driving up prices and limiting access for local communities. Platforms like Airbnb have revolutionised tourism and profoundly impacted Italian cities. Initially, Airbnb provided a platform for homeowners to rent out spare rooms or entire properties to travellers, offering a more affordable and often more immersive tourist experience than traditional hotels. This model quickly gained popularity, especially in cities with high tourist traffic like Rome, Florence, and Venice, where historical centres boast architectural marvels and cultural heritage sites.

As the number of Airbnb listings increased, so did the influx of tourists into these historical neighbourhoods. While this brought economic benefits to homeowners and local businesses, it also led to rising rents and property prices, pushing out long-time residents and altering the social fabric of these communities. Additionally, the proliferation of short-term rentals has raised concerns about the commodification of culture and the loss of authenticity in these historically rich areas. This shift altered the social fabric of many historic neighbourhoods, transforming them into transient spaces rather than communities with long-term residents. In her essay ‘Tourism in the cracks of the Italian economy’,, Sarah Gainsforth writes, “Far from being a tool for ‘making ends meet’ and aiding an impoverished middle class – as went the claim – Airbnb has become a tool for concentrating wealth and increasing spatial and economic inequality.”¹

The publication proposes a wide range of positions regarding housing inequality. Through different approaches and methods, the multifaceted nature of this globally relevant problem is comprehensively framed for the reader. By promoting mental journeys, the book challenges the status quo, urging a reconsideration of travel practices and its impacts on the built environment and its inhabitants.

KOOZ I found extremely interesting that you both ended on somehow finite artefacts or conditions — NASA’s Voyager I&II in To the Ends of the Earth, and the island of La Maddalena in The Last Grand Tour — as opportunities to reopen the discourse and our imaginations, challenging the very terms ‘last’ and ‘ends’. Ultimately, what alternative spatial imaginaries do both volumes seek to nurture?

RWFollowing on from my previous answer: an alternative spatial imaginary is neither embodied nor disembodied, but requires an elasticity between both. That is, perhaps what one needs in order to navigate the Anthropocene is a combination of a mindscape that can wrap itself around the hyperobjects of the global and the planetary, whilst being simultaneously radically of its place. That’s what my profession, landscape architecture, is essentially about; if anything, To The Ends of the Earth is landscape architectural take on contemporary culture. Although the book leaves it open for readers to decide what to make of the future, I’m for a future where the work of earthly cultivation will one day come to supersede the three worldviews that led to climate change in the first place — namely, the economic dogma of endless capitalist growth, the theological farce that paradise is otherworldly, and the technological fantasy of colonising space. Alternatively, the narrative of cultivating the earth provides humanity with a shared and peaceable purpose, grounded in meaningful work. This recultivated earth is not some boring, sanctimonious, doctrinaire, new age ecotopia: it is a highly scientific, aesthetic, inventive, diverse, and experimental project. It is a design project.

Bios

Michael Obrist is an architect and cofounder of the Vienna-based firm feld72 architekten, and a professor of housing and design at TU Wien’s Faculty of Architecture and Planning.

Antonietta Putzu is an architect who works as a research assistant in the Research Unit Housing and Design at TU Wien’s Faculty of Architecture and Planning.

Richard Weller is professor and former chair of landscape architecture and urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania. He is co-founder (with Tatum Hands) of LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture, and founding director (with Vladimir Sitta) of Australian design firm Room 4.1.3.

Federica Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and digital curator whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2015 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Parallel to her work at KoozArch, Federica is Architect at the architecture studio UNA and researcher at the non-profit agency for change UNLESS where she is project manager of the research "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.