In a corner of the uni­verse, a star is spin­ning. A star that means everyt­hing to us beca­use it is our home. It is a place of excep­ti­onal beauty, diver­sity and exu­be­rant nature, of which we are a part. It must be a tem­po­rary mis­take for us to go aga­inst nature in the pur­suit of short­term inte­rests, for how much more rewar­ding, how much more bea­uti­ful it is to do as nature does and strive for per­fec­tion. Not­hing in nature is out of place, no stone in the wrong posi­tion: nature itself, howe­ver it appe­ars, is neces­sa­rily bea­uti­ful. This beauty draws us in and is where we relax and feel at home. Places that have grown over cen­tu­ries, old cul­tu­ral lands­ca­pes or Ita­lian hill­side vil­la­ges fill us with joy. We feel at home where everyt­hing has its place: in the park, by the lake, in the open country­side. Yet we have desig­ned cities accor­ding to the needs of cars and shop­ping cent­res accor­ding to the scale of maxi­mum profit. We have conc­re­ted over entire lands­ca­pes igno­ring man and his nature. It is time to cor­rect this. Back to nature does not mean sac­ri­fice but profit beca­use the beauty of nature is pur­po­se­ful, sus­ta­inable and the­re­fore eco­no­mic.

We live in a time where comp­le­tely dif­fe­rent places start to look the same. It’s the same logic which is indisc­ri­mi­na­tely at work there: the logic of the quick and cheap, of the arbit­rary. The result is sepa­ra­tion, nature is locked out, the short­term goal is the measure for everyt­hing. As a con­se­qu­ence, beauty expi­res beca­use it is more than the sum of its parts. If you rep­lace one of them care­lessly, then the cal­cu­la­tion no longer works and we lose our home. We only feel good if everyt­hing is right, if the indi­vi­dual ele­ments of our sur­ro­un­dings har­mo­ni­o­usly inter­t­wine. We feel good beca­use we are allo­wed to be human, beca­use our envi­ron­ment comp­lies with us.

Nature and urba­nity are only oppo­si­tes where we have gene­ra­ted them with glass, conc­rete and asp­halt. »The world is a pro­cess of our thin­king,« wrote Eins­tein, who added: »It cannot be chan­ged wit­hout chan­ging our thin­king.« The fact that it can be done dif­fe­rently by thin­king dif­fe­rently is shown for example with the Bosco Ver­ti­cale in Milan, a ver­ti­cal forest with 900 trees rooted in the faca­des of two high­rise buil­dings. It was cre­ated by the arc­hi­tect Ste­fano Boeri with eco­lo­gi­cal and aest­he­tic den­sity – deca­des after Hun­der­t­was­ser had plan­ted a »tree tenant« on the first floor of a rented flat in Alser­bachst­rasse in Vienna. The tree grew along the window and amazed pas­sersby. The visi­onary later out­li­ned his prog­ramme with the phrase: »Roofs must become forests and stre­ets must become green val­leys.« Hun­der­t­was­ser tack­led the urban lands­cape with bright colo­urs and round shapes like exc­la­ma­tion marks. But you need whole sen­ten­ces to do the same thing with nature beca­use the design voca­bu­lary of nature is ext­re­mely comp­lex but not stri­king. Its beauty unfolds in its struc­ture, rhythm and repe­ti­tion.

Beauty always invol­ves func­ti­ona­lity: nature doesn’t know superf­lu­o­us­ness. Even the splen­dour of a flower serves a pur­pose and appe­ars sub­li­mely bea­uti­ful beca­use of this: not­hing can be left out or added. Besi­des form, mate­rial and appe­arance, it needs anot­her quality for us to feel somet­hing is bea­uti­ful: time. Beauty must prove itself. Only somet­hing that stands the test of time and lasts deca­des later is truly bea­uti­ful. In order to pre­serve it, it is neces­sary to think in cycles and not in short­term trends. Good is what rema­ins, what sur­vi­ves. Beauty is not a short­term effect but only flo­uris­hes with sus­ta­ina­bi­lity. Somet­hing that is sus­ta­inable, that holds toget­her, is auto­ma­ti­cally bea­uti­ful. It integ­ra­tes itself natu­rally into the res­pec­tive envi­ron­ment and merges into it. This is why grown struc­tu­res create well­be­ing and why the per­ma­nent brings com­fort.

Flora and fauna are the result of an ongo­ing pro­cess of adap­ta­tion. Nature is above all prac­ti­cal: anyt­hing that doesn’t work or is superf­lu­ous is devo­ured by the weat­her or evo­lu­tion. What rema­ins is cla­rity, endu­rance and rene­wal. For tho­usands of years, man has shaped his world: we have cul­ti­va­ted deserts, cre­ated cul­tu­ral lands­ca­pes and pre­ser­ved habi­tats worth protecting.It’s up to us: what we do, under­take or pro­duce must be per­ma­nent and still make sense deca­des from now. This is how the world will remain a bea­uti­ful place for us. We have the tech­ni­cal oppor­tu­ni­ties, reso­ur­ces and kno­w­ledge for this.

Let’s get star­ted, let’s get on with it!