A sculpture, but also a tool for everyday use, produced in collaboration with Politecnico di Milano (ABC - Department of Architecture, Built Environment, and Construction Engineering) and Galloppini Legnami.
Inaugurated on Wednesday 5 June 2024, Monterosa Byobu, a work by Atsushi Kitagawara that’s been placed in Oasi Zegna, looking out at the wild landscape of ValSessera and the majestic Monte Rosa, resembles a sort of Japanese folding screen (byobu), wooden and porous. Made of jointed Japanese larch (karamatsu) beams without any metal fittings, it was originally created for Kitagawara’s Japanese Pavilion at the 2015 Expo Milano, where it was 12 meters tall and 60 meters long. The architect, together with Politecnico di Milano, had created a module of around 3 x 3 meters (a sort of landscaping sculpture to place in suitable contexts) employing parametric design and numerical control cutting. It has been used in the Forest Byobu at Arte Sella in Val di Sella, in the Urban Byobu at Farm Cultural Park in Favara, Sicily, in the Island Byobu in Casamicciola, Ischia, in the University Byobu at the Politecnico di Milano’s Milan and Lecco facilities and lastly in the City Byobu in Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum, at the most important recent exhibition of historical and contemporary Japanese architecture (subsequently moved to Yamato in the north of Japan).
The installation designed for Oasi Zegna and produced by Galloppini Legnami (Francesco De Pace), with consulting by Politecnico di Milano (prof. Marco Imperadori), is called Monterosa Byobu for the mountain dominating the spectacular panorama here. It also reflects Atsushi Kitagawara’s admiration for the story of the Zegna family, who ideated and created Oasi ZegnaThe Monterosa Byobu differs from all the other works in that it enables visitors to interact with it. Installed on a north facing slope above Bielmonte (Monte Massaro), one side looking downhill while the other looks up in admiration at Monte Rosa, it features an oakwood bench for visitors. Engraved on the seat back are the words of Lao Tse: “Be calm as a mountain and flow like a splendid river”, which remind us of the immense value of these natural resources. Kitagawara’s work addresses the beauty of the landscape in Val Sessera and Oasi Zegna in general. It is recursive and kinetic thanks to the wooden lattice’s play of solid and void, a “woven” pattern evoking the warp and weft that Zegna has taken all over the world. Wood is born of the earth and fed by water, it fixes carbon and produces the oxygen in the air and can produce fire. The Kigumi Infinity Byobu is a partition made of wood and void, the fifth element in oriental philosophies. This void is multiplied in the lattice of Japanese larch wood (karamatsu), evoking mengoshi interlocking toys: the void facing outwards, the void facing inwards and lastly all the void of the wood’s porosity. This defines a continually variable kinematic perception, a tectonics of absence rather than matter, which is ultimately the work’s overall aesthetic. Monterosa Byobu is a “folding screen” that doesn’t close, free, permeable to the air flowing down the mountain side, and capable of providing relief and rest for visitors as well as accommodating birds’ nests and burrows for small animals: a free, empathetic and interactive object in the heart of Oasi Zegna. 
