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The most impressive work of art at “Arte Sella” (a contemporary “art in nature” exhibition in Val di Sella – Borgo Valsugana) is the Vegetal Cathedral, built in 2001 by Giuliano Mauri from Lodi.
Located in a clearing near “Malga Costa”, it is made up of over three thousand intertwined branches, forming a cathedral with three naves, with eighty, 40-ft tall columns on 1.460 square yards of total surface. Inside each column, there is a hornbeam plant, which, once grown, should replace the current structure, which is bound to rot and eventually disappear.

“Arte Sella” is managed by “Arte Sella Association”, Corso Ausugum 55-57, Borgo Valsugana (TN).

Giuliano Mauri and his vegetal cathedrals

Known as “the wood weaver”, Giuliano Mauri was the first Italian artist of the International ART IN NATURE movement; he built vegetal structures designed to strengthen the bond between man and nature while respecting the latter’s wellbeing by limiting the impact of man’s creations with the surrounding environment.

His works, created exclusively with natural resources, live and follow the natural life cycle, without changing the landscape, but entering into an intimate relationship with it: for this reason, Mauri’s style has nothing to do with Land Art.

Mauri conceived his first vegetal cathedral in the 1980s, aiming to restore the bond between man and his territory. In 2001, he managed to build it at Arte Sella (in Borgo Valsugana, Trento); the second one, started by the artist and completed by his Mauri family in 2009, can be found in Parco delle Orobie (Bergamo), in a more secluded environment; the third cathedral, as we now know, is in Lodi. The artist’s legacy is now kept alive and promoted and by the Giuliano Mauri Foundation.

Photos taken from the web

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)