INTERVIEW | ANTONIA CORNARO


And underground space, she says, can


be made more friendly “People want views; they do like


windows. But I am often amazed at the way people travel on trains and buses. They often just look at their phone, or they are buried in their book or newspaper or in their laptop. We go past beautiful landscapes and people aren’t actually looking out! I can never stop myself from looking outside when I’m in a nice landscape (unless I’m glued to my phone or laptop). “I’ve seen wonderful schemes to address


this. For instance, for the New York City subway there was a concept by a GIS and GPS specialist where as a passenger you sit in the underground metro train but when you look up out of the digital-screen ‘window’ you actually see the one-to-one image of what is happening on the surface. It looks amazing, but it can actually help us orient ourselves when we’re in a subway and reduce that feeling of dislocation when travelling underground. “And, you know, there’s always talk


about smart cities, but what does smart city mean? It means we use technology to our advantage, but we also make city life more convenient and more agreeable if you want. It doesn’t have to be hardship to live in a city, and it should be pleasant and natural. Because cities are really the spaces for social interaction and where creativity occurs and where economic productivity occurs and all that. And if we’re going to make life very harsh for more and more people they will want to move out or


live in inadequate conditions, and that is basically not what we want. We don’t want dispersion.” London’s ‘Tube’ or ‘Underground’ is a


more concrete example of friendly and unfriendly space. Travel on the old Piccadilly or Northern Line during the morning rush hour, and you are strap-hanging, crammed shoulder to shoulder with your neighbour. It is not a pleasant experience. “But the last two times I visited London


I travelled on the just-opened Crossrail” – now renamed the Elizabeth Line – “and it is a joy, even (almost) in the rush hour. The designers have really got it right. It is more spacious. It is not in the very small- diameter tube that the Piccadilly line is in. You can move between carriages while the train is moving and can see all along the train from the inside. And the new stations have created larger spaces. We’ve seen that also with the Jubilee Line Extension; the larger stations have direct lines of sight from the platform to the surface; you are not in these cramped little corridors that feel claustrophobic and get hot and crowded, and that also can feel a bit creepy at times. “Paris is also extending its system. They


are building the Grand Paris Express. It is a peripheral ring around Paris which will be fully underground, all 200 kilometres of it; and there will be radial links to connect all the suburbs – and that includes the disadvantaged minority-dominated almost ghetto-like ‘banlieu’ areas – to give everyone equal access to the centre.


TUNNELLERS NEED TO WORK WITH PLANNERS AND MAKE THEM UNDERSTAND THAT THEY MUST INVOLVE THE SUBSURFACE IN THEIR SCHEMES


That is another important thing, making everything more equally accessible, and public transport plays a big role in that. You are connecting people who are living in the more fringe areas of the city. “Paris is also involved in massive efforts


to green the whole city centre, including the rooftops and even the vertical facades, to reduce CO2


emissions. That has been


coupled to studies on health benefits: if we see greenery, if we breathe greenery, we are healthier, not just physically but also psychologically. So cities are more and more realising that they cannot fill everywhere with concrete. We have to really keep some open spaces and also have to counteract the loss of biodiversity. “One thinks of underground spaces as the


opposite of that. There’s no natural light, nothing normally grows there. But by having those spaces and using them for as many things that can be useful as possible you can free up the overground space for greenery. “But more than that: we now have


interesting applications where greenery is grown underground, using LED lighting that imitates sunlight. That is happening in London, in Stockholm, in Seoul, and


Above left: Antonia Cornaro with Han Admiraal (middle) and Michael Kompatscher (right), MD of Hagerbach Test Gallery Above right: Antonia Cornaro is an advocate for developing the potential of underground space for society


32 | June 2023


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