Design People: Ermanno Cattaneo
Ermanno Cattaneo is a landscape designer working at Suzanne Turley Landscapes.
Working alongside Fearon Hay Architects, Cattaneo designed a pool pavilion to complement an original 1970’s Ron Sang house in Remuera.
The garden encased in the Remuera pavilion features a Japanese maple tree (Acer palmatum), holly topiary (Ilex ‘Largo’), baby’s tears (Helixine soleriolii) and New Zealand iris (Libertia grandiflora).
At The Hills, in Arrowtown, sweeping gestures of colour are scattered across the land.
Globes and hedges of box (Buxus sempervirens) frame the verandah at Tahuna in the Hawke’s Bay.
A karo hedge (Pittosporum tenuifolium) surrounds the pool area at Tahuna.
Poolside at this farmhouse in Coatesville, a hedge of camellia (Camellia japonica ‘Brushfield’s Yellow’) defines the loungers’ bays; On the other side of the pool, tractor seat ligularia (Ligularia reniformis) reach out towards the water.
Michael Parekowhai’s A Peak in Darien sits on a tiered lawn stage next to paisley-shaped reflective ponds at a Hawke’s Bay property.
Hawke’s Bay garden, with Te Mata Peak is in the background, while drifts of hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata ‘Kyushu’) blend with agapanthus (Agapanthus orientalis) on the eastern bank of the property.
Sir Michael Hill’s garden and art studio from the book Private Gardens of Aotearoa.
Explore more landscapes inside the new book Suzanne Turley: Private Gardens of Aotearoa, edited by Thomas Cannings.
After leaving Milan almost a decade ago to put down roots in New Zealand, Ermanno Cattaneo joined Suzanne Turley Landscapes. He talks to Amanda Harkness about his passion for landscape design.
Amanda Harkness (AH): Where were you raised?
Ermanno Cattaneo (EC:) I was born in Bergamo, in northern Italy. I went to art school there and then studied in Milan and Barcelona.
How did you discover your love of landscape design?
EC: I was studying architecture; that’s what I always thought I wanted to do “when I grew up”. Towards the end of my university career, when I moved back from Spain, I found a job working for an architecture firm that specialised in landscape architecture and urban design. The founder of the firm, Luigino Pirola, is a passionate landscape architect and was president of the Italian Association of Landscape Architecture for years. He passed on his passion to me and taught me a lot of what I know. After working with him for a few years, I decided to steer my academic path towards landscape architecture and ended up gaining my master’s degree in architecture, but by writing a thesis on landscape restoration.
AH: What brought you to New Zealand?
EC: My partner and I were living in Milan at the time: a very exciting city and very interesting from a creative perspective but, also, busy and quite polluted. After living there for a few years, we thought we’d look for new stimuli in a place where we could find a better balance between career opportunities and quality of life. Auckland seemed the perfect fit. Not long after moving here, I started working with Suzanne Turley Landscapes. We design bespoke residential landscapes throughout New Zealand, with the occasional foray into small-scale architectures, such as garden pavilions and pool houses.
AH: Are there any exciting projects you’re working on right now?
EC: I can’t pinpoint one project as the most exciting. One thing I love about this job is that, at any given moment, we have projects running all over the country, from the sandy dunes near Mangawhai to the schisty mountains around Queenstown, from Wellington to Christchurch. With such a variety of contexts to work in, my job is never boring.
AH: How does your work come about?
EC: We often work closely with some of New Zealand’s most renowned architects, such as Anna-Marie Chin in Queenstown or Sumich Chaplin and Fearon Hay in Auckland. It’s great to be exposed to and involved in their design processes from the early stages as this helps the gardens really belong to the dwellings, rather than just being standard green ‘coats’ which are applied to them. This is also why we don’t have a fixed style – some buildings require form and strong composition while others allow for a softer take.
In our recent book, Private Gardens of Aotearoa, we wanted to reflect this by carefully selecting projects whose buildings are designed by very different architects in different regions and are representative of varied architectural styles. One of the gardens in the book, our ‘Garden at The Hills’ project, just won a category award at the NZILA [New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects] Awards in Christchurch. Residential projects are often under-represented in the landscape architecture profession so we were very honoured to receive this recognition.
AH: What is the greatest challenge that our environment presents for landscape projects?
EC: I can’t think of challenges that are specific to the New Zealand environment… If anything, I’m constantly amazed by how quickly plants grow here; that means that I can see my designs almost in realtime! Truth be told, at Suzanne Turley Landscapes, we tend to use large grades when planting our gardens, and this helps give both designers and clients this instant gratification.
AH: Are there any ‘gardening greats’ that inspire you?
EC: The great master that I believe inspires every Italian landscape architect is Pietro Porcinai. I’m not sure how well known he is here but he’s one of the founding fathers of the discipline in Italy (and one of the founding members of IFLA). He worked with some great architects and designed large commercial projects but also many private gardens in his home town of Florence and across the Italian peninsula, often designing gardens for century-old villas and palazzos. His designs from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s – including the beautiful gardens at Villa Il Roseto – are timeless masterpieces of both simplicity and sophistication. Amongst the contemporaries, I admire and am inspired by Luciano Giubbilei. He balances formality and softness in designing spaces that are always incredibly elegant.
AH: What would be your dream project?
EC: I’m from Lombardy but I love Tuscany and we go there almost every winter. Every time I’m there, I think I’d love to take on the project to redesign the garden for one of those centuries-old villas. Perhaps there’s a subconscious will to measure myself against Porcinai but, also, to take back to Italy all the lessons that I have learned designing high-end residential gardens in New Zealand.
Explore more landscapes inside the new book Suzanne Turley: Private Gardens of Aotearoa, edited by Thomas Cannings.
