Giuliano Mauri’s Tree Cathedral: The Cattedrale Vegetale in Italy

Rows of tall wooden lattice columns march through the woods like the aisles of a Gothic church, and inside each column a young tree is growing. This is the Cattedrale Vegetale, the “tree cathedral” of Italian artist Giuliano Mauri, a building designed to be slowly taken over by living wood.

Giuliano Mauri, the “wood weaver” of Lodi

Giuliano Mauri was born in Lodi Vecchio, Lombardy, on 11 January 1938 and died in Lodi on 29 May 2009. Known in Italy as the tessitore del bosco, the wood weaver, he was a pioneer of Italian land art and of the international Art in Nature movement.

Mauri built what he called natural architectures from branches, poles and trunks: mills, bridges, an amphitheatre in Val di Bisenzio, a “Voliera per umani” (an aviary for humans) in Monza Park in 2006, and observatories on the German–Polish border at Görlitz and Zgorzelec. All were meant to change over time, and many were meant to disappear back into the landscape.

The first tree cathedral: Arte Sella, Trentino, 2001

The original Cattedrale Vegetale stands at Arte Sella, the open-air art park in Val di Sella above Borgo Valsugana in Trentino. Mauri built it in 2001. Columns woven from poles and branches enclose saplings planted at their centres. As the trees grow, the wooden frames decay, and the living trunks are meant to take over the shape of the nave.

More than two decades on, it remains the signature work of the park. The Malga Costa area, where most works stand, is open daily; check the “Tariffe e orari” page on the Arte Sella website for current hours and tickets.

Oltre il Colle and Lodi: the later cathedrals

Mauri designed a second, larger cathedral for the Parco delle Orobie Bergamasche, at the foot of Pizzo Arera above Oltre il Colle, about 40 minutes by car from Bergamo. His family completed it in 2010 after his death. It had five aisles and 42 columns, each enclosing a beech, built from around 1,800 fir poles, 600 chestnut branches and 6,000 metres of woven hazel branches.

That structure was destroyed by a violent storm on 29 October 2018. A third cathedral, built beside the Adda River in Lodi under the direction of Mauri’s sons Roberto and Mauro, was finished in 2017; storms damaged most of it, and the last columns were removed in spring 2019.

An artwork that changes with the seasons

Mauri’s cathedrals were meant to be seen in every season. In summer the leaves fill the aisles with green light. Autumn turns the foliage yellow. In winter snow outlines every pole and woven rib, and the open sky shows through the bare framework, which is exactly what makes these photographs so striking.

Look up inside a column and you see how it works: a circle of timber woven tight around a single trunk that will one day outgrow it. For other winter art made from natural materials, see Harbin’s monumental snow sculpture and Daniel Barreto’s Woodhouses.

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• Lake Garda: Towns, Islands and Landscapes from Sirmione to Riva
• Ten Italian Coastal Settings: Islands, Towns and Different Rhythms

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