Captured Landscapes, Living Montages

Montage of a fenced field: a black and white photograph of the fence, a plan and section drawn above it, a colour cut-out of green grass, and a hare in the grass at the right edge — Wild, the tenth of ten montage experiments · Saba Seighali

Wondered

Maps give precision and lose the atmosphere of a place. Digital renderings give the atmosphere and invent the place. Between the two sits a gap where design solutions look logical on paper and fail to resonate on site.

This thesis asks whether photography and photomontage, used as iterative tools rather than as illustration, can bridge it.

The research question

How can photography and photomontage be reintegrated as iterative visual design tools to bridge the gap between site analysis and design transformation in landscape architecture?

The Patch

The test site is the Patch: a fenced, forgotten grassland beside Porta Vittoria station in Milan, nearly 23,700 m², about two-thirds the size of Piazza del Duomo.

Photograph 9: The Patch from the middle, looking from north to south — The Patch from the middle, looking from north to southSaba Seighali

Explored

From canvas to camera to screen: four ways landscape has been pictured, and what each could and could not show about change.

Red Books
Repton, 1780s
Flip-book overlays of existing and proposed. Change shown as discrete moments.
The Picturesque
Gilpin, 1768
Landscape as a composed visual narrative of light, texture and perspective.
Photography
Documentary and speculative
Captures light, shifting shadow and spatial sequence, not only appearance.
Photomontage
Layering form and meaning
A medium for layering meanings and temporalities.

Observed

Three living precedents that put photographs to work.

Petrochemical America
Richard Misrach and Kate Orff, 2012
Hidden infrastructures and social inequities made visible.
Superstudio
The Continuous Monument, 1969–71
Speculative and ideological potential.
Field Operations
High Line and Freshkills Park, 1999–ongoing
Visual experiments carried into built work.

Captured: from afar

The dashed outline marks the Patch. Around it the station moved underground, a market became a park, and the Ex Macello and the library site were redeveloped. The strip took its present shape around 2007.

Aerial photograph of the Patch and its neighbouring lots in Milan, 1954, with a dashed outline around the Patch — 1954CGR ortofoto, Milan

Aerial photograph of the Patch and its neighbouring lots in Milan, 1975, with a dashed outline around the Patch — 1975CGR ortofoto, Milan

Aerial photograph of the Patch and its neighbouring lots in Milan, 2007, with a dashed outline around the Patch — 2007CGR ortofoto, Milan

Aerial photograph of the Patch and its neighbouring lots in Milan, 2024, with a dashed outline around the Patch — 2024CGR ortofoto, Milan

From the day the train line transformed into its new setting, it hardly ever changed again.

Captured: at ground

A terminated bike lane, 3 train station entrances, multiple parking spots and 2 bike stops, a couple of rabbits, some birds and some trash.

01 / 36

01 Porta Vittoria bus stop
02 Porta Vittoria train station, northern entrance in Via Valentino Mazzola
03 Porta Vittoria train station, southern entrance in Viale Molise
04 West side of the Patch looking to Ex Macello from the train station
05 Ex Macello building in the south of the Patch
06 Ex Macello building in the south of the Patch
07 Viale Monza and the Patch on the right
08 Bike stand of the Porta Vittoria train station, northern entrance in Via Valentino Mazzola
09 The Patch from the middle, looking from north to south
10 The Patch from the middle, looking from north to south
11 The Patch from the middle, looking from west to east
12 The Patch from the side, looking from north to south
13 Southern sidewalk looking to the west
14 Southern sidewalk looking to the east
15 The abandoned station
16 The abandoned station
17 Via Valentino Mazzola, northern parking
18 Via Valentino Mazzola, northern parking
19 Via Valentino Mazzola, bike path in the evening
20 Via Valentino Mazzola, bike path in the afternoon
21 The Patch
22 The Patch
23 Via Valentino Mazzola, northern parking
24 Via Valentino Mazzola, northern parking
25 Via Azzurri d’Italia
26 Via Azzurri d’Italia
27 Eastern corner
28 Western corner
29 Via Valentino Mazzola, northern parking
30 Via Azzurri d’Italia, southern parking
31 Via Azzurri d’Italia, the bridge
32 Via Azzurri d’Italia, the bridge
33 Via Valentino Mazzola, bike path in the evening
34 Via Valentino Mazzola, bike path at night
35 Via Valentino Mazzola, bike path in the morning
36 Via Valentino Mazzola, bike path at night

Drag the strip or the frame above it. Click a photograph to enlarge it.

Who wants a big narrow stripe of void?

Captured: up close

Sometimes you can’t see them from afar, you have to step in to feel it, to narrow your eyes to see the full story.

The first frame is the Patch from above. The outlines mark, more or less, where each photograph was taken.

28 images

Click an image to enlarge it. “Large” makes the grid bigger, and you can drag it in any direction.

Is this really nature?

Experimented

Three questions drawn from the photographs steer ten montages: who uses the Patch, what history has been lost from it, and what boundaries separate it from the city. Each montage keeps photographic evidence from the site and tests one spatial narrative, scale or time. Wild, the tenth, opens this page.

Grey aerial view of Milan with a dark green band running through the city and a lighter green patch beside it — Green SpineSaba Seighali

Collage of maps and layered photographs of the Patch asking what was, what is, and what will be — What was? What is? What will be?Saba Seighali

Site plan of the Patch above a long strip of photographs taken along its edge, with a train line at the left — Meeting MoliseSaba Seighali

Panoramic montage of repeated fence photographs on pale green and grey bands — The wallSaba Seighali

Dark analytical montage with green route traces and strips of photographs of cars and traffic — Moving lanes, lodging stripesSaba Seighali

Path plan beside photographs of people resting and moving along a fenced green edge — StaySaba Seighali

Photograph of the Patch with new planting layered over it and a drawn urban section at the edges — Life in BetweenSaba Seighali

Black and white montage of people walking, cycling and resting along the fence, with small colour insets — ShapersSaba Seighali

Fence with a padlocked gate and a green post, beside a black infrastructure plan, over a pale site plan — ObstaclesSaba Seighali

Reflected

In every marginal patch lies the potential for new stories to emerge.
The thesis, closing frame

In the first person

For me, this process was not only methodological but also personal. As someone navigating between places, identities, and disciplines, photography and montage became both a design tool and a way of seeing.

What the research leaves

Atmospheric literacy
The ability to perceive and respond to subtle environmental and social dynamics that traditional analysis often misses.
Montage as prototyping
Speculative interventions tested directly against documented site conditions, bridging observation and speculation.
Stated limits
One site, and little participatory engagement: the framework is a foundation to refine, not a finished procedure.

Thesis credits

Author and researcher: Saba Seighali
Guidance: Prof. Marialessandra Secchi
Programme: Master Degree in Landscape Architecture, Land Landscape Heritage
University: Politecnico di Milano
Aerial photographs: CGR ortofoto, Milan

Red Books

The Picturesque

Photography

Photomontage

Petrochemical America

Superstudio

Field Operations

Atmospheric literacy

Montage as prototyping

Stated limits