This year, due to the Covid emergency, the Biennale of Architecture was postponed to May 2021 and will run until November 2021.
I had the privilege to visit the exhibition in the early days of its opening. It’s a stunning experience, including 112 participants from 46 countries coming from all over the world.
The whole exhibition is organised into five scales, three at the Arsenale and two in the central pavilion at the Giardini venue.
The Arsenale displays the first three scales, distributed as follows:
•Among Diverse Beings: Designing for new bodies & Living with Other Beings
•As New Household: Catering to new demographics, Inhabiting new tectonics, Living apart together
•As Emerging Communities: Appealing to civicness, Re-equipping society, Coming together in Venice, Co-Habitats
At the Giardini venue, you will embrace the other two scales: Across Borders and As One Planet.
In addition to these two shows, there are several installations scattered throughout the city of Venice, and also five related installations at Forte Marghera Park centred on a slightly different theme: How will we play together?
Significantly the curator of this Biennale is Hashim Sarkis, Chair at MIT. The Biennale Architettura displays multiple responses to the initial opening question that unfolds myriads of implications.
In his intense preface, Sarkis states that the question was asked because “we are not happy with the answers that are coming out of politics today.”
Architecture thus can offer alternative practices on how space is conceived. We need a new spatial contract. It has to be universal and inclusive.
Here’s some pictures to introduce you to this challenging journey!
Giuseppe Penone, Ideas of Stone, Elm, 2008
How will we live together?
What are you waiting for?
TO BE Continued…