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Venice Biennale Review

e-architect editor visited the Venice Biennale 2010 : we bring you photos + observations on the pavilions + exhibitions

The highlights of the show were Oliafur Eliasson's installation and hearing SANAA (with Oliafur Eliasson) describe their designs and their approach to designing.

The Venice Biennale is a positive gathering place for architectural discussion, a hive of activity with plenty of visual stimulus but many of the shows seemed skin-deep in their approach. We are told "architecture is in crisis" by one, and show after show put forward ideas for new communities, yet until clients are persuaded to create such new communities this comes across as conjecture, blue sky thinking. We need this, but it needs balancing with more reality. Most of the architects have the creativity and good intentions and it is unfair to criticise them as they try to make a better world. But we need specific examples because the act of making communities transforms even the most stubborn architect's plans. Thus much of what we see in the shows just won't ever happen, so why present to the viewers?

Kazuyo Sejima, the Director of 12th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice

photo © Adrian Welch

In the la biennale di venezia guide former director Aaron Betsky asks the reader to focus on the audience, not the work on show but who comes to see the Venice Biennale, the public. I could not agree more, this is something I have focused on over the last decade - architects have to engage with the public in a more lucid way. If you look at Eliasson (art) or Tarantino (film) you are aware of great skill, thinking, layers of meaning, yet their creations are easily digestible to a wide range of people. And their work is also well known, more so films and music than art but architecture is a long way behind. Can architecture flex its muscles and engage more with the people? Of course it can, and should because architecture has a huge part to play in reducing pollution, waste, material usage, energy usage, water usage, etc. in fact architects could hold the key to sorting out large proportions of key global problems. But there needs to be more focus, less waffle, more collective action, less individual postulation.

The Croatian pavilion - the boat - was created by a group of architects (who normally compete against each other for work) coming together and working as one. They made something potent and beautiful, perhaps this could serve as a lesson - maybe it is 'time for change' as so many shows state, perhaps the Arsenale and Giardini form shackles through the individual pavilions? With lateral thinking though la biennale di venezia could create a more potent message if countries still used their pavilions but that each country worked with the other to integrate the proposition, along the lines of think global act local. It doesn't have to be totalitarian, there could be opposing views but expressed within a framework. With such an armature or backbone the proposition would be powerful and dignified by allowing many viewpoints with a structured whole. In this way a manifesto could be delivered that could be understood by major private developers, city councils and national governments. Architecture has the ability to change the world radically. Architects have yet to find a way to achieve this potential.

Photos of the majority of the pavilions in Venice online, 31 Aug

Venice Architecture Biennale Arsenale Pavilions

image © Adrian Welch
Venice Architecture Biennale Arsenale Pavilions

Venice Architecture Biennale Giardini Pavilions

image © Adrian Welch
Venice Architecture Biennale Giardini Pavilions

Kazuyo Sejima, Venice Biennale director




Kazuyo Sejima, Venice Biennale director with mayor of Kanazawa, Japan



Films of Oliafur Eliasson show in the Arsenale, uncompressed, large size - please note long download times:

Oliafur Eliasson installation 1 15 MB

Oliafur Eliasson installation 2 18 MB

e-architect editor Adrian Welch was in Venice from Friday to Monday


Bjarke Ingels at Venice Biennale, interview with Adrian Welch online shortly

photo © Adrian Welch

Bahrain Pavilion, Venice - Golden Lion winner for Best National Pavilion

photo © Adrian Welch

If Buildings Could Talk, Venice
Film by Wim Wenders

photo © Hisao Suzuki, sketch by © Wim Wenders

British Rebiennale evening show, Venice

image © Adrian Welch

Many of the Venice Biennale shows around town were disappointing, one moment of joy was here off Campo S. Stefano, an advert for a Luxembourg show - person in box!

image © Adrian Welch

12th International Architecture Exhibition

Venice Architecture Biennale 2010

PATTERNS / 3form

image from architects

OMA

image courtesy OMA

Strelka - OMA

image © Sergey Leontiev for Strelka Institute

Venice Biennale Architecture - Previous Years

Venice Biennale 2004