Venice Architecture Biennale OMA, Venetian Installation, Exhibit, Design

Venice Biennale OMA : Ca’ Corner della Regina

Architectural Installation + New Venetian Project

3 Jun 2011

Venice Architecture Biennale OMA

OMA collaborates with Prada and the Hermitage at the Venice Biennale

Venice/Rotterdam, 3 June 2011 – Coinciding with the start of the Venice Biennale today, OMA and Prada open an exhibition surveying recent collaborative works. The exhibition appears at Ca’ Corner della Regina, a former palazzo, alongside highlights from the Prada Fondazione collection.

images © OMA

The exhibition occupies eight rooms and includes a hyper-detailed scale model of the future Fondazione Prada in Milan, a museum complex designed by OMA and due to go under construction soon. The model is intended as a tool to develop the Fondazione’s curatorial strategy, featuring works from the Fondazione collection in handmade miniature versions. OMA’s development of the unique steel “sponge” material for the Fondazione’s façade is also on display. Large-scale photographs, drawings and models of OMA’s Prada Transformer (completed in Seoul in 2009) are featured together with works from the Fondazione’s collection, including Italian minimalist Enrico Castellani, German artist Andreas Slominski, and, in a secret room, Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg.

The 18th century Ca’ Corner della Regina, overlooking the Grand Canal, is currently undergoing renovation to become a new space for contemporary art, under the auspices of the Fondazione Prada and Fondazione Musei Civici. The project, to be carried out over the next six years, will thoroughly restore the landmark for use as a centre for exhibitions, research and study dedicated to contemporary culture.

Also in Venice, OMA is collaborating with the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg on a major retrospective of the poetry and sculpture of Russian artist Dmitry Prigov (1940–2007), whose work was recently donated by the Prigov family to the Hermitage. The exhibition also opens today, at Ca Foscari University.

Venice Biennale OMA / Prada exhibition images / information from OMA

19 Aug 2010

Venice Biennale OMA Installation

12th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

OMA exhibits in Venice as Rem Koolhaas wins Golden Lion

Rotterdam, 19 August, 2010 – OMA’s major installation ‘Preservation’ opens next week in Venice at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, alongside exhibits on current work around the world and a new, large-scale preservation project in Venice itself.

Dutch Parliament Extension, The Hague, 1978 [13th century]; OMA’s first preservation project. Watercolor by Madelon Vriesendorp.

image courtesy OMA

OMA’s installation will assert the critical position of preservation in architecture and urbanism and occupies two large rooms in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni. The installation includes historic objects and photographs, analysis of the rapid growth of preserved urban and natural territory, and a take-away display of OMA’s own projects spanning 35 years. ‘Preservation’ will redefine this under-explored theme as one of urgency within and beyond architecture’s disciplinary boundaries.

A new OMA project in Venice, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, embodying many of these ideas, will be announced during the Biennale. A former trading post and customs house owned by the Benetton family and dating from 1228, the Fondaco, centrally located and adjacent to the Rialto bridge, will be converted into a culturally-programmed department store which preserves the building’s historic profile.

OMA’s conceptual masterplan for the West Kowloon Cultural District will be presented in an exhibition, Quotidian Architectures, organized by The Hong Kong Institute of Architects and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Part of the government’s ambition to redefine Hong Kong as a cultural as well as financial hub, the proposal includes a diverse program of cultural facilities set on public landscape overlooking Victoria Harbour. Rem Koolhaas will participate in a forum on the competition, ‘Hong Kong Arts: Imagining the Future.’

Koolhaas and OMA partner Reinier de Graaf will also participate in ‘Rethinking Education’, a symposium co-hosted by OMA and the Strelka Institute, to be held in Venice. OMA and its think tank AMO have designed an educational programme for the Moscow-based research platform which addresses the future of cities in Russia and abroad.

il Fondaco dei Tedeschi, Venice, Italy, 2010 [13th century]; OMA’s most recent preservation project.

image courtesy OMADeegan

As part of the Biennale’s opening events, Rem Koolhaas will be awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement upon the recommendation of Kazuyo Sejima, the director of this year’s Biennale.”Rem Koolhaas has expanded the possibilities of architecture,” says Sejima. “He creates buildings that bring people together and in this way forms ambitious goals for architecture. His influence on the world has come well beyond architecture. People from very diverse fields feel a great freedom from his work.”More details of OMA’s involvements to be announced shortly.

OMA

Rem Koolhaas Architect

Location: Venice Biennale, Italy