Richard Burdett will be the director of the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale.
City planning consultant to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingston, was selected to the post after Renzo Piano turned down an offer from the Biennale's management.
Burdette is an Englishman of Italian descent and speaks fluent Italian.
He teaches architecture and urban planning at the London School of Economics. His specialization is the links between architecture, planning and urban society. He is one of the founders of the Architectural Foundation
Burdette is part of the Architecture and Urban Development Authority of Greater London and is a member of Barcelona's Quality Committee.
He also consults the BBC, Deutsche Bank and the Tate Gallery on architectural matters.
Richard Burdette has served on the jury of major international competitions and has curated over 40 architectural exhibitions.
The main theme of the X Biennale will be “Meta-cities”. Changes in the physical and social structure of the modern city make it possible to distinguish this new type of agglomeration. It exists outside the usual boundaries, it is characterized by fundamentally new problems of both management and functioning.
As a result of the future exhibition, a program manifesto should be created for all those responsible for the planning and management of cities and larger territories around the world.
It is also planned to open an urban planning branch in one of the southern Italian cities within the framework of the exhibition.
