We are talking about the former pavilion of Italy, the oldest exhibition space of the Biennale: this building was transformed for the 2009 Art Biennale into the "Exhibition Palace" and received new cafes and a bookstore; this year a library has been added to these spaces. But the function of the building has changed insignificantly: for a long time already the pavilion was almost nominally Italian, in fact, it was a space for the main curatorial exposition, complementing the Arsenal.
Next to it, the German bureau raumlabor_berlin has erected its already tried and tested Kitchen Monument - a multifunctional inflatable structure made of transparent plastic, which has become a venue for seminars and symposia. As seating, the architects proposed to use comfortable, transformable and lightweight wooden chairs, from which they also built a spectacular "trellis" in front of the Palazzo. These chairs gradually spread throughout the Giardini, as the authors intended: they form the main part of their other project, Generator: in addition to chairs, raumlabor_berlin offered the visitors of the biennial workbenches, tools and wooden modules, from which tables and shelves can also be assembled.
Such active participation of a person in the design of the surrounding space fits well into the framework set by the organizers of the Biennale. The motto of this year's exhibition is interpreted by them as a reference to the problem of space (which is why Shojima gave each of the participants complete freedom in the "area" entrusted to them), as well as to the problem of its quality. According to them, each person should develop a "sensitivity" to the surrounding architectural environment, think about how it can be improved (and there are always opportunities for optimization) and strive to implement their ideas. Therefore, projects unusual for a "traditional" architectural exposition are intended, among other things, to stimulate such a heightened perception, not showing or telling, but evoking certain sensations in the viewer.
At the entrance to the "Palace of Exhibitions" there are also objects from the "Modern Primitives" series of American studios Aranda / Lasch and Island Planning Corporation. These black and white crystalline volumes embody the parallels between architectural form and the principles of the universe. But each installation has a lot of opportunities for interpretation, as curator Kazuo Sejima has repeatedly emphasized, so these multifaceted "sculptures" can well be perceived as an addition / contrast to the faceless facade of the Palazzo delle Esposizioni.
Its first darkened room houses the work of British conceptual artist Cerith Wyn Evans "Joanna (Chapter One)" - the neon opening of a poem by American poet James Merrill. This transparent, luminous text appears to be a commentary on the spatial embodiment of meaning and, given the modernist character of the original source, on its uniqueness or diversity.
Andrés Jaque Arquitectos' Madrid workshop, on the other hand, turned to specifics: their Fray Foam Home, a lightweight wire structure with plastic fruits attached to it, paper cocktail umbrellas and other symbols of everyday life, is dedicated to the “political” conflicts that occur every day in the apartments of ordinary people. The decision to take a shower comes with the expense of a scarce commodity - drinking water - and the use of infrastructure, the same goes for food, electricity, and so on. The authors of the installation also offer options for resolving such conflicts, but they lie more in the field of ideas than reality.
German photo artist Thomas Demand and British architects Caruso St. John presented an already well-known project for Zurich, and on a 1: 1 scale - the "House-Nail" represents two "dummy" and therefore abstract houses that are planned to be located under an overpass in one of the least well-groomed squares in the city These two buildings should remind both of the street that was once located there, and of the world-famous house of a resident of the Chinese city of Chongqing: the developer completely demolished the area of traditional buildings, but this city dweller refused to move, and soon his home found himself on an island in the middle of a huge pit …
The curator herself showed at the Palazzo delle Expositioni her project of a complex of art galleries for the small island of Inujima, as well as a project for a museum for another island, Teshima, by her SANAA partner Ryue Nishizawa. Both works are based on the interaction of the building and the landscape - on the most direct understanding of the theme of space, therefore they are presented in the form of huge models of the surrounding area; the future buildings themselves occupy a minimum area on them.
The Swiss architect Christian Kerez, best known to the general public for his Liechtenstein Art Museum in Vaduz, received two rooms at his disposal, where he continued the "traditional line" and placed models of his latest projects and their fragments.
There was also a place for turning to history: the SESC Pompéia complex in São Paulo (1982) is presented in detail - a reconstructed factory - the community center of Lina Bo Bardi, a remarkable Brazilian architect of Italian origin (1914-1992). In this work, she placed restaurants, ballrooms, showrooms, sculpting rooms, etc. in the existing buildings, shading their monumental scale with thoughtfully organized public space around. As a result, a complex emerged, where the clarity of the layout is combined with active interaction between people.
As in Bo Bardi's work, Sejima found akin to herself in the work of the British architect Cedric Price (1934-2003), who influenced the direction of hi-tech, Rem Koolhaas and many other figures of the modern architectural scene. Price's legacy is presented at the Palazzo delle Espositioni in the form of drawings and videos of his performances.
Also, "a look into the past" can be called a selection of works by the New York artist Tom Sachs, who created sculptural models on the theme of various works by Le Corbusier, questioning the relevance and even value of his legacy.
An installation by the Irish bureau dePaor architects, who created a small structure of fabric on a wooden frame called “4 am”, can be regarded as a more “material” interpretation of the theme of space; its narrow staircases should be reminiscent of the "borderline home space"; the glass lamp and pieces of limestone also used are a reference to Albrecht Dürer's engraving "Melancholy", although such an allusion is almost impossible to catch without a hint.
Bureau AMID (Cero9) presented in an emphatically kitschy vein its already well-known public project of a center for celebrating cherry day in the Spanish province of Caceres, and the Portuguese Aires Mateus e Associados demonstrated it in the form of models of buildings and neighboring buildings of the same volume, but "taken out", their reflections on the essence and connection of form and space.
So Fujimoto showed a transparent model of his pavilion in Château la Costa inhabited by many people (probably for the same customer as the work of the owner of the Golden Lion, Zunya Ishigami): the structure consists of panels spaced 35 cm apart: thus, they can be used as chairs (35cm height), tables (35cm X 2), roofs, steps, floors, etc.
A different type of experiment - "behavioral" - was presented by the bureau Atelier Bow-Wow: they exhibited models of their houses for different customers: a master of a tea ceremony, a married couple of journalists, a woman who is going to retire - a pony owner - leaving the viewer to make the connections between the architecture and the behavior of the owners buildings. However, this is difficult to do due to the lack of explanatory inscriptions in European languages.
The sculptor Do-Ho Suh and the South Korean bureau Suh Architects are also exploring the idea of a dwelling and its perception: the former made a three-dimensional model of the facade of his New York townhouse from fabric and hung it parallel to the floor, and the architects (including his brother sculptor) created her "reflection" on the floor, where the outlines of Su's American house merge with the outlines of the house in Korea, where he was born and raised, as well as a traditional Italian villa. The project is called Blueprint, and its blue color is a reference to the direct translation of this word: (drawing) -sinka.
Young Chilean architects Pezo Von Ellrichshausen Architects turned to the issue of space-environment. They showed, in the form of models and large-format photographs, two almost identical projects of the house: one for the deserted coast of the ocean, the other for the suburbs. Both structures are lost among the detailed panorama of their "context".
Italian designers and architects, representatives of the reaction against modernism - Archizoom member Andrea Branzi and Memphis group member Aldo Cibic - both showed urban planning projects. Branzi reiterated his criticism of modernism, bringing to the attention of the public a "New Charter of Athens," including provisions such as "a city like a high-tech favela" and a "city like a living plankton", as well as a more realistic "construct reversible and lightweight infrastructures." They are illustrated with 12 fantastic models of urban spaces and interiors, which are not designed for implementation and can exist only in the ideal space of human consciousness.
Chibik developed a New Journey to Happiness, a response to economic and environmental disasters: 4 new urban planning schemes, including a campus in the fields, an agrotechnical valley for Veneto, and "rural urbanism" with features of urban and suburban development.
All the projects presented, as well as the exhibitors at the Arsenal, were selected by the curator on the basis of the importance of potential contribution to the general theme and the congeniality of their authors' creativity to the works of Shojima herself. It is important to note that almost all of them - with the exception of Rem Koolhaas, whose exhibition in Palazzo delle Espositioni we will tell later - are infrequent guests at major exhibitions and are far from the self-advertising type of "star" architect. Therefore, the mood of the exposition in the small halls of the labyrinthine, repeatedly rebuilt pavilion is far from the bravura of PR-presentations. Some of the confusion that this collection causes in all the differing works, perhaps, serves as a reminder of the prevailing chance of encounters of objects in space.
