This year, the audience was solemnly presented to the Italian Pavilion, located in the north-western part of the Arsenal, next to the Delle Vergini Gardens. Italian exhibitions were held there before - two years ago at the Architecture Biennale in these halls they showed an exhibition of 12 projects of Italian housing. Now the space has been reconstructed, expanded (in 2009 from 800 to 1800 meters), and called the Italian Pavilion. Thus eliminating the confusion between the "Italian pavilion" in Giardini, where not national, but international exhibitors have long been exhibited (it is now called the Palazzo delle Esposizioni) and the Italian national exposition, which finally received the status of a "pavilion".
Such an event should have been marked with a "landmark" exhibition, which the curator, winner of the 2006 Biennial Prize for Criticism Luca Molinari, did not fail to organize. Under the heading “Ailati. Reflections from the Future”he showed a panoramic overview of Italian architecture“yesterday, today and tomorrow”. He tried to find the roots of a problem noted everywhere: since the late 1980s, Italy has lost its strong position in the international architectural field and, with the exception of Renzo Piano and, to a lesser extent, Massimiliano Fuksas, its architects build little abroad and do not attract much attention. the public. Over the past 20 years, not a single major work of the Italian theoretician has appeared, and within the borders of the country itself, the architectural quality of buildings is steadily declining; architecture turned into something unimportant in public opinion, into a branch of applied art and lost its "national identity". Molinari encourages the return of civic meaning and the ability to influence people's lives, and wants to take a fresh look at the problems of design, choosing for this approach the code word Ailati - a mirror image of Italia. Molinari outlines the events of the professional and public sphere 1990-2010 in the informative installation "Amnesia" (meaning the "loss" of Italian architecture from the historical process): there you can find out that during the last 20 years many of the most prominent figures of the post-war period have left, from Aldo Rossi before Ettore Sottsas, and the era of digital architecture began, the younger generation became much more mobile, and more quality buildings began to appear in the provinces than in traditional cultural and economic centers.
The second section, "Laboratory Italy" demonstrates the potential of the architects currently working: in 10 subsections (including: "Is it realistic to build something of high quality with a budget of 1000 euros / m2?" Or "What should be done with the property confiscated from the mafia?") 40 of the most interesting projects of the last three years: already implemented or at the last stage of construction. The detailed illustrated exposition attracts attention for a long time.
However, the brightest, albeit the least informative part of the Italian exhibition was the section of the future, "Italy 2050". Molinari created it in collaboration with the editors of the Italian Wired, whose employees have recommended him 14 leading scientists, media professionals, filmmakers, artists who shape the future today. Each of them presented their vision of the country and the world after 40 years, and these ideas were embodied in material form with the help of 14 designers and architects. The resulting objects are placed on a high platform; to get a better look at them, each should climb a special ladder. Such a solution to the exhibition gives it intrigue, although the connection of structures reminiscent of abstract sculptures with luminous signposts-explanations “Matter / Antimatter”, “Pleasure / Feelings”, etc. seems subtle at best. However, the Wired Special Edition contains a detailed guide to this part of the exhibit. On the whole, the Italian pavilion is undoubtedly one of the most successful national “contributions” to the Biennale, the entertainment part in it is directly proportional to the noteworthy content, and the only unanswered question remains the following: how does all this diversity relate to the theme of the Biennale “People meet in architecture”and the main motive of space for it?
However, the same question can be asked to the British: the name of their exposition "Villa Frankenstein" can be interpreted as an allusion to its many parts. Curators "sewed" it from different pieces in the same way as Frankenstein - his monster. But the official version is safer: it is a reference to John Ruskin - his complaint that the influence of his books gave rise to architectural "monsters" in the form of houses and pubs in medieval (including Venetian) taste throughout England. Indeed, the central place in the pavilion is occupied by Ruskin's notebooks, illustrated with photographs of 19th century Venice. But to them is added an exposition dedicated to the ecosystem of the Venetian lagoon, equipped with stuffed birds and an aquarium with flora of its salt marshes, as well as a section of the stands of the 2012 Olympic Stadium in London on a scale of 1:10, which serves as a venue for seminars. Under it is another exhibition dedicated to the movement for the equal rights of women in Italy and abroad. All this would be enough, but the curators did not forget not only women, but also children: in front of the steps of the pavilion, a shallow pool was concreted for them (in place of the puddle that "chose" this part of the land), and the artist Lottie Child organized together with Venetian children project "Street Education", dedicated to safety and entertainment on the streets of the city. All this is hardly united by the common theme of the influence of Venice on the British, direct and indirect (i.e., through Ruskin).
On the other hand, German curators took the Biennale's motto literally: their pavilion has become a meeting place in the literal sense of the word. This is the "Red Salon" for conversations on an architectural theme, decorated with 182 drawings by architects, critics, artists, who were specifically asked to express their "architectural desires" by means of graphics: after all, the name of the exposition is the almost untranslatable Sehnsucht - desire, longing. So the curators tried to get a "snapshot" or "cast" of the inner world of a modern German architect. The central salon is complemented by four “symbolic” spaces: “Mirror Hall”, “Room with a View”, “Dark Room” and “Emptiness” (however, the latter is not entirely empty: there is a small screen with an abstract work of video art), as well as audio installation “Venice” by studio U5 - recording of noises and sounds typical for this city. All this should be suggestive, awakening desires, creating impressions - that is, working with “subtle matters”. But a completely traditional series of symposia and round tables is also planned, which should also contribute to the understanding of the inner world of the architect and, through him, of all architecture. Undoubtedly, this is an unexpected way out of the situation: a departure from architecture to the world of ideas and desires, from real space to the mental sphere. But such a bold decision requires its extraordinary embodiment, which, unfortunately, is not in the German pavilion.
In the pavilion of the Netherlands, curators from the Rietveld Landscape bureau presented the exhibition “Empty NLs, where architecture meets ideas”, wittily playing the theme of the Biennale. They calculated that the pavilion is occupied by exhibitions for only 3.5 months a year, which means that since its construction (1954), its building has been empty for a total of 39 years. However, despite the funny start, the plot presented at the Dutch exhibition is more than serious: in Holland, thousands of administrative and public buildings of the 17th-21st centuries, buildings belonging to the state, stand empty awaiting the decision of their fate (reconstruction, demolition, etc.), and this is not counting military facilities and wastelands. Their number increases every week, and in fact they represent a valuable resource for innovative sectors of the economy, primarily the “knowledge economy” - spheres, the development of which the Dutch government has recently recognized as a priority (well, not only our government is fond of innovations). According to the authors of the exhibition, all empty buildings can be used as scientific laboratories, architectural and design workshops, etc., which would have a positive side effect of creating living interdisciplinary ties. The curators urge the authorities to make an appropriate decision as soon as possible. Materially, these ideas are expressed at the same time laconically and effectively: the lower floor of the pavilion is naturally empty. Above, at the floor level of the inner gallery balcony, there are steel cables on which are fastened many models of buildings (those that are empty in the real Netherlands), carved out of blue foam. From above, when viewed from the balcony, it all looks like an embossed blue carpet. The models are supplemented with diagrams made up of pins driven into the wall on the stairs and threads stretched between them.
The French have successfully continued the line of seriousness: their exhibition entitled "Metropolis?" dedicated to modern urban planning, more precisely, large-scale projects currently being developed for Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux and Nantes. All of them are presented in the form of films that run for a total of 4 hours (one hour in each of the halls). But the dynamic solution of these videos makes you regret that it is almost impossible to watch them in full. As for the main idea and connection with the theme of the Biennale, the curator of the pavilion, Dominique Perrault, emphasizes the importance for the development of a large city of free - empty - space as a connecting fabric, a place for life and material for potential development (the French pavilion is discussed in detail in the article by Alexei Tarkhanov in Kommersant).
It is easy to see that the expositions of the leading countries of the world architectural scene at the Biennale present extremely diverse views both on architecture and on the event itself. However, it would be strange to wait for uniformity - especially in the "crisis" era that requires inventiveness.
