The pavilion in question was called Italian a few years ago (although projects of the curators of the Biennale were shown there for a long time, and not a national exposition). In 2010 it was renamed the Palace of Exhibitions, giving Italy space in the Arsenal, and this time it changed its name to a more modest one: now it is just Central.
Its neoclassical facade is now deliberately "disfigured" by two projects at once. One of them is the Big Balcony, a deliberately unprepossessing annex made of wood and canvas, serving as the only entrance to the pavilion. This is the creation of the curator Alison Crowshaw, who leads the research group on the problem of illegal construction in Rome. According to her, 28% of everything built there after the war is squatter. "Large balcony" is a reminder of the transformation of balconies into full-fledged rooms, the most common form of such "amateur performance". It was created from parts of an illegally erected meeting room annex in the Borgheziana area and after the end of the Biennale will return to its original location in Rome.
In front of the pavilion there is a wide bench made of dark gray bricks, deliberately violating the central symmetry of the alley leading to the portico of the building. Almost immediately after the entrance, walls of the same material are found, which hide the unfinished restoration of the 6-sided hall, forming a vestibule of a complex plan: this forces the visitor to slow down before starting to view the exhibition. The authors of the project are the German bureau Kuehn Malvezzi.
A striking example of cooperation and the search for a "common ground" declared in the theme of the Biennale is the project of the Irish bureau GRAFTON and the Brazilian Pritzker laureate Paulo Mendes da Rocha. Having received an order for a university building in the Peruvian capital of Lima, the architects turned to a similar style - with echoes of brutalism - a master from São Paulo for advice on climatic conditions. As a result, the discussion touched on a variety of topics, and GRAFTON created an installation as a tribute to Mendes da Rocha: the models of parts of his Serra Dourada stadium in Goiânia are physically opposed to the models of the Peruvian and other university buildings of the Irish workshop (together they form a circle). At the junction of these topics, the interpretation of the university as an arena for learning arose.
All three "virtues" of architecture, listed in the manifesto of the biennial curator David Chipperfield - continuity, context and memory - are reflected in the large-scale "Campo Marzio Project", executed by the school of architecture of Yale University. It was based on a series of engravings by JB Piranesi "Field of Mars of Ancient Rome" (1762) - the authors tried to reconstruct this ancient territory. Modern interpretations of an imaginary space and all kinds of speculations (to show space for them is one of the goals of the project) are presented in four sections. Peter Eisenman acted in two guises: as a Yale teacher and initiator of the project, he took on the "Campo Marzio Project" itself, where Piranesi's reconstruction is analyzed according to formal criteria (axes of symmetry, etc.) as an "architectural experiment", and as a head his own bureau developed his favorite theme of diagrams and received the "Field of Schemes", where the "compositional aesthetics" of the Baroque architect "turns into a palimpsest of spatial and temporal qualities between the Roman Empire and modernity."
The Field of Walls by Pierre Vittorio Aureli and Martino Tattara (Dogma, laureates of the Yakov Chernikhov 2006 Prize), where all buildings were replaced with parallel lines; the influence of Italian postmodernism is felt both in the idea and presentation of the project. The latest reincarnation of Campo Marzio is the "Field of Dreams" of the Ohio University School of Architecture, in which the "passion, obsession and spectacle" of ancient Rome is turned into the "morality" of modern architecture: for example, to ancient "landmarks" like the Pantheon with the declared author of Emperor Hadrian more than celebrity, to be sure!) added bright projects of the current "stars" - Peter Eisenman, UNStudio, Greg Lynn and others.
Chipperfield also managed to find a common platform between the West and the East, contrary to the opinion of his famous compatriot poet. In parallel, the achievements in the restoration of historical monuments and the return of the historical environment to "active life" by the Aga Khan Development Network, working in Muslim countries, and the projects of Mario Piana, carried out in the heart of Europe, are shown to each other. The latter carefully and carefully reconstructs the monuments of Venice for later use, among his latest projects, for example, the transformation of the Palazzo Grimani into a museum, as well as work in the Arsenal.
“40,000 hours” is also devoted to more than a general topic - mock-ups as learning tasks. The name reflects the amount of time that students spent on the dozens of models shown here, and the anonymity of the models placed on the shelves adds intrigue to this exposition, emphasizing the diversity of ideas born in the process of learning and how different the creative potential of young designers can be - here are the works of university students Paris, Oslo, Sao Paulo, Munich, Ljubljana, Venice and many other cities in the world.
The OMA Bureau again, as in 2010, turned to the question of the ideals of modernism. But if then it was only a small part of the Cronocaos exhibition, now the architects have presented a full-fledged study on the contribution of "anonymous bureaucrats" - architects in municipal service - to urban life. Examples shown include the Michael Farraday Memorial and Hayward Gallery in London, the Val d'Oise Prefecture in Pontoise, the School of Architecture in Nanterre, and the Wibautshuis Public Works Office building in Amsterdam. The projects of late modernism and brutalism, which are now at the greatest risk of demolition, were not chosen by chance - although it is not directly mentioned here, it is well known that Rem Koolhaas sees the reason for such a ruthless attitude towards these objects in the remorse felt by the current officials. They left the welfare of the townspeople at the mercy of the merchants and do not want to see before them a reminder of the days when everything was different.
The exhibition "The Banality of Good" by the Crimson Architecture Historians is about the same. The authors traced a sad trend: after World War II, new cities gradually turned from a modernist paradise for everyone into a gated community for wealthy citizens, the general well-being was replaced by the omnipotence of the market, and citizens were left to their own devices. Early, yet humane examples include British Stevenage (1946) and Tema in Ghana (1956), among the most recent commercialized and individualistic examples is King Abdullah's Economic City in Saudi Arabia (2006). Each city illustrates a phototriptych: the left wing gives answers to the questions “from where” and “for whom”, in the center it tells about city values and ambitions, on the right side - about the planners, their knowledge and the curators of the project in the government. The use of religious iconography is a clear attempt to remind of the importance of a responsible approach to urban planning (in the literal sense of the word) for the life of society.
The Pasticho exposition by Caruso St. John is an example of Chipperfield's precise execution. These British architects invited colleagues to co-participate in the exposition, as the curator of the biennial intended. The basis of choice is working with heritage, but not formal imitation, but spiritual kinship. These are such thoughtful reconstruction projects as the new exposition of the London Soane Museum of the "leaders" of the exhibition themselves, and the works of the Swiss Peter Merckley, which preserve echoes of tradition in austere modernist buildings.
Another universal topic is architecture magazines. Steven Parnell's project tells about the post-war Domus, Casa Bella, Architecture Review and Architecture Design, on the pages of which discussions on the most pressing issues unfolded. There you can not only see the numerous covers of the named editions, but also read the issues of this "heroic" period of architectural criticism, and also think about its place in the modern world.
MVRDV is showing a video from their Why Factory research program exploring an alternative to rigid regulations for any construction activity. According to the Dutch, if each person takes full responsibility for their construction - including providing it with water, electricity, etc. (regardless of the networks!), Then this will lead to a more efficient organization of public resources and spaces than the one launched from above. and will enable rational planning.
There were also obligatory “star” expositions, although they were less devoted to self-glorification than to general architectural issues: Jean Nouvel spoke about the project of reconstruction of the Slussen traffic junction in Stockholm, Alejandro Aravena and Elemental - about their struggle with the consequences of the earthquake in Chile (on planting trees in the coastal strip for tsunami protection, new types of temporary housing, etc.), Norman Foster on his HSBC building in Hong Kong 30 years after delivery.
Among the unexpected projects - "Thepis's Carriage" by L. O. M. O. This is a mobile stage for performances, named after the ancient Greek poet - the legendary "inventor" of the tragedy. The idea of the similarity between the space of the city (the most common basis for architecture) and the theater was supported by the performance of the DER BAU group from the Berlin Academy of Theater Arts by Ernst Busch.
Olafur Eliasson showed his Little Sun project. It is not only a work of art, but also an essential item - a solar-powered lamp. Now about 1.6 billion people in developing countries live without access to electricity grids, and such cheap small lamps will help them survive in the dark.
From antiquity to the future, from the general to the particular - the participants of the Biennale from the Central Pavilion were able to reflect in their projects the main cultural and architectural trends of the time, as curator David Chipperfield expected from them.
