Starting in June 2014, the Biennale will this time be devoted to the theme "Fundamentals". Recall that Rem Koolhaas, who was appointed curator of the 14th Biennale almost immediately after the end of the previous 13th Biennale, was more than once offered to lead the world's main architectural exhibition, but every time he refused, as he believed that a year would be the usual for preparation - an integral exposition cannot be created. Doubts were primarily caused by the national pavilions, which in the past often ignored the general themes of the Biennale.
This time it is assumed that there will be no usual confusion, since the participants were given a specific task in a year and a half. What already
wrote to Archi.ru, within the framework of the theme Absorbing Modernity: 1914–2014 ("all-consuming modernity" or "absorption of modernity"), the pavilion of each participating country will show how the transition from a fully expressed national school of the early 20th century to a global one took place in its architecture "The language of our time."
Rem Koolhaas talks about his concept for the 2014 Biennale at a press conference at the Italian Embassy in Berlin on March 12, 2014.
If the national pavilions describe the past of architecture, then the main exhibition of the Biennale - "Elements of Architecture" in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini Garden - will be devoted to its present. Koolhaas "examined under a microscope" the components common to modern buildings around the world, namely: floor, wall, ceiling, roof, door, window, facade, balcony, corridor, fireplace (hearth), toilet, stairs, escalator, elevator, ramp …
In the course of this study, it turned out that these seemingly unchanging parts are in fact “unstable conglomerates of cultural preferences, forgotten symbolism, technological advances, mutations caused by increasing global exchange, climatic conditions, fluctuating ideas about comfort, mythical desires, political calculations., SNIP requirements, neoliberal economics, new digital modes of operation, as well as - somewhere in this mixture - the ideas of an architect."
So, without a balcony, the favorite tribune of many world leaders of modern times, the history of mankind could be different. And even CAD, having radically changed the appearance of these architectural elements - first of all, the facade - could not change their essence.
Monditalia, the third part of the 14th Biennale, is dedicated to the future and will be housed at the Arsenal. The object of her research (and the entire 2014 Biennale is an exhibition-research) is Italy, a “solid”, fundamental country with enormous and varied wealth, great creative potential, knowledge and skills, and an extremely unstable political situation. Therefore, she was chosen as the "prototype of the current moment." The exhibition will become a kind of map of the country, where architecture will appear in the context of politics, economics, religion, technology, and industry. In addition to the usual exhibits, the Arsenal will be widely shown - with the help of the leadership of the Venice Film Festival, Biennale of Dance, Music and Theater - works of the performing arts.
This year there will be an unusually large number of participating countries - 65, and 11 of them will be presented at the architecture biennale for the first time. The lists of curators and names of exhibitions in all national pavilions have already been published, but detailed information is still available on only a part of the expositions. Thus, the Scandinavian pavilion (Norway, Sweden, Finland) will show an exhibition about the active work of Northern European architects in East Africa in the 1960s - 1970s, when the countries of this region had just gained independence.
Israel will talk about the Urburb phenomenon - non-urban and non-suburban development, now replacing older layers - garden cities of the beginning of the last century, social housing in the middle of the 20th century, typical residential areas of the last decades.
German curators will present the Bungalow Germania exhibition, where they will tell about the past century through the prism of two iconic buildings - the German pavilion in the Giardini garden (with the inscription Germania on the facade), which has retained the characteristic appearance of the late 1930s, and the German Chancellor's bungalow in Bonn, international style buildings in 1964 years, reflecting the then fashion for modernity and openness.
The Russian pavilion will show the Fair Enough exposition led by a team of curators from the Strelka Institute led by Anton Kalgaev, Brendan McGetrick and Daria Paramonova.
