In the Central Pavilion of the Giardini Garden there is an exposition "Elements of Architecture", to which the curator of the entire Biennale, Rem Koolhaas, had the greatest contribution: he is listed - together with AMO - the creator of most of the sections. In one of the accompanying texts, he describes his personal attitude to all the elements he chose - stairs, facade, escalator, wall, and most importantly - to the balcony, which, according to him, saved his life. Koolhaas was born at the end of 1944, when the Netherlands was in a blockade of fascist troops, and the population was dying of hunger and cold. In order to give the child at least a little warmth, he was taken out to the balcony so that he could receive maximum sunlight - like a "mini-solar battery".
But in the exhibition itself there is not so much emotional - except that the usual irony of Koolhaas does not betray him here either. For example, he compares the balconies-tribunes of various figures up to Julian Assange, or he includes in a selection of the main architectural texts of all times Nikita Khrushchev's speech in 1954 on the transition of the construction industry to industrial rails and on improving the quality of buildings being erected.
However, the main thing here is not wit, but unusually informative and thoughtful content, combined with an equally effective and effective design. The exhibition is far from typical architectural expositions with an abundance of texts, models and plans that overfeed the viewer with information that is not easy to perceive in this format. Instead, infographics, authentic exhibits and installations work beautifully, with each section - from wall to hearth - solved differently, thus avoiding "museum fatigue."
The depth of research on which the exhibition is based, as well as its reach, is striking. Although Koolhaas says in the introduction that the key elements of architecture, surprisingly few, have accumulated a lot of junk DNA in their genome over 5000 years of development, all the examples and analogues presented make you think, and fill with contempt only when it comes to phenomena of our days.
