The appointment of Shelley McNamar and Yvonne Farrell, as well as the theme of the future Biennale, have so far been commented on only by Paolo Baratta, President of the La Biennale di Venezia Foundation. According to him, the 2018 exhibition will continue the line set by the 15th Biennale of Alejandro Aravena, which showed architecture as an important tool for civil society, organizing space for living and working and responding to the needs of individuals and communities. Irish architects in their exposition will present the quality of public and private space, urban area and landscape as the main goal of architecture. Baratta also noted the extensive pedagogical experience of McNamara and Farrell (they have been actively teaching at universities since 1976, including at Harvard and Yale Universities) and their ability to arouse interest in the subject among the younger generation.
The Grafton workshop has existed in Dublin since 1978, and Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell gained worldwide fame in 2008, when they
the building of the Bocconi University of Milan was awarded the Grand Prix of the first World Festival of Architecture. This was followed by the 2012 Venice Biennale Silver Lion and the Sterling Prize nomination. In 2016, Irish women pioneered again, receiving the first ever Royal Union of British Architects (RIBA) International Prize for the University building in Lima.
Grafton projects include many public buildings, primarily for educational institutions. This is a laconic, often austere, but always expressive architecture, fully using the capabilities of one or another material. Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell are important figures in a very interesting Irish school of architecture, and their international recognition is well deserved, but their success as curators so far raises questions: they are not well known for successful exhibitions or as theorists and publicists. The La Biennale di Venezia Foundation does not justify its choice in any way, which makes one suspect a "personnel crisis" in the management of the main architectural exhibition of the planet.
