The main world architectural exhibition will be held next year under the motto-question "How will we live together." Curator Hashim Sarkis believes that in the current situation of political, economic and environmental crises, mankind needs a new “spatial agreement”, the guardian of which is traditionally an architect. People must decide how they will live together, starting from the level of personality - more and more individualistic, existing simultaneously in the real and digital world - to the entire planet, since many problems can be solved only at the global level, by joint efforts.
Sarkis calls on the participants of the Biennale (both in the general exposition and in the national pavilions) to involve not only “traditional” allies, artists, builders, craftsmen, but also journalists, politicians, social scientists, and ordinary citizens in their work.
The curator admits that the topic of living together is very wide, so he still recommends limiting ourselves to its purely architectural aspects. However, he notes that the problems of the “first” and “third” worlds are often the same, for example, a lack of inclusive social housing and infrastructure or a more coherent urban environment.
Paolo Baratta, President of the La Biennale di Venezia Foundation, supplemented Hashim Sarkis's theses with the remark that the Biennale is able to show different realities, current conflicts and trends existing in parallel on Earth, as well as help us imagine the world working together on these problems, in particular the world of architecture, busy searching for their solutions.
Let us remind you that the theme of the exhibition in the national pavilion of Russia has already been determined: these are museums. The curators will be Semyon Mikhailovsky, Dmitry Likin and Ekaterina Pronicheva.
The 17th Biennale of Architecture will be held in Venice from May 23 to November 29, 2020. The vernissage will take place on May 21-22.
