Arsenale: Anupama Kundoo – Wall House – One to One. Kundoo, an Indian
architect now based in Australia, has built an ambitious, 1:1 facsimile of the
Wall House, a building she designed in Auroville, India in 2000. The common ground is in its making. A team of Indian craftsmen, some of whom had
never before left their home country, were brought to Venice to construct the
project in collaboration with staff and students from the University of
Queensland, and students from IUAV in Venice, creating skills exchange across
three continents. The final piece embodies
the dialogue between construct on cultures and also is a showcase for Kundoo’s
architecture, a lyrical modernism at ease with the demands of climate.
Arsenale: Urban-Think Tank – Gran Horizonte – Torre David - Golden Lion for the Best Project. The Golden
Lion for the Best Project embodying the theme of Common Ground went to Torre David / Gran Horizonte by Urban-Think Tank (Alfredo Brillembourg,
Hubert Klumpner) and Justin
McGuirk, curator and Iwan Baan,
photographer and to the people of Caracas and their families who created
a new community and a home out of an abandoned and unfinished building. The jury praised the architects for
recognizing the power of this transformational project. An informal community
created a new home and a new identity by occupying Torre David and did so with
flair and conviction. This initiative can be seen as an inspirational model
acknowledging the strength of informal societies.
Urban-Think Tank’s Alfredo Brillenbourg and
Hubert Klumpner
photograph and copyright manfredi bellati
In the spirit of the Biennale’s theme, Common
Ground, the installation takes the form of a Venezuelan arepa restaurant,
creating a genuinely social space rather than a didactic exhibition space.
photograph and copyright manfredi bellati
Arsenale: Luis Fernandez-Galiano – Spain Mon
Amour. Spanish critic Luis
Fernadez-Galiano depicts here the critical points in history occupied Spain,
and consequently Spanish architecture, today.
Half of all architecture practices in Madrid and Barcelona have closed
since the financial crisis, and unemployment amongst the young is soaring.
This exhibition presents the legacy of the talented
group of architects that has created so many beautiful buildings in Spain in
the last 20 years, and questions the future for recent graduates: some of them
are here in person to discuss these issues with visitors. Architecture’s resilience to economic and
social strife is in focus here, and the question of what happens when the civic
spaces of architecture become the background to crisis.
Participating studios: Francisco Mangado, Mansilla + Tunon, Nieto Sobejano,
Paredes Pedrosa and TCR Arquitectes.
Arsenale: Kuwait – Kethra. The Team - front: L. to R. Curator,
Zahra Ali Baba and deputy curator, Deema Al-Ghunaim. Back Row L.to R. Alia Alazza, Dana
Alhasan, Sulaiman Albader, Lulu Alawadhi, Abdulaziz Alkandari, and Ruba
Alsaleh.
Arsenale: Kuwait – Kethra. Kuwait is participating for
the first time at the Architectural Biennale. Kethra - 1. Overflowing fullness or surplus. 2. Affluence; wealth. 3. An extremely plentiful or over sufficient supply. The socio spatial typologies emerging from a culture
of gathering can be traced back to pre-oil Kuwait. Increasing in density by a
welfare state economy, these local habits of information gathering and
distribution are registers of a critical condition between abundance and
overflow. kethra is an expansive gesture, a map of potential proximity
and accessibility, influencing scenarios of rapid change.
Paolo Moroni and William Sawaya
Arsenale: Kigdom of Bahrain – Background. Five video projections show an urban context
in real time. It is the same background typically
used in news broadcasts on television, save for the graphics, audio, and, above
all, the mediating presence of journalists, which allows the viewer to
construct his or her own imagined idea of the Kingdom of Bahrain. In these landscapes in a state of
metamorphosis, the curators approach a series of six essays that explore the
mythology of the country associated with a photographic exhibition in search
for physical traces within contemporary urban territory.
Background: Deena
Fakhro; Rashad Faraj; Frances Stafford; Hassan Hujairi; Kavi Kittani; MASMARDI
(Maan Saloum and Dalia El Mardi); Francesco Librizzi; Matilde Cassani; Stefano
Tropea; Eman Ali; Camille Zakharia; Mohammed Bu Ali
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture, Mai Al Khalifa. Curator: Noura Al-Sayeh
Arsenale: Ireland – Shifting Ground. Shifting Ground
(Beyond National Architecture). Heneghan Peng Architects were selected as
participants because they work across different continents on a range of
diverse projects. Water was identified as the element, which is shared across
the different sites. Venice is a perfect place to take measure of this element,
which suggests links to another site, the Nile Valley. An ancient Egyptian rod
for measuring the water level of the Nile inspired the design of a responsive
oscillating bench, which invites visitors to balance their respective weights.
The bench constitutes a shifting ground located in the
unstable field of Venice. It is about measurement and calibration of the weight
of the body in relation to other bodies; in relation to the site of the
installation; and in relation to water. It is located in the Artiglierie
section of the Arsenale. Its level is calibrated against the mark of the acqua alta in the adjacent brickwork
of the building, which marks a horizontal datum in a floating world.
Shifting Ground (Beyond National Architecture): Heneghan Peng Architects (Róisín Heneghan and Shih-Fu Peng) with Andreas
Dopfer, Joseph Swan, Holger Falter, Salam Al Sabah, ChunMan Tang
Commissioner: Elizabeth Francis. Curator: John McLaughlin.
Artist, Angelo
Bucarelli and his daughter Palma
Horst und
Edeltraut’ s Cosima Bucarelli
Architect
Luca Bombassei
Arsenale:
Aires Mateus - Radix. This piece is an
architectural response to the setting of the Gaggiandre, the covered docks of
the Arsenale designed by Jacopo Sansovino between 1568 and 1573. The Portuguese architects’ design uses
geometry as a means to define and control space and creates a beautiful,
arching response to the stately colonnades.
The result is an arch anchored at three points on the ground, with
intersecting curves creating a beautiful three-dimensional steel form. For the architects, Radix evokes the
interplay of sensory experience and memory that creates architectural identity
and allows us to see relationships between buildings built hundreds of years
apart.
Architect
Aldo Cibic
Arsenale:
Italy – The four Seasons Architecture for the “made in Italy” from Adriano
Olivetti to the Green Economy. At the Italian Pavilion the theme is The Four
Seasons - Architecture for the “Made in Italy” from Adriano Olivetti to the
Green Economy and is curated by Luca Zevi.
The Olivetti Factory in Pozzuolo – project by architect Luigi Cosenza,
1950.
At the entrance to the pavilion an 800 Square meter garden designed by
OSA Architettura e Paessaggio.
Above: OSA's Caterina Rogai, Marco Burrascano and Massimo Acito.
The four Seasons Architecture for the “made in
Italy” from Adriano Olivetti to the Green Economy: The Ministry for the Cultural
Heritage and Activities - PaBAAC - General Direction
for the landscape, fine arts, architecture and contemporary artla Biennale di
Venezia
Commissioner: Maddalena Ragni, General
Director of PaBAAC.Curator: Luca Zevi.
Ennio and Giorgia Brion