La
Biennale di Venezia - 14th International Architecture Exhibition: Venice
Pavilion - Daniel Libeskind - Sonnets
in Babylon. The Venice Pavilion
showcases an installation by Daniel Libeskind exploring the fundamental tension
between architecture and drawing. Sonnets in Babylon extends a line of questioning begun by the architect nearly
three decades ago with the debut of Three
Lessons in Architecture at the International Architecture Exhibition in
Venice. “I am always posing lessons for
myself, always trying to go further into the nature of architecture,” says
Libeskind. “In this project, using the particular materiality of the hand-drawn
mark, glass, and metal structure, I’m exploring the questions of contemporary
life and the fundamentals of architecture: is form disappearing into Techne or is it a permanent
expression of being human?”
Daniel Libeskind - Sonnets in Babylon.
Some 100 never-before-exhibited drawings by Libeskind, created by hand from pen
and sepia-toned washes of coffee, comprise the principal element of the
pavilion. The series is screen-printed by Lasvit, the architectural
glass-maker, using a ceramic process, on large-scale glass panels and arranged
around the curved wall of the pavilion. Using state of the art technology,
ribbons of aluminum panels fixed with discreet LED lights will create a
luminous wall of light and transparency.
The
drawings themselves depict explosive un-couplings of ambiguous forms that
alternately evoke favelas, futuristic cities, mechanical parts, and even parts
of the human body. Mr. Libeskind extends these forms into the room environment
through the diaphanous layering of glass that will create a continuous
landscape.
La
Biennale di Venezia - 14th International Architecture Exhibition: Swiss Pavilion – A Stroll Through A Fun
Palace. Lucius Burckhardt and Cedric Price – A Stroll Through a Fun Palace
is a multi-faceted project by Hans Ulrich Obrist in the Swiss pavilion. In a digital time of unlimited access to
information, where everyone can be an architect, a curator, an intellectual
thinker, Hans Ulrich Obrist’s project revisits
the recent past of architecture through retrospectives of Lucius Burckhardt
(1925–2003) and Cedric Price (1934–2003), reflecting on its future in the 21st
century.
Above.
Retrospective on Lucius Burckhardt and
Cedric Price.
Swiss
Pavilion – A Stroll Through A Fun Palace.
‘We often invent the future with elements from the past. Lucius Burckhardt
(1925–2003) and Cedric Price (1934–2003) were two great visionaries whose work
resonates and inspires new generations in the 21st century. At the core of both
their work is a practice of drawing.
At the center of the project will be the
archives of drawings of Cedric and Lucius, of which different aspects will
be revealed throughout the Biennale. ‘A stroll through a fun palace’ in
collaboration with architects and artists will present a laboratory where
the ideas of Cedric and Lucius can be toolboxes to invent the future.’ Hans
Ulrich Obrist, February 2014.
Above.
Archives.
Swiss
Pavilion – A Stroll Through A Fun Palace.
The pavilion will function as an architectural school under the
leadership of Italian architect Stefano Boeri with Lorenza Baroncelli. It will
welcome and connect students in a worldwide network of thinkers, schools and
researchers, enabling them to reflect on how the contemporary landscape is
changing. This network will produce a digital daily and a weekly print magazine
titled The Tomorrow.
Above.
Summer school.
La Biennale di Venezia - 14th
International Architecture Exhibition:
Japan Pavilion – In the Real World. In the Japan pavilion, the
exhibition In the Real World. With the theme Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014 the
commissioner, Kayoko Ota stated, “The Japan Pavilion attempts to weave a
continuous history of the one hundred years of the country’s architecture through
a systematic research, which has actually rarely been done. We see this as an
ideal opportunity to tell the story of unparalleled architectural development
in Japan (a country that underwent drastic modernization in an effort to catch
up with the West), and to feature the finest buildings and strongest concepts
that arose as a result by a century’s worth of Japan’s absorbing or confronting
with modernity.
Above.The Japan Pavilion is
transformed into a “storehouse” filled with the testaments in various forms of
the 100‐year history of Japanese architecture.
Yamakawa Cottage – Riken Yamamoto,
1977
Farmer’s House Sugadaira – Osamu
Ishiyama, 1986
Notebooks of Terunobu Fujimori,
taken on duty as an architectural detective, 1970s
In the Real World. Architectural
Detectives on the road, Terunobu Fujimori and Masayoshi Hori, circa 1974
La
Biennale di Venezia - 14th International Architecture Exhibition: Cyprus
Pavilion – Anatomy of the Wallpaper. In
the Cyprus pavilion, Anatomy of Wallpaper exhibition, an endeavor towards a
creative and retrospective reconstruction of island’s history, and specifically
of Nicosia. Cyprus has suffered throughout its history from invaders,
conquerors and colonial powers, who left their marks indelibly on the form and
structure of island’s settlements. Nicosia, a city of innumerable historical,
social and cultural layers, was constructed in the same way as History,
persistently by the victors, and according to their history. The Island’s
capital forms a polyphony of diverse paradigms of
architectural forms and cultures. It’s presented in an allegory.
In a literary device, with its immense power to illustrate multifaceted ideas
and concepts, easily assimilated and tangible to its viewers. The city required
a Wallpaper to stimulate its growth. Suspended right along its center, the
Wallpaper gave it a striking imaginary background: a spectacle through the
years, contributing to an unexpected Scenario. Gradually opposed along either
side of the Wallpaper, the City’s two different parts, developing different
aspirations, abut an aggressive confrontation. A developing megalomania led
both sides into a non-comprehensive settlement. Space became the battlefield of
conflicting ideologies.
Co-curator;
with Stefanos Roimpas,
above Michael Hadjistyllis.