Venice: La Biennale di Venezia - 14th International Architecture – The Awards

 Photo Italo Rondinella - Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia

Venice: La Biennale di Venezia - 14th International Architecture – The Awards. The Jury of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, entitled Fundamentals directed by Rem Koolhaas and chaired by Paolo Baratta, was composed of Francesco Bandarin, Kunlé Adeyemi, Bregtje van der Haak, Hou Hanru, and Mitra Khoubrou decided to confer the awards as follows:

The Awards. Golden Lion for Best National Participation.  Korea - Crow’s Eye View: The Korean Peninsula. The jury wishes to recognize Korea with a Golden Lion for the extraordinary achievement of presenting a new and rich body of knowledge of architecture and urbanism in a highly charged political situation. Using diverse modes of representation that encourage interaction, it is research-in-action, which expands the spatial and architectural narrative into a geopolitical reality.

 Photo By Andrea Avezzu - Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia

The Republic of Korea Pavilion - Crow’s Eye View: The Korean Peninsula

 Photo by G. Zucchiatti – courtesy La Biennale di Venezia

The Awards: Lifetime Achievement. Phyllis Lambert was chosen to be the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Award by director Rem Koolhaas who presented the following motivation:  "Not as an architect, but as a client and custodian, Phyllis Lambert has made a huge contribution to architecture. Without her participation, one of the few realizations in the 20th century of perfection on earth – the Seagram Building in New York, would not have happened.  Her creation of the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal combines rare vision with rare generosity to preserve crucial episodes of architecture’s heritage and to study them under ideal conditions.   Architects make architecture; Phyllis Lambert made architects..."

 

Fonds Phyllis Lambert, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal. Copyright United Press International -courtesy La Biennale di Venezia

Philip Johnson, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Phyllis Lambert in front of an image of the model for the Seagram building, New York, 1955. Gelatin silver print. Photographer unknown.

 

 

The Awards. Silver Lion for a National Participation.  Chile - Monolith Controversies. The jury recognizes Chile with the Silver Lion for revealing a critical chapter of the history of global circulation of modernity. Focusing on one essential element of modern architecture,  a prefabricated concrete wall - it critically highlights the role of elements of architecture in different ideological and political contexts.

Above. Gonzalo Puga, Hugo Palmarola and Pedro Alonso.

 

The Chilean Pavilion - Monolith Controversies

 

The Awards. Special mention. France - Modernity: Promise or Menace?,  for addressing the successes and the traumas embedded in its utopian visions of modernity.

Above. The large housing estate: heterotopia of salvation, or place of reclusion? 

 

Jean Prouve with Tarik Carim

French Pavilion - Modernity: Promise or Menace? - Jacques Tati and the Villa Arpel: object of desire or machine of ridicule?

 

The Awards. Special mention. Russia  - Fair Enough: An Expo of Ideas, for showcasing the contemporary language of commercialization of architecture.

 

Russian Pavilion - Fair Enough: An Expo of Ideas

La Biennale di Venezia.   In the Giardini, the new shady Belvedere Cafe overlooking the Lagoon can be found between the Canadian and German pavilions.