Logo courtesy – La Biennale di
Venezia
The Awards
15th International Architecture Biennale
Reporting From the Front
Curated - Alejandro
Aravena
Chaired - Paolo Baratta
“In
his trip to South America Bruce Chatwin
encountered an old lady walking the desert carrying an aluminum ladder on her
shoulder. It was German archeologist
Maria Reiche studying the Nazca lines. Standing on the ground,
the stones did not make any sense; they were just random gravel. But from the
height of the stair those stones became a bird, a jaguar, a tree or a flower.
We would like the 15th International Architecture Exhibition to offer a new point of view like the one Maria
Reiche has on the ladder”.
Curator
- Alejandro Aravena
Venice:
The 15th International Architecture Biennale Exhibition, titled Reporting from the Front, until November 27, is curated by Alejandro
Aravena and organized by La Biennale di Venezia chaired
by Paolo Baratta. The exhibition is at the Giardini and at the Arsenale.
Photograph
Giorgio
Zucchiatti - courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
The Awards – The Jury: President - Hashim Sarkis - Lebanon, USA - Pippo
Ciorra – Italy - Sergio Fajardo – Colombia - Marisa Moreira Salles – Brazil -
Karen Stein – USA.
Photograph
Giorgio
Zucchiatti - courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
15th Golden Lion
- Lifetime Achievement
Paulo Mendes da
Rocha – Brazil
The Board of Directors
of La Biennale di Venezia, chaired
by Paolo Baratta, awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement upon recommendation of curator Alejandro Aravena to architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha – Brazil.
Amongst other points, the motivations note that;
“…the most striking attribute
of his architecture is its Timelessness. Many decades after being built, each
of his projects have resisted the test of time, both stylistically and
physically. This astonishing consistency may be the consequence of his
ideological integrity and his structural genius. He is a nonconformist
challenger and simultaneously a passionate realist. His fields of interest are
beyond architecture, in political, social, geographical, historical and
technical realms. The role model he played for many generations of architects
in Brazil, Latin America and everywhere is that of a person able to join shared
and collective efforts as well as someone able to attract others to the cause
of a better built environment."
Alejandro Aravena, Paulo Mendes da Rocha and Paolo Baratta
Photograph
Giorgio
Zucchiatti - courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
The
Awards - 15th International Architecture Biennale di Venezia
Golden Lion – Best National Participation
Spain
– Unfinished
for a concisely curated selection of emerging
architects whose work shows how creativity and commitment can transcend
material constraints
Commissioners
and curators - Inaqui Carnicero and Carlos Quintans
Unfinished - “The exhibition gathers
together examples of architecture produced during the past few years, born out
of the renunciation and economy of means, designed to evolve and adapt to
future necessities and trusting in the beauty conferred by the passage of
time. These projects have understood the
lessons of the recent past and consider architecture to be something
unfinished, in a constant state of evolution and truly in the service of
humanity. The current moment of
uncertainty in our profession makes its consideration here especially
relevant.”
Spanish
Pavilion – Unfinished
Perimeter
Building and Urban Space Surrounding the Temple of Diana Single Family House in Tebra
photograph
by Francesco Galli – Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
Special
Mention National Participation
Japan
– Art of Nexus
for bringing the poetry of compactness to alternative
forms of collective living in a dense urban setting
photograph
by Andrea
Avezzu – courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
Special
Mention National Participation
Peru
– Our Amazon Frontline
for bringing architecture to a remote corner of the
world, making it both a venue for learning as well as a means for preserving
the culture of the Amazon
Photograph
Giorgio
Zucchiatti - courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
Dario Franchescini with Solano
Benitez and team
Best
Participant Reporting From the Front
Gabinete de Arquitectura
Solano Benitez; Gloria
Cabral; Solanito Benitez – Paraguay
for harnessing simple materials, structural ingenuity
and unskilled labour to bring architecture to underserved communities
Photograph
Giorgio
Zucchiatti - courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
Nle Kunle Adeyemi and
team with Paolo Baratta
photograph by Italo Rondinella –
Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia
photograph by Manfredi Bellati
Silver Lion - Promising Young Participant
Nle
Kunle
Adeyemi – The Netherlands
for a powerful demonstration, be it
in Lagos or in Venice, that architecture, at once iconic and pragmatic, can
amplify the importance of education
Photograph
Giorgio
Zucchiatti - courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
Alejandro Aravena, Maria Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo and Paolo Baratta
Special
mention - Reporting From the Front
Maria
Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo – Italy
for her perseverance in using the
rigours of her discipline to elevate the everyday into timeless works of
architecture
The Work of Maria Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo in Sicily
as Resistance Against the Banality and Mediocrity of the Built Environment
Small
Scale, The Reservoir of the Lost Honor of Architecture