La Biennale di
Venezia
17th International
Architecture Exhibition
How will we
live together?
The press conference
- via streaming - for the – Biennale Architettura
2020 - 17th International Architecture Exhibition – with the theme - How will we live
together? was held last week. Chaired
by the outgoing president, La Biennale di Venezia’s Paolo Barata
and curated by architect, educator, and scholar Hashim Sarkis, will take
place from 29th August - 29th November, between the Central Pavilion
at the Giardini, the Arsenale and Forte Marghera - including - 114 participants in competition coming from 46 countries – 63 National Participations of which three will be present for the
first time: Grenada, Iraq and Uzbekistan. The Italian
Pavilion will be curated by Alessandro Melis.
Olalekan Jeyifous and Mpho
Matsipa
Liquid Geographies - Liquid Borders - 2020
Screenshot
“There has been a constant theme over the
years - the social advantages which Architecture can catalyze. As we have often
said, Architecture makes us more aware individuals; it helps us become
citizens, not just consumers; it stimulates us to consider the indirect effects
of our actions; it helps us understand more fully the importance of public
goods and of free goods. It helps us develop a more all-around vision of
welfare. And lastly, Architecture helps us to conserve resources and to give
ourselves a modicum of happiness. In its broad-ranging gaze, the exhibition
curated by Hashim Sarkis captures
the structural problems of contemporary society. He observes that, in every
corner of the world, phenomena of intense change are underway; they all differ
but what they share is a need for important “adjustments” in living conditions.
Thus, the gaze of the curator and the exhibition ranges even further afield.
Architecture becomes the reference point of a vast interdisciplinary commitment
and of a vast cultural and political commitment.”
Paolo Baratta
President La Biennale di
Venezia
Screenshot
“We need a new spatial contract. In the context of widening political divides
and growing economic inequalities, we call on architects to imagine spaces in which
we can generously live together. The
architects invited to participate in the Biennale Architettura 2020 are
encouraged to include other professions and constituencies—artists, builders,
and craftspeople, but also politicians, journalists, social scientists, and
everyday citizens. In effect, the Biennale Architettura 2020 asserts the vital
role of the architect as both cordial convener and custodian of the spatial
contract.”
Hashim Sarkis
Curator Biennale Architettura 2020
Screenshot
· together as human beings who, despite our increasing individuality, yearn
to connect with one another and with other species across digital and real
space;
· together as new households looking for more diverse and dignified spaces for inhabitation;
· together as emerging communities that demand equity, inclusion, and spatial identity;
· together across political borders to imagine new geographies of association;
· and together as a planet facing crises that require global action for us to continue living at all.
The question,
“How will we live together?” is as much a social and political question as a
spatial one. Aristotle asked it when he was defining politics, and he came
back to propose the model of the city. Every generation asks it and answers it
differently. More recently rapidly changing social norms, growing political
polarization, climate change, and vast global inequalities are making us ask
this question more urgently and at different scales than before. In parallel,
the weakness of the political models being proposed today compels us to put
space first and, perhaps like Aristotle, look at the way architecture shapes
inhabitation for potential models for how we could live together.
How will we live together?
The theme of
the Biennale Architettura 2020 is its title.
The title is a
question. The question is open:
How: Speaks to practical approaches and concrete solutions,
highlighting the primacy of problem solving in architectural thinking.
Will: Signals looking toward the future, but also seeking vision and
determination, drawing from the power of the architectural imaginary.
We: Stands for first person, plural, and thus inclusive (of other
peoples, of other species), appealing to a more empathetic understanding of
architecture.
Live: Means not simply to exist but to thrive, to flourish, to
inhabit, and to express life, tapping into architecture’s inherent optimism.
Together: Implies collectives, commons, universal values, highlighting
architecture as a collective form and a form of expression.
?: Indicates an open question, not a rhetorical one, looking for
(many) answers, celebrating the plurality of values in and through
architecture.
Courtesy
Studio Ossidiana – La Biennale di Venezia
Five Scales
The Biennale Architettura 2020 will be
organized into five scales, three in the Arsenale
and two in the Central Pavilion.
Projects range from the analytic to the conceptual, the experimental, the
tested and proven, and the widely deployed.
Scale 1: Among
Diverse Beings – Arsenale
- Designing for New Bodies: Addressing
changes in the perception and conception of the human body.
- Living with Other Beings: Foregrounding
empathy and engagement with other beings.
Studio
Ossidiana - Variation on a Bird Cage - 2019-20
Courtesy Alison Brooks Architects – La Biennale
di Venezia
Alison Brooks - ”Axonometric,” - Home Ground – 2020
Courtesy
Osbourne Macharia– La Biennale di Venezia
Osbourne
Macharia - “GIKOSH”:
Example of Photographic art
projects involving the creative Millenial within the informal settlements in
Nairobi – “Keja,” - 2019
Scale 2: As New Households – Arsenale
- Catering to New Demographics:
Responding to changing compositions and densities of households.
- Inhabiting New Tectonics: Exploring
technologies that enable innovative housing construction.
- Living Apart Together: Expanding
possibilities of the apartment building as a collective housing typology.
Courtesy SOM | Slashcube GmbH – La Biennale di Venezia
SOM - “Moon Village Earth Rise,” Life Beyond Earth – 2020
Courtesy
PRACTICA – La Biennale di Venezia
PRACTICA, “River Somes, Urban Beach,” River Somes:
Across Communities and Ecosystems - 2017-ongoing.
Courtesy doxiadis + - La Biennale di Venezia
doxiadis + - “Growing,” Entangled Kingdoms - 2019-20
Scale 3: As
Emerging Communities – Arsenale
- Engaging
Varied Forms of Civicness: Investigating novel ways for communities to
organize themselves spatially.
- Re-equipping
Society: Proposing new forms of social equipment (parks, schools,
hospitals, ...).
- Coming
Together in Venice: Imagining the future of Venice.
- Co-habitats:
Showing how we do live together in... Addis Ababa, Al Azraq Refugee Camp, Beirut,
Hong-Kong, India-Pakistan corridors, Lagos squatter settlement, New York,
Prishtina, and the Rio-Sao Paulo area.
Courtesy Rural Urban Framework – La Biennale di
Venezia
Rural Urban Framework - “Video collage by day – dug-out house on the
bottom, Chinese landscape on the top,” Split Lives:
Stories from the Underground House – 2020
Courtesy Michael Maltzan Architecture – La Biennale di
Venezia
Bureau of Engineering, Michael Maltzan Architecture, Inc. / HNTB
Corporation, “City of Los Angeles,” Sixth Street Viaduct
Scale 4: Across Borders – Giardini - Central
Pavilion
- Transcending
the Urban-Rural Divide: Mitigating the growing social and economic
differences between global cities and the global hinterland.
- Linking the
Levant: Negotiating sharp political divisions in the Levant region.
- Bridging
Infrastructures: Exploring how infrastructural design can provide
trans-regional connectivity.
- Protecting
Global Commons: Bringing the architectural imaginary to endangered
treasures such as the Poles, the Amazon, the Oceans, the Indo-Pacific Region,
and the Air.
Courtesy
Cave_bureau – La Biennale di Venezia
Cave_bureau - “Mbai
Cave Steam + Struggle,”
The
Anthropocene Museum: Exhibit 3.0 “Obsidian Rain,” – 2017
Courtesy Angelo Bucci –
La Biennale di Venezia
Angelo Bucci, Satellights
over Sao Paolo – 2019
Scale 5: As One Planet – Giardini
- Central Pavilion
-
Making Worlds: Anticipating
and calibrating the future of the planet.
-
Uniting the Nations: Marking
the 75th anniversary of the United Nations by revising and expanding its
spatial scope.
-
Changing Designs for Climate
Change: Presenting solutions in face of global warming.
-
Networking Space: Connecting
between Earth and outer space.
The
grounds of the Arsenale and the
Central Pavilion at the Giardini will
include several large installations that relate to one of the five scales.The
grounds of Forte Marghera will
feature projects devoted to children’s play, by five architects and an
architectural photographer under the subtheme: How Will We Play Together?.