Friday, September 19, 2008

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

"SPACE” # 3 – The Italian pavilion. Going Walkabout, project by Ben Nicholson. The labyrinth is a raw architectural plan without substance, save the invitation to walk in dust. There certainly could be walls and windows, foundations and so forth, but the spatial construct of a labyrinth works perfectly well when the design is committed to memory and set down anywhere that a person sees fit. By walking on the same spot over and over again, footprints knead the design into the ground and make imprint. A place on earth has been marked by humans through a collective repetitive act: could that be enough? All monocursal labyrinths that have been recorded are drawn here. The taxonomy has been extended to include new designs that set in motion slightly different spatial configurations of people: at one moment you walk encircled by others…time passes…and then it is you who are doing the enveloping. An architectural plan is formed that both gives and takes.
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