La Biennale di Venezia: Art and Architecture | STYLEPARK

La Biennale di Venezia: Art and Architecture

The Venice Biennale has presented one of the world's most prestigious cultural institutions for over 120 years. In 1895, the first International Art Exhibition was organised in Venice; in the 1930s, music, cinema and theatre festivals were joined. In 1980, the first international architecture exhibition took place, and in 1999 dance celebrated its debut at the Biennale.

Constant Transformations

For the 18th Architecture Biennale in Venice, gmp Architekten are setting standards with their new approach to conversion work, which they see as the new norm and the enduring construction task of the future.

Momentum

Photographer and author Patricia Parinejad shares her impressions of the 18th Architecture Biennale in Venice, which presents a variety of experimental approaches under the title "The Laboratory of the Future". In addition to the new perspectives, the international exhibition shows the numerous questions that the architecture sector is currently facing.

Biennale Architettura: 10 Highlights

The 18th Architecture Biennale in Venice has recently started – we show you the personal ten highlights of architects Mikala Holme Samsøe and Amandus Samsøe Sattler.

In Exchange

Architecture collective AKT is collaborating with Viennese architect Hermann Czech to design the Austrian pavilion for this year’s Architecture Biennale in Venice. We talked to AKT about the project and the participative approach they take in their work.

Three questions to Peter Cachola Schmal

Peter Cachola Schmal is Executive Director of the German Architecture Museum (DAM) in Frankfurt am Main. In this interview, he tells us what impression the 17th Architecture Biennale in Venice left on him and what tasks architects will face in the future.

Shaping the future

According to an official press release, the Architettura 2021 Biennale in Venice will now take place this year from 22 May to 21 November 2021 as a physical event. Numerous digital formats are already planned in parallel.

Tomorrow’s yesteryears

The German contribution to this year’s Architecture Biennial is a fictitious history program that looks back at our times from the vantage point of the year 2038. The curatorial team predicts that many of the pressing problems of today will be solved by then.

The Discovery of Slowness

Salon Suisse adopts a consciously laid-back approach for its show at the 2019 Venice Biennale. “Slow”is this year’s motto. Sanitary ceramics specialist Laufen is the event’s main sponsor for the eighth time.

Ten little exercises in metaphysics

For its first participation in the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Vatican has had ten small chapels constructed. But just how Christian is this probably most important contribution to this year’s event really?

Free-space exhibition

"Freespace" is the theme of this year's Architecture Biennale in Venice, the largest and most prestigious exhibition of contemporary architecture in the world. What impressions will this showcase of the architect's guild convey in 2018?

German contribution to the 16th International Architecture Exhibition announced

The curators for the German contribution of "Unbuilding Walls" at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice have been announced: Graft Architects and Marianne Birthler.

Stand still and gaze over the Med

Here and there it’s fun to take part, but it comes at a price. The central “Viva Arte Viva” exhibition orders art by concept and evokes the power of origins. Observations at the 57th Venice Art Biennale.

Architecture for everyone!

The Danish Pavilion in Venice this year is a chamber of marvels. Choc-a-bloc with architecture models, it shows how architecture can be actively used to improve major and minor issues in society.

Grand Tour of the Country Exhibitions

So who has the time to see everything at this Biennale? We’ve chosen a few of the really eye-catching exhibitions for you.

Siza celebrates with everyone

Almost 40 years after construction work started, a subsidized public housing project by Álvaro Siza is being continued in Venice. A superb exhibition turns it into the Portuguese country exhibition at this year’s Architecture Biennale – and shows us that sometimes the front runs right past our front foors.

Rough walls – but charming

So many unfinished buildings: The Spanish pavilion focuses on unfinished and abandoned structures and thus discovers more than just the legacies of a burst property bubble.

Getting Your Fingers Dirty

Aravena’s main exhibition celebrates hand-made architecture, as can be sensed from all the materials and smells. But does that suffice for the major challenges?

Achieving the breakthrough

How to make Heimat? The German Pavilion opens its walls and the curators put forward hypotheses on what cities should look like where people not only arrive, but want to stay.

A nation in a refugee camp

Since their expulsion 40 years ago the Sahrawis have lived in refugee camps in Algeria, where they have established their own state. Florian Heilmeyer spoke to Manuel Herz about the Western Sahara Pavilion.

Alliance of Enthusiasts

Just landed temporarily in Venice. The “Sarajevo Now” exhibition wants to save the museum back home using an unusual packaging idea.

A Patchwork of Alternatives

The exact line the Aravena Front runs between the central exhibition and the country pavilions is unclear. Whistle in the dark? Or hands-on and act?

New build in blue

In the Arsenale’s Corderie the eye is caught by a large, blue model. It’s full of real proposals for a new, revolutionary way of building houses. Could an “Arrival City” really succeed in this way? Florian Heilmeyer spoke to Jörg Leeser of BeL about the concept.

Architecture – daring to do more

In his lively and powerful main exhibition at the Biennale, Alejandro Aravena shows just how much zest architecture can have, and how much power architects can have.

Germania in Venezia

So what has gone on show here in the past? Since 1991 the German Pavilion in the Giardini in Venice has also been used during the international architecture exhibition. Verena Hartbaum and Stephan Trüby have written a book about what has since gone on show there and how the building has itself changed – and present the highlight here specially for us.

Get out those ladders!

With Alejandro Aravena at its helm, the 15th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice could be a particularly interesting one – despite his predecessor Rem Koolhaas being a hard act to follow. After all, who could follow in those footsteps?

The submarine rises again

The Internationale Architecture Biennale Rotterdam raises questions about a “Next Economy”.

Arrival country. Home country.

Cheap apartment buildings, hostels for refugees and spaces for integration – the German Pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale is slowly taking shape.

Boomerangs whizz overhead

Exhibiting has a lot to do with space. At the 56th Venice Art Biennale you can see how art become theatrical and architecture becomes a stage.

The latest from the image factory

Last Saturday saw the opening of the 56th Venice Art Biennale. Aspects of a first tour of the Giardini and the Arsenale.

What lodged in NKBAK´s minds:

Architects and designers naturally have their own view on houses, people and exhibitions. So we asked a few of them for their photographic impressions of the 14th Architecture Biennale. And for their related comments of course.

What lodged in Ateliermob´s mind:

Architects and designers naturally have their own view on houses, people and exhibitions. So we asked a few of them for their photographic impressions of the 14th Architecture Biennale. And for their related comments of course.

What lodged in Ross Lovegrove`s mind:

Architects and designers naturally have their own view on houses, people and exhibitions. So we asked a few of them for their photographic impressions of the 14th Architecture Biennale. And for their related comments of course.

What lodged in Amandus Sattler's and Mikala Holme Samsøe's mind:

Architects and designers naturally have their own view on houses, people and exhibitions. So we asked a few of them for their photographic impressions of the 14th Architecture Biennale. And for their related comments of course.

What lodged in Something Fantastic´s minds:

Architects and designers naturally have their own view on houses, people and exhibitions. So we asked a few of them for their photographic impressions of the 14th Architecture Biennale. And for their related comments of course.

Charles Brooking’s world of windows

So have we simply accepted the fact that nowadays one window looks just like any other?This wonderful collection from England demonstrates just how much variety in window shapes and materials there once was.

The dream of an open society

The Dutch pavilion celebrates Jaap Bakema and with him the achievements of a form of post-War Modernism whose architecture is shaped by the institutions of the welfare state.

Import – Export

Modernist architecture as a symbol of emancipation or occupation? Freedom or disenfranchisement? The country contributions from and about African countries provide many an idea in this regard.

A Clockwork Modernism

What course did Modernism take in Britain? “Clockwork Jerusalem” takes a glance at William Blake to paint a surprising picture.

Modernism and its uncle

A fun-loving uncle resides in the French pavilion. He’s called Hulot, was invented by Jacques Tati, and shows in an amusing way all the things that can go wrong in the world of Modernism.

Please touch

A new pragmatism has changed Japanese architecture as if it has bid farewell to dreams – as can be discovered in the Japanese pavilion: “The Real World” is an unusually cluttered exhibition.

Germany’s Ex-Top Models

In the form of “Bungalow Germania” Alex Lehnerer and Savvas Ciriacidis have created one of the best exhibits in the Biennale and realized an unsettlingly instructive piece on the political instrumentalization of architecture.

Architecture Know-How in Museum and Archive

A great deal of hard work went into the 14th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. The curators of the national pavilions kindly searched the archives and Rem Koolhaas had all manner of architectural elements brought to the Giardini. A tour of a surprisingly didactic exhibition.

Italian affairs

For the exhibition “Monditalia” 41 teams were asked to design a piece about the country of Italy. The result: a show that is diverse, chaotic and at times pure kitsch.

Rem Koolhaas’ foundations

Rem Koolhaas has assembled a marvelous architecture biennial that mines Modernism to uncover its foundations in a bid to address the urgent issues of building in the 21st century.

If you want to understand Modernity you need to have fun with it

“Fair Enough” reads the lettering heading the pavilion of the Russian Federation. In other words: Very well! Or could it indeed imply that someone is fed-up with economization? In any case, this pavilion is great fun – while smart and critical at the same time.

Gondola! Gondola!

June 7 sees the opening of the 14th Architecture Biennale in Venice. Rem Koolhaas has chosen the basics of building as the main theme, along with “Absorbing Modernity 1914 – 2014”. So whom has gondoliere Rem welcomed on-board for the ride?

The architect above the mist – part 2

In some of the country pavilions at the Architecture Biennale it becomes clear that the “Common Ground” of construction and a shared life cannot be a matter for the architects alone.

The architect above the mist – part 1

The 13th Venice Architecture Biennale is themed “Common Ground”. As expected, the architects rounded up by David Chipperfield to contemplate the space they share in common have done so in multiple different ways. Some fall back into old patterns, while others are open to embrace collective processes.

Walking on purportedly common ground

Venice’s 13th Architecture Biennale is another kaleidoscope of a presentation. A tour in images of the Giardini and the Arsenale quickly shows just how diverse, and yet how ruptured and contradictory the “common ground” is that David Chipperfield evokes as regards the architecture of all the exhibitions and pavilions.

In the here and now or Returning to the space

In several of the pavilions and works of the 54th Venice Art Biennial we can see a return from the image to the space and thus to the incompressible here-and-now.

On being on the move

It would seem that the topic of the “nation” has by no means been exhausted – and this is true of the Venice Biennial, too. Nationality continues to play a major role in answering the questions of who is allowed membership and who is condemned to remain on the move. Examples from the Roma Pavilion and the disturbing photographic oeuvre of Hsieh Chun-Te from Taiwan show this most clearly.

Politics as singing class

In no less than three country pavilions, artists use opera and song as a means of discussing and criticizing the state of the world. In the Icelandic pavilion this takes the form of a criticism of European immigration policies, in the Hungarian pavilion music represents a metaphor for the crisis in post-communist Hungary, while in the Dutch pavilion opera acts as a model for teamwork in the nation.

Head for the caravanserai

Mike Nelson has assembled a labyrinth in the British pavilion. It could be the product of our fantasy or equally exist in Istanbul – and it certainly undermines our notions of time, place and action.

Venezia, Piazza Tahrir

At previous biennials, you could have safely passed up visiting the Egyptian pavilion, as all they staged were pro-regime shows that did not seem to fit in an artistic context. However, following the unrest in the Middle East, a revolution is also taking place in the Arab art world – as Ahmed Basiony's videos demonstrate.

Overpainting the feuilleton

In the Belgian pavilion Angel Vergara takes on electronic media and the newstreams they produce. As a painter, employing a range of painting styles, he seeks to defend himself against the flood of moving images.

The Last Supperhero: Tintoretto

Already ahead of the show, the decision by Biennial Director Bice Curiger to incorporate a 16th-century Venetian artist into her exhibition concept sparked controversy. And now the time has come: Contemporary art is no longer alone in the Padiglione Centrale. Is this bridging of several centuries a clever move by the curator?

Slings, slings over all

Seldom was there are clearer art divide at the Venice Biennial than that this year between the advocates and the opponents of Christoph Schlingensief’s German pavilion, on which the chiseled “Germania” has been painted over with the words “Egomania”, alluding to a Schlingensief film of 1986.

American gym session

Outside the US pavilion the tank tracks rattle. No worries. Venice hasn’t been occupied by the US Army. Rather, outside and inside the pavilion artist duo Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla explore the interrelationship of body, politics and power.

Resistance – liquefied or solidified?

“Crystal of Resistance” is the title artist Thomas Hirschhorn has given to his work for the Swiss pavilion at the Biennial. But what exactly is the deal with this crystal and resistance?

Along for the ride

Markus Schinwald imagines being the forger of images that never existed. The portraits in prim living-room size on display in the Austrian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennial all come from the 19th century. And he simply added what they lacked in order to offer a contemporary image of man, that prosthetic God. Using retouched strings, fabric, rings and chains, the bodies are readied for the salon.

Distributing pigeons in the park!

Clattering tank tracks, any number of pigeons and a church for a dead artist: the Venice art biennial is once again a spectacular show. But this time much is far too sensitive, dripping in pathos and, despite there being several good pieces, essentially too harmless. Which begs the question: where is the international art world heading?

Chronochaos or The Tigers from Venice

Concluding our series on the Architecture Biennial we ask: What vision of architecture do the exhibitions and contributions communicate? What attitudes do the architects take towards the past, present and future, and what role do power, experience and atmosphere play?

Radical change and radical standstill

Under the heading of "Chronochaos" Rem Koolhaas presents his proposals for the preservation of monuments and historical buildings. In one of the rooms at the back of Palazzo delle Esposizioni, visitors come face to face with photos, furniture and documents, some of which are stored as if in an archive. The architect has dedicated himself to a topic that comes as a surprise not only for the Biennial, but also for himself and his OMA studio.

Designing a different society

In Israel, back in the days while it was still young, the kibbutzim played a crucial role as places where a different, collective way of life beyond capitalist production practices was tested. An excellent exhibition at the Israeli Pavilion reminds us of the peculiarities of kibbutz architecture and aims to build a bridge to the future.

Niemeyer’s shadow

Oscar Niemeyer still works as an architect - at the grand old age of 102. As the exhibition in the Brazilian pavilion proves conclusively. The title "Brasilia - 50 Years On" whets the viewer's appetite; after all, the rigorously modern city was the promise of the day. Alongside Niemeyer, who designed the ideal city's most important buildings, the works of a new generation of young architects are also on display. Nonetheless, the Biennial's perhaps most interesting contribution to Brazilian architecture is actually to be found elsewhere.

The bridge across the valley

Here, construction comes into its own. Connections are not talked about but simply shown - modestly but accurately in black and white. "Landschaft und Kunstbauten" (Landscape and Engineering Structures) is the title of the exhibition realized at the Swiss Pavilion by the renowned engineer Jürg Conzett from Chur. It mostly features bridges in Switzerland.

The past is the new future

When the world changes, architecture changes, too. That sounds easier than it is. So what do the visions of the many different "futures" gathered at the Architecture Biennial look like? And what role does the past play in them?

Not a fairytale from the Arabian Nights

The Kingdom of Bahrain has taken the Biennial's motto very seriously: People meet, take a seat, watch, listen, dream. What better place to sit and think about the loss of identity, the increase in urban space and the magic of the sea than in fisherman's huts from the beach in Bahrain that were taken down with their owners' permission. And there is already one tangible result: the Golden Lion for the best country contribution.

Tokyo in doll’s house chaos

Japan's pavilion finds and unusual and surprising way to celebrate the "Metabolist" movement, which kicked off about half a century ago. Instead of space capsules and concrete shelving full of living units you can peruse doll's-house-sized models and an insightful presentation of Tokyo as the city of permanent change.

When sugar cubes float above the coffee cups

Like its sister event, the Architecture Biennial has long since expanded beyond its traditional grounds in the Giardini. There are a great number of intriguing country pavilions not only in the halls of the Venice's Arsenale, but also scattered around the city. So we resolved to take a walk past the contributions by Portugal, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Cyprus, Iran, Singapore, Hong Kong and several other exhibitions.

Disillusion, Illusion, Solution

In Russian Pavilion a serious attempt is being made at the dialectical triple jump from the past into the future. It presented three emotional states en route to ideas to reanimate the Russian industrial city of Vyshny Volochok.

Producing atmospheres or Close Links to Art

Never before was an architecture biennial so similar to an art biennial. Indeed, the latest rivalry among star architects to devise ever more eccentric shapes spawned objects that were commissioned if only for their "sculptural" qualities. At the first architecture biennial since the Big Crash the focus is closer to art again - against the background of the skepticism towards the once booming "signature architecture".

Well done!

The British Pavilion has opened its doors to a School of Seeing. Given the wealth of models, photographs, maps, drawings, notes, film and exhibits from various ages that comment on one another here, indeed seem to generate one another, all the media manifestations, differences in genres and lines dividing the epochs seem to have little validity. At "Villa Frankenstein", where architecture, art and historiography bid you good night, order gets upended.

On How to Handle Free Spaces or Vacancies

The solution need not always be a new building. And in the French Pavilion Dominique Perrault therefore asks how empty spaces in a city are handled and how we can rejuvenate our metropolitan peripheries. The Dutch Pavilion also focuses on how the existing can best be used. Here, Rietveld Landscape addresses the use of government-owned vacant buildings.

High Noon in the Red Salon

The word "Sehnsucht" (desire) is written above the gold-colored drapes decorat-ing the entrance to the German Pavilion at the Venice Giardini. Inside, a burgundy red salon awaits the visitor, featuring more than 180 representatives of the trade - who each inform us about the depths and shallows of their souls on a single sheet of paper.

On amazement and a cat in the arsenals

Kazuyo Sejima, the Director of the 12th Venice Architecture Biennial, has pulled something special out of the bag with the central exhibition "People meet in Architecture". She has managed to create an atmosphere of light-heartedness in which the opportunities afforded by contemporary architecture as well as the latter's limits are on show without glossing over the weighty issues.

Exhibiting the unexhibitable

Four months prior to the opening of the 12th Architecture Biennial in Venice director Kazuo Sejima presents her concept.