The Dezeen team are reporting from the 18th international architecture biennale in Venice, curated by Lesley Lokko. Updated throughout the day and exclusively unveiling national pavilions!
2:00pm The Canadian pavilion is notable for not hosting an exhibition this year, but a headquarters for Architects Against Housing Alienation (AAHA)’s “Not For Sale!” campaign.
Commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts, AAHA is a curatorial collective of architects, activists and indigenous leaders who have transformed the Canadian Pavilion into their live campaign hub.
The think tank will run for six months working to present solutions for equitable housing in Canada that reject the concept of property and the financialized form of architecture that it implies.
The AAHA have issued a list of 10 demands, gathered from across the dozens of organisations they are working with, that they feel will help create a future where housing is equitable for all.
Speaking to Dezeen digital editor Rupert Bickersteth at the pavilion, Canada Council for the Arts director and CEO Simon Brault said “the architect is perceived as the one who will provide the technical solution when the political will is there, but here architects and activists are working together ahead of political decision-making”.
He continued “one of the most important roles of architects is to deconstruct received ideas and reframe the conversation on the human experience”.
Architects bring an expertise in systems-thinking
AAHA member and architectural historian, Tijana Vujosevic, who also spoke to Dezeen, when questioned about architects being best equipped, or self-appointed, to tackle housing crises said “we’re not saving the world, bringing enlightenment and justice to everybody. That’s not what architects do.”
“We’re working with housing advocates and activists to help visualise, curate and present what they might have otherwise conceived of as exclusively financial, legal and political problems,” they continued.
Speaking to Dezeen inside the Canadian pavilion, AAHA member and architect David Fortin said “architects bring an expertise in systems-thinking, regarding the process that results in a house, and the question is how do you re-wire the system in a way that allows for more people to get access to it?”
“We have worked on a lot about material flows and ecological systems. Housing is such an important part of an urban ecological system. When you rewire and redesign that system, it does lead to political impacts.”
12:30pm The Swiss pavilion has been exclusively unveiled on Dezeen. A wall and several gates facing the adjacent Venezuelan pavilion have been removed for its “Neighbours” project.
Curators Karin Sander and Philipp Ursprung aimed to make the architecture of the buildings the focus of their installation by removing the boundary between the two pavilions.
Unlike any of the other national pavilions in the Giardini, the pavilions of Switzerland and Venezuela share a wall.
12:00pm Dezeen editor Tom Ravenscroft, is reporting from inside the opening press conference of the biennale in the Arsenale, where curator Lesley Lokko has called the past 15 months as an “extraordinary journey”.
She went on to describe the exhibitions and pavilions of this, the 18th architecture biennale in Venice, as having “already become our collective outpouring of pride and joy”.
The past 15 months have been an extraordinary journey
She thanked the biennale team, sponsors and her team of assistant curators and also touched upon difficulties with visa issues. More to come on this story, shortly.
In the meantime, read Dezeen architecture editor Lizzie Crook’s interview with Lesley Lokko that we published yesterday.
10:30am Last night Qatar Creates opened a documentary exhibition “Building a Creative Nation”, which is the first presentation outside the country of Qatar‘s forthcoming cultural institutions designed by starchitects.
The exhibition at the Palazzo Franchetti will be on view until 26 November 2023. It focuses on five new cultural venues being developed by Qatar Museums in Qatar with architectural practices Elemental, Herzog & de Meuron, OMA, Philippe Starck, and UNStudio.
Also at the Palazzo Franchetti is a special exhibition of the work of Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, where a large-scale metal pavilion designed by Kuma occupies a central space in the walled garden of the palazzo (above).
The exhibition “Kengo Kuma: Onomatopoeia Architecture” presents projects, and models, across the full range of Kuma’s work in Japan and around the world – including the V&A Dundee.
10:00am Today is the start of the “vernissage”, or pre-opening, of the biennale.
Yesterday Dezeen exclusively revealed national pavilions and, ahead of the opening press conference in the Arsenale at 11:00am, we continue to do so today. Stay tuned for the Swiss and Korean pavilions.
The Brazilian pavilion has been filled with earth for this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale.
Curators Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Taveres hope to communicate how Brazil’s land has shaped understandings of heritage and identity, choosing to focus on earth and naming the exhibition at the Brazilian pavilion Terra.
The Applied Arts Pavilion exhibition is a collaboration between the UK’s Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) and the Venice Architecture Biennale.
This year’s exhibition, called Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Power in West Africa, is curated by Christopher Turner of the V&A and Nana Biamah-Ofosu and Bushra Mohamed of the Architectural Association (AA).
The pavilion explores the origins and development of the tropical modernist style of architecture. A 36-metre-long brise soleil has been covered with screens showing the colonial history of tropical modernism.
The Venice Architecture Biennale takes place from 20 May to 26 November 2023. Read Dezeen’s coverage of Day one from Venice Architecture Biennale. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest information you need to know to attend the event, as well as a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.
All times are Venice time.
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