The 11th International Architecture Exhibition called “Out There: Architecture Beyond building” will take place from 14 September to 23 November 2008. The exhibition is curated by Aaron Betsky and organized by Biennale di Venezia presided over by Paolo Baratta. The opening will take place on 11, 12 and 13 September 2008.
For six years Aaron Betsky has been the director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI)in Rotterdam, one of the most renowned museum and study centres for architecture in the world, and since last year he is also the Cincinnati Art Museum director. According to Betsky’s intentions this Biennale “intends to address the issue of an Architecture that freed from the boundaries of buildings will finally be able to address the central problems of our society; in place of tombs of the architecture, namely the buildings, it will present site-specific installations, visions and experiments meant to help us understand our modern world and feel more at home in it”. Betsky continues by pointing out what he thinks should be a common notion: “architecture is not ‘construction’. Buildings are objects, and the act of constructing produces building-objects, but architecture is something else. It’s the way we think and talk about buildings. It’s the means we use to represent and to realize them: this is architecture. More in general, architecture is a way to represent, give shape and maybe even offer critical alternatives to the human environment. Buildings in fact are not enough: they are the grave of architecture, what’s left of our desire to create a different world, a better environment, open to new possibilities beyond everyday routine. In pragmatic terms architecture is what is able to let us feel ‘at home’ in the world”. Betsky further remarks: “the challenge for this 11th Biennale is to gather and encourage experimentation: planning ephemeral structures, imagining other possible scenarios and finding evidences that a better world is possible. This Biennale will not present buildings that are already existent, that we can already enjoy. We will not offer abstract solutions to social issues, but we’d like to find out if architecture is able to provide pragmatic shapes and seductive images, through experimentations in and about reality.
The 11th Biennale ‘Out There: Architecture Beyond Building’ will then present site-specific installations, manifestos and utopian scenarios, spreading in the display areas of Padiglione Italia in the Giardini and in the Arsenale spaces.
More specifically in the Arsenale visitors will be able to see twenty such installations, while in Padiglione Italia a selection of works created by young architects and by five ‘Masters of Experiment’ will be displayed. In Corderie dell’Arsenale the exhibition will start with “Hall of fragments” by David Rockwell with Casey Jones + Reed Kroloff. On a screen a series of projections will portray the architecture before the building: science fiction films that tried to foretell the future appearance of our world, and historic films that have recreated ancient landscapes. In the Corderie will also be displayed ‘Installations’: large-scale, site-specific installations that address the issue of feeling ‘at home’ in the world. These installations will be sided by ‘Manifestos’: printed or filmed statements of purposes for an architecture that tries to reach beyond building. Keeping with the topic a modern Kazakhstan hut and “heavenly garden” by Kathryn Gustafson. In the Artiglierie dell’Arsenale we will be able to see “Un-eternal City”. Thirty years after “Roma Interrotta” twelve projects for Rome and its suburbs have been developed. In this space the first ten works selected (plus 40 honourable mentions) in the university student competition ‘Everyville 2008 – Community Beyond Place. Community Spirit Beyond Architecture’ will also be displayed.
Organized by Aaron Betsky in collaboration with Francesco Delogu, Everyville 2008 was made possible thanks to the collaboration between Biennale di Venezia and Telecom Italia group. Telecom offered the best technologies available to realize and publish the projects on the web-site www.everyville.labiennale.org (software powered by newitalianblood.com, also in collaboration with Domus). While in the Arsenale fragments and inventions before and after architecture will be showed, in the Padiglione Italia in the Giardini experimental architecture already moving beyond building will be presented. Realized in collaboration with Emiliano Gandolfi a survey of experimental architecture will present works dealing with this issue from all over the world. This overview will be shown together with a series of monographic studies on the researches of other experimental visionary: Frank Gehry, Herzog & de Meuron, Morphosis, Zaha Hadid e Coop Himmelb (l)au. Finally in the mezzanine of the Padiglione Italia, in collaboration with Saskia van Stein, “Upload city” will present videos from YouTube and similar sources, together with other amateur and professional music videos presenting experimental architecture produced for/by the new generation, often oblivious of many building restrictions.
Aaron Betsky is working together with an international team of professionals, architects and curators: Francesco Delogu, Emiliano Gandolfi, Casey Jones, Reed Kroloff and Saskia van Stein. Thonik Studio in Amsterdam is working on the creation of a coordinated image for the exhibition. Their graphic project will be illustrated in a catalogue and discussed during a series of presentations and talks. In addition to what we have mentioned, the 11th Architecture Biennale will also include 65 national exhibitions, a record number for the architecture show. The Italian pavilion in the Tese delle Vergini in the Arsenale is curated by Francesco Garofalo, in collaboration with PARC – a branch of the Department of National Heritage and Cultural Activities especially in charge of landscape protection and development of architecture and contemporary art. Garofalo’s project is called “L’ITALIA CERCA CASA” (Italy is looking for a home), a series of proposals to rethink the ways of living in the city. The Biennale award ceremony will take place on Saturday 13 September in the Giardini in Venice, with the awarding of the official prizes by the international jury: the Leone d’Oro for best project in the exhibition ‘Architecture Beyond Building’, the Leone d’oro for best National project and best project of a young architect exhibiting in the ‘Architecture Beyond Building’ show. Moreover the career award will also be given after the appointment of the board of trustees of the Biennale. Along with the 11th Architecture Biennale ten collateral events organized and supported by international institutions will also take place.
