For the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, the U.S. Pavilion exhibition “Dimensions of Citizenship” grappled with questions of belonging, sovereignty, and ecology, exploring how citizenship is represented at different scales. 

RECORD editors spoke with the curators and design teams behind the 2018 Pavilion. Scroll down to watch videos interviews about each project.

U.S. Pavilion Curators "Discuss Dimensions of Citizenship" 

Curators Mimi Zeiger, Niall Atkinson, and Ann Lui commissioned seven architecture and design teams to each explore how citizenship is represented at different scales. The installations grapple with questions of belonging, sovereignty, and ecology.

Citizen: "Thrival Geographies (In My Mind I See a Line)" 

Amanda Williams and Andres L. Hernandez with Shani Crowe 

Three Chicago artists investigated how race shapes notions of identity, shelter, and public space in historically African-American communities.

Civitas: "Stone Stories"

Studio Gang

Architect Jeanne Gang and her Chicago-based firm explored how the design of urban public spaces intersects with citizenship and empowerment by importing hundreds of cobblestones from a historic site along the Mississippi River to create platform for sharing the stories of Memphis residents.

Region: "Ecological Citizens"

SCAPE

2017 MacArthur Fellow Kate Orff and her New York–based landscape architecture studio took the Venetian Lagoon as a case study of the relationships between ecology, infrastructure, and climate, presenting solutions and design interventions for protecting environmentally fragile areas.

Nation: "Mexus"

Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman

The San Diego–based firm challenged perceptions of national boundaries with their project, which highlights eight watershed systems shared by Mexico and the United States.

Globe: "In Plain Sight"

Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Laura Kurgan, and Robert Gerard Pietrusko

This collaborative installation used satellite images and demographic data to visualize where people live, in order to consider citizenship at the global scale.

Network: "MANY"
Keller Easterling

A team led by Keller Easterling—an architect, writer, and Yale University professor—investigated how the digital network transcends national borders, facilitating the free movement and exchange of people and ideas.

Cosmos: "Cosmorama"

Design Earth

Architects El Hadi Jazairy and Rania Ghosn of Design Earth presented three speculative designs or “geo-stories” that ask how one engages in exploration of the universe as human and ecological systems become more unstable on earth.

Architectural Record’s coverage of the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale is sponsored by Hunter Douglas Architectural.