When I came upon the display by Flores & Prats in Venice’s Arsenale during the opening days of the Architecture Biennale in May, I was astounded. There, in front of me, were long drafting tables onto which the Barcelona studio had piled models of all sorts—from small colorful cardboard ones to larger intricate wood or Styrofoam building facsimiles. Also strewn about were drawings on top of drawings, unrolled somewhat haphazardly and draped over the edges of the tables. Off to one side were more small models, positioned atop tall, tripod-like wood assemblies, and arranged like an architectural army. Off to another side, a large-scale model of a theater held court, coming alive with illustrations of a curtain and stage, and animated by moving images projected onto its walls.
The whole thing was a celebration of architecture—and the process of making architecture. And yet it felt completely out of place. Why did I have the impression that I’d somehow stepped outside the vast halls of this centuries-old Venetian compound?
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