Rem Koolhaas and a team of researchers make a case for architecture’s essentials. The entrance to Elements of Architecture in the main pavilion in Venice’s Giardini. When Rem Koolhaas announced what the theme for the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale would be, he went with a characteristic provocation. Fundamentals would forgo the typical, temperature-taking displays of contemporary architecture and focus on historical exhibitions. The Biennale, which began previews yesterday and opens to the public on Saturday, hinges on two major shows: Monditalia, a long-form survey of Italian culture (more on that in a later post), and Elements of Architecture, a show
Image courtesy Storefront for Art and Architecture The curators of the United States's Pavilion at the 2014 Architecture Biennale in Venice call their project OfficeUS. The curators of the United States Pavilion at the 2014 Architecture Biennale in Venice have very ambitious plans: to transform an exhibition space into an architectural office. Announced last week, the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs selected the team of Ashley Schafer, Ana Miljački, and Eva Franch i Gilabert and their proposal to reinterpret the last 100 years of American building outside our borders in a project called OfficeUS. "We want to
Aric Chen digs through the multiple layers of David Chipperfield's Common Ground exhibition in our first post from Venice Anupama Kundoo's Feel the Ground. Wall House: One to One at the Arsenale Despite beginning and ending with gusts of rain, yesterday’s first day of previews at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale mostly cast a sweltering sun over Common Ground, the main exhibition at the Arsenale. At first reckoning, the theme, chosen by exhibition director and UK architect David Chipperfield, doesn’t sound all that different from Kazuyo Seijima’s intriguingly prosaic People Meet in Architecture from 2010. But while Seijima’s Biennale will
The international architecture exhibition produced every two years in Venice is a sprawling, humid, one-stop shopping experience. When done right, it’s also exhilarating. Though the strategy of showcasing architecture’s freshest ideas through national pavilions and exhibition galleries has had its drawbacks in the Architecture Biennale’s 30-year history, high-quality submissions help make this year’s show feel curated. The recurring threads of sustainability, adaptive reuse, and traditional building methods — while planning for an uncertain future — give the show an underlying coherence. This year’s director, Kazuyo Sejima of the Japanese firm SANAA, chose a remarkably enigmatic theme for the Biennale —