Italy

"European-ness Porosity" is presented as part of “MADE IN EUROPE: 25 years of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award.”

From the Organizers. Europe is currently experiencing a paradigm shift from national to urban identities. As its boundaries become increasingly blurred, each city is claiming an identity of its own. Europe is predominantly urban, and the condition of the European city is related to a stratification of architectures, functions and events which, palimpsest-like, shape a compact, complex understanding of the urban experience that embraces its architectonic heritage, industrial development, social housing, archaeological sites, modern infrastructure and the cities rebuilt after WW2.

The globalisation process began with the emigration of artists and architects during WW1, and continuing with the exodus due to the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany and the start of WW2. In this sense, Europe acted as a transmission device, the key node in a complex process of emission and assimilation. Today we live in a liquid reality whose theme is permeability, a reality in which professionals and intellectuals can move across porous borders.

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Daniel Libeskind has unveiled designs for Vanke’s first ever overseas pavilion for the 2015 Milan Expo. Clad in a self-cleaning, air purifying, metalized tile, which was designed by Libeskind in collaboration with the Italian company Casalgrande Padan, the “red serpentine-like” structure reinterprets the traditional Chinese Shitang (dining hall).

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Roma-based Nemesi & Partners has designed a 13,000 square meter “urban forest” that will serve as the Italian Pavilion at the 2015 Milan Expo. Enveloped within an intricate, branch-like skin, the six-story lattice structure will be made from 900 panels of “i.active BIODYNAMIC” cement that will “capture” air pollutants and convert them into inert salts.

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The winning design for the Austrian pavilion of the 2015 Milan Expo has been announced. Following the Expo’s theme of “Energy for Life,” team.breathe.austria's winning proposal focuses on social change for environmental protection. The enclosed, rectangular pavilion will be planted with an abundance of native Austrian vegetation. Titled “breathe,” the project will produce enough oxygen to sustain 18,000 people by the hour and advocates for a healthier bond between the urban and natural environment.

Greenhouse Talks, an auxiliary public lecture series to the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, will take place on Thursday, June 5th and Friday, June 6th between 9:00 and 11:00am. During each session, an international panel of professionals - including the founder of MAD Architects, Ma Yansong, and the director of AMO, Reinier de Graaf - will discuss a topic pertaining to Rem Koolhaas' chosen theme for the Biennale: Fundamentals. The first day of discourse will focus on the future of the architectural profession, investigating the potential influence of the market crisis and the intersection of architecture with other disciplines. The second will reflect on the representation of architecture, considering the Western practice of exhibiting architecture projects in museums, institutes, and biennial events and what this practice's adoption might mean for the East. For the full list of panel members and event details, read on after the break.

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The honor of designing Thailand’s pavilion for the 2015 Milan Exposition has officially been awarded to The Office of Bangkok Architects (OBA). The firm’s winning design incorporates the Expo’s theme of “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life” with the agrarian and religious qualities that define the Kingdom of Thailand. Located centrally on the Expo’s main avenue, the pavilion will be adjacent to a canal that will be used as a part of the exhibition, relating back to Bangkok’s informal title as the “Venice of Asia.”

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Paris-based X-TU has envisioned a more cohesive, sustainable market where food is not only grown and harvested, but sold and consumed on the spot. Serving as the French pavilion for the 2015 Milan Expo, X-TU’s competition-winning scheme will celebrate the country’s “rich genetic heritage” and future in innovative food production with a timber “fertile market” that supports the growth of the produce it sells.

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Placing sixth in the competition to design the Romanian Pavilion for the 2015 Milan Expo, Collective East Architects offered a “simple and powerful landmark” that focuses on the history of Romania’s agriculture. Serving as an “attractor and orientation mark,” the structure was conceived by repeating a traditional Romanian pattern that “transformed the pavilion into a sculptural object with a powerful national identify.” From a distance, the facade appears “introverted and impenetrable;” as viewers move closer, the building begins to expose its contents, revealing a level of detail one would expect in a “jewelry museum.”

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