Russian Pavilion: The Latest Architecture and News

To answer the Biennale's question of "How Will We Live Together", curators of the national pavilions explored what the future would look like in an architectural, cultural, and environmental context. Many saw the future as an entirely virtual environment whereas other highlighted the cruciality of physical coexistence with neighbors. ArchDaily met with Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, curator of the Russian Pavilion, to discuss how the idea of the pavilion came together throughout the year as a virtual platform for interdisciplinary creative thinkers, the role of cultural institutions across physical and digital spaces, and how digitalization is always part of the conversation.

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The Russian Federation Pavilion for the 2021 Venice Biennale explores the role of cultural institutions across physical and digital spaces. Titled Open, the program investigates the subject on multiple fronts, from the renovation of its physical architecture to the research into the social role of virtual environments and a collection of perspectives on the new ways of thinking in the institutional realm. The contribution builds on the Open? project, which debuted in May 2020 and continued throughout the year as a virtual platform for creatives and thinkers.

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The Russian Federation Pavilion announced that its exhibition Open! will "move to an entirely online presence". Coping with the recent outbreak of COVID-19 that led to the postponement of the Venice Biennale 2020, the pavilion will transform into a digital platform, to ensure the continuation of the projects.

The Russian Pavilion has announced its first list of contributors for the 2020 Venice Biennale. Selected after an open call, a new generation of architects will set up a temporary office within the pavilion, from May to November, creating an open workspace to plan the on-going architectural transformation.

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OMA'S architect and urbanist Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli will serve as the curator of the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2020. Moreover, Teresa Iarocci Mavica, co-founder, and director of the V-A-C Foundation was appointed as commissioner of the Pavilion by the Russian Ministry of Culture. The exhibition entitled Open! will showcase young Russian architects and will focus on the renovation of the century-old building of the pavilion, built by renowned Russian architect Alexey Shchusev in 1914.

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage, we present the completed Russian Pavilion. To read the inital proposal, refer to our previously published post, "Russian Pavilion at 2018 Venice Biennale to Explore Rich Railway History."

The Russian Pavilion highlights the past, present, and future of Russian railways. The exhibition shows railways as a response to a landscape which is in many places uninhabitable, allowing the people who use them to explore Russia's expansive territories.

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In his latest video, Jesús Granada visits the Russian Pavilion, “VDNh”, at the 2016 Venice Biennale. In the clip, viewers are introduced to the pavilion’s curator, Sergey Kuznetsov, who explains that “VDNh” is an acronym for a large area of Moscow known as Vystavka Dostizheniy Narodnogo Khozyaystva or Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy. Kuznetsov describes the territory as “[an] advertisement for the Soviet Union lifestyle…[meant] to meld lots of people and one nation."