Icon selects San Rocco as Emerging Architect of the Year
San Rocco have been announced as the recipients of the inaugural Icon Award for Emerging Architectural Practice of the Year.
However, San Rocco is not your typical architectural practice. Departing from the traditional model, San Rocco is a collaboration of firms with different disciplines; Instead of buildings, they are known for their publishing projects.
AD Interviews: San Rocco at the 13th Venice Biennale
During the 13th Venice Biennale we had the chance to interview the team behind San Rocco: Matteo Ghidoni, Giovanni Piovene and Pier Paolo Tamburelli.
San Rocco is a very particular architecture magazine, described by its creators as something that “does not solve problems. It is not a useful magazine […] is neither serious nor friendly”, a curated selection of writings around particular topics related to the current state of architectural thinking and criticism. San Rocco has a five year plan, a limited time frame where 20 editions will be published with topics that range from “Scary Architects” and “Collaborations”, to “What’s wrong with the primitive hut” or “Houses for billionaires”.
During the 13th Venice Biennale, San Rocco was present in two exhibits at the Arsenale, including the launch of their project “Book of Copies” at the “Museum of Copying” exhibit curated by FAT. ”Books of Copies” is an online database comprised of images that can be copied in order to produce architecture. As such, “Books of Copies” are receptacles of a collective form of knowledge that we can provisionally call “architecture”. During the Biennale, visitors can photocopy and remix their own magazines.
San Rocco can be found online, or as part of the itinerant Archizines exhibit. You can connect with San Rocco on Facebook for more updates.
Venice Biennale 2012: Museum of Copying / FAT
The Museum of Copying, curated by British architect’s FAT, was one of my favorite exhibitions at the Venice Biennale. The subject of copy in architecture has always interested me, in relation to how the series of copies in the form of iterations are what make architecture evolve. The concept is explored in this exhibit with three installations, starting with Villa Rotunda Redux, the iconic Palladio building copied (or reinterpreted?) through history now digitally fabricated and casted.
During the Biennale we had the chance to talk with Sam Jacob (@anothersam) from FAT, who explains us more about the Museum of Copying on this video (full interview coming soon!).
More about the Museum of Copying from the architects after the break.
