Thousands of buildings in the Netherlands lie vacant. Some of them for a week or a few months, many even for years. During the twelfth Venice Architecture Biennale, the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) and Rietveld Landscape will highlight the huge potential of all that temporarily unoccupied space in making the Netherlands one of the top-five knowledge economies in the world. The exhibition Vacant NL, where architecture meets ideas is a call for the intelligent reuse of temporarily vacant buildings around the world in promoting creative enterprise. The Venice Architecture Biennale takes place from 29 August 29 to 21 November 2010.

Built in 1954, the Dutch Pavilion on the biennale grounds in Venice has been empty for over 39 years. After all, it is in use for just three months each year. That makes it one of the thousands of unoccupied government buildings on Dutch soil.

Rietveld Landscape, the office appointed by the NAI to curate the Dutch presentation in Venice, decided to emphasize the vacancy of the pavilion during the architecture biennale. The experience of the empty space will sink into visitors, and only then will they discover the hidden installation.

Fore information go to: www.nai.nl, www.architectureofconsequence.nl, www.rietveldlandscape.com, www.labiennale.org.