Venice Architecture Biennale 201615th International Architecture Exhibition

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The Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, upon recommendation from Alejandro Aravena, have announced the Brazilian Pritzker Prize-winning architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha as the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, Reporting From the Front. Citing the "timelessness" of his work "both physically and stylistically" as "the most striking attribute of his architecture," the board have also stated that "this astonishing consistency may be the consequence of his ideological integrity and structural genius."

A practice of architects, an interior architecture firm, and an architectural photographer will together be presenting the Belgian contribution to the 2016 Venice Biennale. Architecten de vylder vinck taillieu, interdoorzon interieurarchitecten and Filip Dujardin—self-styled as the Bravoure (Bravura) team—will explore "what craftsmanship can mean during a period of economic scarcity" as, according to the curatorial team, "dealing with scarcity demands a high level of precision."

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The Global Art Affairs (GAA) Foundation in collaboration with PLANE-SITE, has produced a series of interviews with world renowned architects that will be available for public viewing at the TIME SPACE EXISTENCE exhibition at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. The prestigious list of architects includes Peter Eisenman, Denise Scott Brown, Curtis W. Fentress, Meinhard von Gerkan, Dirk Hebel, the late Frei Otto, and Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell of WOHA.

The Venice Biennale has released a list of 19 Collateral Events that will take place alongside the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, Reporting from the Front, curated by Alejandro Aravena and chaired by Paolo Baratta. Previews of the main event begin May 26th and 27th, and it is open to the public from May 28th to November 27th 2016.

The curators of the Spanish Pavilion have revealed the selected material which will be exhibited at the 2016 Venice Biennale. The content is a response to Alejandro Aravena's thematic directive for the Biennale, entitled "Reporting from the Front," in which he invites each country to share experiences and moments of crisis that architecture has experienced in recent years.

The Russian contribution to the 2016 Venice Biennale has been revealed to be "an account of how the V.D.N.H. (the 'Exhibition of Attainments of the National Economy’)—a unique complex in both scale and architecture—is being transformed into a multi-format cultural and educational space, accessible to all." Entitled V.D.N.H. Urban Phenomenon, the show will examine the park's global significance "given that the whole world is concerned by the question of how to develop society’s intellectual potential and how to create effective mechanisms for cultural assimilation." Following the Biennale, the exhibition will be permanently relocated to the V.D.N.H. in Moscow.

Italy has selected “Taking Care, Designing for the Common Good” as the theme of their pavilion for the 2016 Venice Biennale, examining architecture as a community service that takes care of individuals, spaces, places, principles and resources. The exhibit will present 20 projects by Italian architecture firms that address a range of problems from health to housing, education and culture. The exhibit will be curated by a team from TAMassociati comprised of Massimo Lepore, Raul Pantaleo and Simone Sfriso.

Responding to curator Alejandro Aravena's theme "Reporting from the front," the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo has selected Washington Fajardo to present an exhibition titled “JUNTOS.” The project for the Brazilian pavilion will highlight stories of people who have fought to achieve changes in institutional passivity in Brazil's big cities. They have created architecture within slow processes, bringing stable solutions in a politically tumultuous territory. According to the curator, “the exhibition is a composition of these pathways and partnerships, where activism meets architects and architecture, becoming a magnet in the preparation of a new space.”

Following the announcement that the swimming pool—"one of Australia’s greatest cultural symbols—will form the foundation of the Australian Exhibition at the 2016 Venice Biennale, more information has been revealed about what will be presented.

Scotland, a country within the United Kingdom, will be showcasing a projected entitled Prospect North at the forthcoming Venice Biennale. Curated collaboratively between the Scottish Government, Architecture and Design Scotland, Creative Scotland,and the British Council Scotland, the installation will be designed by Lateral North, Dualchas Architects, and Soluis. As reported by the Architects' Journal, the show is set to examine "Scotland’s relationship with its northern neighbours" by focusing "on people and place, [and] looking at how communities from the Northern Isles of Orkney to the central belt of Scotland are using grassroot action."

The third Kuwaiti Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale, entitled ‘Between East and West: A Gulf’, will "look past Kuwait’s borders to the contested hydrography of the Persian/Arabian Gulf" in order to propose a new masterplan for the region. Curated by Hamed Bukhamseen from Kuwait and Ali Karimi from Bahrain the pavilion will, in an area of physical, religious, and political division, "tell the story of the Gulf’s islands and the possibilities they hold for a joint territorial project."

Twenty postcards depicting Detroit have been selected for “My Detroit,” part of The Architectural Imagination,” the exhibition for the US Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Selected from among 463 entries by curator Cynthia Davidson and sociologist Camilo José Vergara, the 20 winning postcards --- taken by 18 different individuals -- were selected as a group, for helping to tell the story of Detroit today. Ten of the 18 winners are Detroit-area residents.

Videos

Today at 10am EST, the press conference for the 2016 Venice Biennale will take place at Chile’s Presidential Palace La Moneda. During the conference Alejandro Aravena will present “Reporting from the Front,” his central exhibition for the Biennale.