Videos

This year's French Pavilion stood out as one of the best pavilions in the Giardini, communicating a clear, engaging thesis and receiving a Special Mention from the jury.

Curator Jean-Louis Cohen poses four questions throughout four galleries, demonstrating the contradictions that fill the story of modernity and architecture in France. The ambivalent responses of architecture to the original promise of modernity is shown through the juxtaposition of a continuous cinematographic montage (playing simultaneously throughout all four galleries) and large-scale objects.

Watch an excerpt from Teri Wehn Damisch's film and read the curator's statement after the break. For a virtual tour of the space designed by Paris-based firm Projectiles, follow this link. And make sure to keep an eye out for our video interview with curator Jean-Louis Cohen (coming soon).

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The Portuguese Pavilion at the 14th edition of the Venice Biennale has created a newspaper, “Homeland, News from Portugal,” which covers the last 100 years of architectural, social and economic news from Portugal.

By focusing on the architecture of interiors, Inaki Ábalos, the curator of this year's Spanish Pavilion, highlights the spaces within 12 Spanish buildings. These projects, mostly completed within the past three years, serve as specifically important instances of refurbishment and regeneration of Spain's built heritage. The exhibition is a study not only of the architecture itself, but of the cultural material that gave rise to the specific forms. Through large-scale photographs and sections of each of the presented spaces, Interior seeks "the place where life unfolds, the central theme of architecture." Read on to find the rest of the curator's statement.

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Israel is a country that was built with modernism as its guide. It flourished in a particular way and resulted in a unique architectural landscape, not only in terms of singular buildings, but also in the way in which the territory itself was planned. Anti-urban in essence, the Sharon Plan from 1951 gave birth to more than 400 new towns scattered across the territory.

This new landscape -a tabula rasa- evolved into a variety of patterns and forms, a landscape that is neither Urban nor Suburban.

“Urburb” is the title of the Israeli exhibit at the 2014 Venice Biennale. Within the pavilion, a constant robotic performance traces the patterns that resulted from the Sharon plan in the sand, only to erase them after a few minutes and then draw them again. It is a performance that makes one think about the future of new settlements and the possibilities of robotic construction.

The exhibition is curated by Ori Scialom, Dr. Roy Brand, Keren Yeala Golan and Edith Kofsky.

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Your virtual tour of the Venice Biennale has arrived! Check out each of the national pavilions currently on display for Rem Koolhaas' chosen theme - Absorbing Modernity, 1914-2014.

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To kick off our coverage of the Venice Biennale, we're bringing you photos of OfficeUS -- the United States' contribution to the national exhibitions organized under the theme of "Absorbing Modernity." The pavilion houses both a repository of information about the history of architectural firms in the US (with a focus on the US's role in exporting architecture) and serves as the base of operations for a new architectural firm that was created solely for this year's biennale. The research, collected into booklets, lines the walls of the space. While visitors mill around the pavilion, the members of OfficeUS work at specially designed tables. The output and deliverables of the office will be determined as the Biennale progresses. We also got the chance to speak to the organizers, so stayed tuned for video interviews with the curators and designers of the US Pavilion (coming soon!). For now, however, read on to the see the curator's statement on the exhibit.

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Videos

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Videos

Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of London’s Serpentine Gallery, has been chosen as curator for the Swiss pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. Inspired by director Rem Koolhaas’ theme, “Fundamentals,” Obrist recalled the first architects he ever met, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, and invited them to collaborate on the exhibition.

“When I was invited to do the pavilion, I thought working with [Herzog and de Meuron] fit in with the whole idea of the biennale this year – looking to the past, and using the past as a toolbox to create the future,” Obrist told ARTINFO UK.  

Curators FAT Architecture and Crimson Architectural Historians have released more details on this year’s British Pavilion for the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale. Responding to Rem Koolhaas’ theme, "Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014,” A Clockwork Jerusalem will “explore the diverse cultural influences that shaped and were shaped by British Modernism in the post war era and over the last 100 years.”

"A Clockwork Jerusalem will offer the opportunity to explore and rethink fundamental aspects of British modernity, beyond architecture,” described Vicky Richardson, Director of Architecture, Design and Fashion at the British Council. “As the Venice Biennale evolves into a global research project, we are keen to make a significant contribution to the cultural debate around the past, present and future of UK and global architecture.”

More from the curators, after the break...