Tallinn Architecture Biennale: The Latest Architecture and News

Opened in the middle of September, Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2019 (TAB 2019) explores its theme "Beauty Matters" through all possible architectural means. Wood and textiles, 3D-printed structures and VR are only a few components of the main exhibition of the biennial, curated by Tel Aviv-born, London-based architect Yael Reisner.

Tallinn Architecture Biennale (TAB) is the regions biggest architecture and urban planning festival engaging the public and the profession in the conversation around architecture and our city. The 5th installment of TAB is titled “Beauty Matters: The Resurgence of Beauty” and is curated by Dr. Yael Reisner. TAB 2019 Opening Week takes place in 11.–15.09.2019.

The 5^thTallinn Architecture Biennale (TAB 2019), will open its doors on September 11^th, 2019 in multiple venues in the heart of Tallinn, with a vast program conceived to foster dialogue, multidisciplinarity, and experimentation. Dedicated to the theme “Beauty Matters”, the international architecture festival organized by the Estonian Centre for Architecture is curated by Dr. Yael Reisner. The event, supported by the Headline Partner ABB, celebrates the aesthetic experience in architecture, following almost 80 years of cultural bias.

The curatorial team of the fifth edition of the Tallinn Architecture Biennial (TAB), for which ArchDaily is a proud partner, has announced the winner of their installation program “Huts and Habitats”. The winning proposal, Steampunk, designed by SoomeenHahm Design, Igor Pantic and Fologram (UK), was chosen from a shortlist of more than 137 international submissions.

Venice captured all architects' hearts and minds last year, but 2019 —a Venice-less year— will be still a year full of biennials and festivals around the world (many of which we're proud to be official partners of). The excitement is already building. 

From Chicago's new approaches to the traditional practices to Shenzhen's future technology prospect; from Oslo's degrowth agenda to Brazil's focus on everyday architecture, it's time to start saving dates for the following biennials around the world!

The Tallinn Architecture Biennale has announced the shortlisted schemes for their 2019 Installation Programme Competition “Huts and Habitats.” 137 worldwide submissions were received for the two-stage competition, aimed at “offering emerging architectural talents the opportunity to design and built an experimental wooden structure in the heart of Tallinn.”

Dr. Yael Reisner of Yael Reisner Studio, London, was selected as head curator for the 2019 Tallinn Architecture Biennale titled: “Beauty Matter: The Resurgence of Beauty." The architect’s winning proposal rejuvenates the importance of beauty, reflecting on how after almost 8 years of beauty being a tabooed subject, a cultural shift has changed its perception. The selected assistant curator will be Johanna Jõekalda, who has previously advised on the Estonian architectural scene and its socio-political-cultural features.

The Tallinn Architecture Biennale have announced Claudia Pasquero, Director of ecoLogicStudio, as the Head Curator of the 2017 edition, "bioTallinn". According to the organizers, a programme of exhibitions and symposia will "engage various architectural offices, artists, and scientists on the topic of biotechnology in architecture," examining in particular "the relationship between nature and the city in the Anthropocene age."

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Modernism and socialism formed the powerful spacio-political tandem of the 20th century that shaped much of the urban and rural environments of Central and Eastern Europe, including Estonia and its capital Tallinn. Those environments are still there - like fossils of paradigms, one declared dead, the other exiled. Today we consider them as nothing more than a collection of somewhat interesting material substances or formal oddities - after all, we would rather like to believe this era is not relevant to us today. But is there more to those fossils that we’re not examining?

The architects and researchers that were brought together by the Tallinn Architecture Biennale raised interesting discussion and questions that showed how much intertwined history (in this case, the 1960s to the 1980s) and historical ideas are still with us today, especially in a world where freedom might be just as illusional as it was back then.