The Danishpavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale will demonstrate the power of collaborative innovation through large-scale installations. Architect and Head of Institute of Architecture & Technology at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Natalie Mossin was selected to be the Danish pavilion curator by several prestigious organizations including The Danish Architecture Centre, The Danish Ministry of Culture, Realdania and the Danish Arts Foundation.
Courtesy of School of the Art Institute of Chicago and The University of Chicago
The curators of the U.S. Pavilion exhibition at the 2018 Venice Biennale have revealed five film and video works that will be featured within their Dimensions of Citizenship exhibition at next year’s Venice Biennale.
Entitled “Transit Screening Lounge,” the collection of videos will explore narrative, speculative and impressionistic perspectives on the spatial conditions of citizenship.
In the second film from this year's series of PLANE—SITE's Time-Space-Existence videos, Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao shares her philosophy of how architecture should be designed with the user’s experience in mind, rather than for standalone aesthetic qualities. In the video she discusses how architects should to some extent let go of their artistic intentions for a more practical approach to serve the needs of people, discussing how architecture has become detached from its key purpose over the last fifty years due to the influence of capitalism.
The curatorial team for the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale have announced the seven designers who will create the pavilion’s main exhibitions. Consisting of architects, landscape architects, artists and designers, the group will produce responses to the theme of Dimensions of Citizenship, exploring “the meaning of citizenship as a cluster of rights and responsibilities at the intersection of legal, political, economic, and societal affiliations.”
Curators of the German Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. Image Courtesy of GRAFT
In 2018, Germany will be reunified for 28 years, the precise amount of time that the inner German border wall—which was active from between 1961 and 1989—stood between "East" and "West". With this in mind, the German State have announced "Unbuilding Walls" as the theme of the German Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. Curated by GRAFT with Marianne Birthler, the exhibition will be designed to "respond to current debates on nations, protectionism, and division."
The U.S. State Department has announced the individuals and institutions that will serve as curators and commissioners of the United States Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Selecting through an open competition and recommendations from the Federal Advisory Committee on International Exhibitions, the exhibition will be led by co-commissioners The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and the University of Chicago and curators Niall Atkinson, Associate Professor of Architectural History at the University of Chicago; Ann Lui, Assistant Professor at SAIC and co-founder of Chicago-based architecture practice Future Firm; and Mimi Zeiger, a critic, editor, curator, and educator based in Los Angeles.
Under the theme of Dimensions of Citizenship, the exhibition will explore “the meaning of citizenship as a cluster of rights and responsibilities at the intersection of legal, political, economic, and societal affiliations.”
At a meeting convened today at the Biennale's headquarters at Ca’ Giustinian in Venice, Italy, Grafton Architects—Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara—revealed the theme and outline for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, which they have titled Freespace. According to the Directors, the forthcoming Biennale will celebrate "generosity and thoughtfulness," and "a desire to engage."
We believe that everyone has the right to benefit from architecture. The role of architecture is to give shelter to our bodies, but also to lift our spirits. A beautiful wall forming a street edge gives pleasure to the passer-by, even if they never go inside.
Freespace will "reveal diversity, specificity, and continuity in architecture. Together," they proposed, "we can reveal the capacity of architecture to connect with history, time, place, and people. These qualities sustain the fundamental capacity of architecture to nurture and support a meaningful impact between people and place." In their closing statement, Farrell and McNamara chose to quote an Ancient Greek proverb: a society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.
In a meeting yesterday, The Board of La Biennale di Venezia appointed Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects as curators of the 16th International Architecture Exhibition in 2018. This marks the second time that the Venice Architecture Biennale will be directed by women, after Kazuyo Sejima's role as director for the 2010 Biennale.