There’s a first time for everything. This week, that means there are 11 countries presenting inaugural exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, which opens to the public on June 7. Of the 66 national pavilions at this year’s event, the first-timers are Azerbaijan, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, New Zealand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Together, they offer a variety of responses to Biennale curator Rem Koolhaas’s theme of “Fundamentals.” The Belgian architect and founder of Rotterdam-based firm OMA asked participating nations to reflect on the development of modern architecture since 1914, and the resulting loss of distinctive and definitive national characteristics in architecture.
Koolhaas’s provocative mandate promises to produce thought-provoking results from both new and returning exhibitors. The British pavilion, curated by London-based architects FAT (who, sadly, are disbanding after the Biennale and 20 years of practice to pursue solo projects) with Crimson Architectural Historians, is dubbed “A Clockwork Jerusalem” and focuses on 19th-century influences and ideas, such as Romanticism and the sublime, on the creation of a specifically British post-war modernism. Meanwhile, the French pavilion, curated by architectural historian Jean-Louis Cohen, is presenting “Modernity, Promise or Menace?” — which operates under the idea that French designers did not absorb the characteristics of modern architecture, but rather invented modernist architecture altogether. Although the national pavilion projects will cover extensive thematic ground, there will be more unity between exhibitions than in previous years: 2014 also marks the first year that participating countries were required, not merely asked, to address the Biennale’s official theme.
Several more firsts are in store this year: operating as collateral pavilions (that is, unofficial participants), Antarctica will become the first continent to have its own pavilion and Moscow the first such city. Seeing as rookies rarely get the same treatment as MVPs, we’ve rounded up some of the most promising inaugural pavilions at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Costa Rica
“Ticollage City: The Vicious Circle of Social Segregation and Spatial Fragmentation in Costa Rica’s Greater Metropolitan Area 1914-2014”
Where: Arsenale
What: The Costa Rican pavilion curators focused on the country’s urban history over the past century. “Many historic buildings have been erased to make space for parking lots that serve the fleet of vehicles required by the ‘rurban’ commuters, which has sparked a heated debate about preservation versus development,” writes Oliver Schutte in his curatorial statement. Highlighting the uneven, unplanned growth of conurbations as the country’s hallmark of architectural modernity, the exhibition will look at the influence on preservation of movement between the capital, San Jose, and its more rural suburbs.
Cote d’Ivoire
Where: Chiesa San Francesco della Vigna
What: After the country’s first year participating at Venice in 2013, Cote d’Ivoire returns for its inaugural pavilion at the Architecture Biennale with an exhibition devoted to materials. Specifically, Ivorian pavilion curators Mamadiou Zoumana Coulibaly-Diakite and Francis Sossah focus on the country’s “bois sacre” as a means of addressing the dilution of the country’s traditional culture. “The sacred Ivorian wood which is here presented as a spacial indicator that allows the audience to rediscover and reevaluate the sacrifice inflicted by the last years of modernization,” notes the curatorial statement. The pavilion will likewise consider the possibility of eco-friendly and sustainable architecture as a means for preserving traditional Ivorian building practices.
Dominican Republic
“Fair Concrete/La Feria Concreta”
Where: Arsenale
What: Curated by the Laboratrio de Arquitectura Dominicana, the Dominican pavilion takes the 1955 World Fair of Peace and Fraternity of the Free World, orchestrated by dictator Rafael Trujillo, as its inspiration. Erected in concrete, the fairgrounds represent the beginning of an overwhelming predilection for concrete throughout the history of post-war Dominican architecture. The complex now hosts government institutions by day, and what the curators describe as “illicit” activities at night. In an exhibition space demarcated by locally produced blocks of concrete, the curators employed juxtaposition to explore the dualities of official and unofficial uses of space.
Kenya
“Back to The(se) Stars”
Where: San Servolo Island
What: “In Kenya, national identity has never lost its way in spite of technological progress,” said Paola Poponi, curator of the Kenyan Pavilion, who also curated the country’s pavilion at last year’s Art Biennale. Devoted to the work of Italian-born, Kenya-based architect Armando Tanzini, “Back to The(se) Stars” examines the role of the individual designer in a colonial setting. Poponi is likewise an Italian ex-patriot based in Kenya, and one can only hope that the pavilion is not merely a personal project. However, Poponi’s curatorial statement suggests that the colonial relationship between Kenya and her European origins will make for a critical, if abstract, exhibition: “The presence of the human figure as a protagonist of a change seems to be the key for a trustworthier reading against architects’ egotism,” she writes.
Moscow
“MOSKVA: urban space”
Where: Santa Maria della Pieta
What: For Moscow’s first pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Russian capital’s chief architect, Sergey Kuznetsov, curated an exhibition that looks to the city’s urban development throughout the 20th century to contextualize the forthcoming Zaradye Park project near the Kremlin designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. He argues that Moscow’s urban fabric is no longer defined by its buildings but rather by the “connective tissue” between them. “Moscow has a very particular position within Russia, and internationally,” he told ARTINFO. “The pace of the city’s development is unique within Russia, but what’s happening in Moscow is highly important for the development of architectural trends globally. The history of Moscow’s urban development is also quite an interesting story, one that merits closer looking.” For those in Venice this week, Kuznetsov and Liz Diller will be telling that story at a conference at the pavilion on June 6.
New Zealand
“Last, Loneliest, Loveliest”
Where: Palazzo Pisani S. Marina
What: Like several fellow pavilion curators from post-colonial nations, David Mitchell of the New Zealand pavilion argues that national differentiation in architecture is indeed still possible: “In New Zealand, national architecture is more distinctive than it was a century ago.” To prove his point, Mitchell organized an exhibition about traditional Maori architecture, which he sees as a national building tradition that has only become more nationally prominent with time. “These are very fragile, lightweight wooden structures, the opposite of what we see in Venice,” Mitchell said of the indigenous architecture he plans to display in Venice. The New Zealand pavilion will include a tent made of fabric based on a Maori house, with photographs displayed inside. It will also feature a traditional Maori storehouse, newly carved for the Biennale, with a scale model of the Neoclassical 1919 Auckland War Memorial Museum inside. “According to Rem, 100 years ago we were building Greco-Roman architecture and putting traditional buildings inside of them as anthropological relics. All we’re doing now is the reverse,” he quipped.
United Arab Emirates
“Lest We Forget: Structures of Memory in the United Arab Emirates”
Where: Arsenale
What: Emirati pavilion curator Michelle Bamberg is quick to note the accelerated pace of architectural development in the United Arab Emirates, where many buildings were still constructed of palm fronds in 1914. In order to ensure that the history of gulf architecture is not forgotten in the midst of the region’s current building boom, which sees newer and bigger architecture constructed at lightning speed, she envisioned the pavilion as an archive of historic architectural projects in the UAE. Bamberg focused on the residential and public architecture of the 1970s and ’80s — an era when the Emirati federation, and its emblematic architectural agenda, first took shape. By examining the period between the pre-federation, pre-oil boom construction and the contemporary vogue for skyscrapers, Bamberg means to uncover the origins of the adaptation and appropriation that define Emirate architecture today.
