Architectural Renaissance: Embracing Collaboration, Sustainability, and Transdisciplinarity at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition
On 18 May 2023, the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, titled The Laboratory of the Future, opened at the Giardini, the Arsenale, and Forte Marghera. Curated by Lesley Lokko and organised by La Biennale di Venezia, The Laboratory of the Future is an agent of change.
Pavillon of Japan. Photo by Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia.
Set amidst the picturesque backdrop of the beautiful city of Venice, known for its intricate canals and timeless charm, the Architecture Biennale has always been a celebration of architectural innovation and creative expression. However, this year’s edition takes it a step further by embracing the boundless possibilities of “decarbonisation” and “decolonisation”, where design seamlessly integrates with nature, inviting visitors to explore the symbiotic relationship between built and natural environments.
With its story-like narrative quality, the exhibition has been divided into six parts to create and transmit both a moment and a process to the viewer. With 89 participants, even if the structure borrows its format from art exhibitions, it differs from them in critical ways, which often go unnoticed. Aside from the desire to tell a story, questions of production, resources and representation are central to how an architecture exhibition comes into the world, yet are rarely acknowledged or discussed. From the outset, it was clear that the essential gesture of The Laboratory of the Future would be “change.” However, what does it mean to be “an agent of change”? Aside from the desire to tell a story, questions of production, resources and representation are central to the way an architecture exhibition comes into the world, yet are rarely acknowledged or discussed. In architecture, particularly, the dominant voice has historically been a singular, exclusive voice, as though we have been listening and speaking in one tongue only. Therefore, the “story” that this year’s architecture exhibition tells completes the incomplete that used to be told. Characterised by positive ambitions, this narrative aims towards a future in which the innate way of thinking that distinguishes people will change.
The moment visitors step foot into the Biennale’s expansive exhibition area, an air of excitement and anticipation fills the atmosphere. The exhibition spaces are thoughtfully designed, merging seamlessly with the surrounding lush greenery and shimmering waters. The boundaries between the indoors and outdoors blur, creating a uniquely immersive experience that transcends traditional architectural exhibitions.
Strolling through the Biennale’s various pavilions, visitors will encounter an array of remarkable open-air architectural marvels, allowing visitors to see breathtaking installations that explore the interplay between light, shadow, and natural elements. Illuminated structures, installations, and projections create a surreal ambience, bringing the spirit of open-air architecture to life after dark. Thus, the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 is truly a feast for the senses. This immersive journey embraces the harmony between human ingenuity and the natural world, reminding us of our responsibility to design spaces that coexist harmoniously with nature.
Israel Pavilion. Photo by Beatrice Gallello.
Designed with an ascendant path, The Laboratory of the Future begins in the Central Pavilion in the Giardini, where sixteen practices representing a distilled force majeure of African and Diasporic architectural production have been gathered. Then, it moves to the Arsenale complex, where participants in the Dangerous Liaisons section – represented in Forte Marghera in Mestre - rub shoulders with the Curator’s Special Projects. Threaded through and amongst the works in both venues are young African and Diasporan practitioners, defined as Guests from the Future, whose work engages directly with the twin themes of the exhibition. Decolonisation and decarbonisation provide a glimpse of future practices and ways of seeing and being in the world.
Pavillon of Korea (Republic of). Photo by Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia.
One notable aspect of this year’s edition is the intentional decision to frame participants as “practitioners” rather than designers or architecture specialists. The curator stated the reasoning behind this was that the complex conditions of both Africa and a rapidly hybridising world call for a different and broader understanding of the term “architect.”
In this regard, Roberto Cicutto, President of La Biennale di Venezia, stated that the approval of Lesley Lokko as the curator of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition was because she would give the floor to voices from outside the North-Western world. Above all, she was chosen because of her approach to architecture, which was contemporary, innovative and more aligned with present times. It can then be seen and believed that these statements aim to show that what has come to be the strong point of this Biennale is the possibility of listening from the inside to the many voices that come from Africa and their dialogue with the rest of the world, forcing us to abandon the image of that continent and its inhabitants that we have perpetuated for centuries.
Corderie. Photo by Giulio Squillacciotti. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia.
Whilst the main exhibition focuses on Africa and its Diaspora, it does not mean Western voices were entirely forgotten. Particular attention should be given to the Italian Pavilion, Spaziale. Everyone belongs to everyone else.
Promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture and curated by Fosbury Architecture, it showcases the demands of a new generation of designers under the age of forty. United in their shared childhood experiences growing up and trained against a backdrop of permanent crisis, these practitioners have collaborated, shared ideas and created a dialogue on the basis of all their activities for the first time in Venice.
On the one hand, they are representative of a generation that is aware of the impact and responsibility of the construction sector in the face of the environmental crisis. On the other, they recognise the problems of the significance of architecture and design in transforming cities and territories. More importantly, as a generation of designers who, compared to their predecessors, grew up in a regime scarce of resources and opportunities, they sense the cruciality of sustainability and know that this is the only context in which they will be able to operate now and in the future.
Fosbury Architecture is a voice for those Italian designers who are “sustainable natives” and have already accepted all these challenges, for whom transdisciplinarity is a tool for expanding the boundaries of architecture and for whom the built artefact is a means and not an end. The group identified and invited nine spatial practices, which have been selected based on the approach with which they operate, the territories in which they intervene, the means they use, the questions they raise, and the answers they suggest, and representing a roster, albeit an incomplete one, of Italian professionals working along the perimeter of what is considered architecture today.
Spaziale. Everyone belongs to everyone else, originated from these assumptions and is based on the vision that architecture is a research practice beyond the construction of buildings. Moreover, it emphasises how design is always the result of collective and collaborative work that goes beyond the idea of the architect-author. According to this vision, space is a physical and symbolic place, a geographical area and abstract dimension, a system of known references and a territory of possibilities. Spaziale thus refers to an expanded notion of the field of architecture: to intervene in space is to operate on the fabric of relationships between people and places that forms the basis of every project.
To make the nine projects genuinely transdisciplinary, the curators paired each designer with an advisor drawn from other fields of creativity: visual artists and performers, food systems and artificial intelligence experts, writers and filmmakers. Nine stations were then pinpointed, sites representative of situations of fragility or transformation in the country, where each transdisciplinary group was called upon to intervene. Lastly, each design group collaborated and will collaborate with a series of incubators - local actors such as museums, associations, and cultural festivals - to root each project in its territory of reference. In this way, the nine projects linked to the Italian Pavilion will shape the stages of new geography, becoming symbolic destinations of a renewed Italian Journey.
Pavilion of Italy. Photo by Marco Zorzanello. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia.
Remaining on the Italian scene, VENETIE MML, la grande veduta, il lavoro raccontato is an opportunity to portray how the city of Venice has changed, continues to change, and how it will change shortly. The exhibition illustrates hundreds of public and private works, which commenced in 2015 to the present day. The projects are shown, both on an urban scale and on an architectural scale, as part of a single overall project, resulting from the continuous work required to build the current and future image of the city of Venice, understood as both the historic city and the islands of the lagoon and the mainland city.
The unicum resulting from the works completed or underway on display in the exhibition hints at the urban transformations, providing depth to the whole thanks to a comprehensive vision with a strong momentum towards the future. Within this, the relationship with the Ca' Foscari University of Venice will define new horizons and trajectories for urban transformation, a new working model to build the “Venice City Campus.”
The exhibition’s first part includes the contribution of H-FARM, with a mix of experiential and visual content designed by imagining a future that exploits technology and digital transformation at the service of human beings and their evolution. The central part and heart of the exhibition is a large frieze arranged along the entire inner wall of the Venice Pavilion, which will be a reinterpretation of Jacopo De Barbari's sixteenth-century bird’s eye view of Venice Venezia MD, with the unprecedented addition of the portion of the Metropolitan City. The final part of the exhibition showcases the works created by the first prize-winners of Artefici del Nostro Tempo in the seven competing fields, i.e. Painting, Photography, Street Art, New Media Art, Interior Design, Street Furniture Design and Real-Life Design.
This project offers a new image of the city of Venice, where the City is shown as it has been transformed in these more than five centuries into that place where the Stato da Mar (State of the Sea) has extended to the Stato da Tera (State of the Land) - a static and dynamic representation of the Venetian metropolitan area, from which the excellent work carried out over the last eight years emerges, resulting from the commitment of an Administration that has not limited itself to planning but has made that vision of the city come to life.
Past, present, but above all, future because, like the ancestors before them, they must always look to tomorrow with the awareness that only by continuing to invest in technology and development will we be able to leave to their children a city worthy of the name it bears. If we were to look at De Barbari’s map with the gaze of one afraid of change, we would be horrified at how the city has changed in these 500 years. Yet the essence of Venice has been precisely to know how to evolve and use its ingenuity to improve and resist the force of nature. Today, thinking of the Venice of 2050, there is a duty to combine preservation with innovation and tradition with development.
Pavilion of Venice. Photo by Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia.
Hence, as Venetie MML allows visitors to experience the beauty of changes, the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale calls upon us to look at the world surrounding us with the courageous and determined spirit that always has distinguished Venetian people. With the final aim of stimulating people to fight climate change, La Biennale di Venezia is working concretely towards it by promoting a more sustainable design, installation and operation model.
Beatrice Gallello
En Plein Air Editor, MADE IN BED