“The Latvian Pavilion at Venice Biennale Explores Supermarkets as a Phenomenon of Contemporary Architecture and Consumer Culture”

On Monday, May 8, the Latvian pavilion of the 18th international architecture exhibition of the Venice Biennale “T/C Latvija” was presented. This year, it is created by the DEI ARH team, presenting the concept of the supermarket as a phenomenon of architecture and contemporary consumer culture.

“The Latvian pavilion will be a supermarket – a horizontal, diverse and democratic space, where products of different origins and ideas meet on the same shelves,” says project representative Kalvis Kidals.

Celebrating 20 years since its first participation in the international architecture exhibition, the new supermarket will be a place where visitors can find “everything and more”. In the Latvian pavilion, from the ideas of the national pavilions of the last 10 architecture exhibitions, the authors created 506 unique products with the help of artificial intelligence, which will be exhibited on sustainable modular design shelves. The supermarket with a special voting system will create an opportunity for visitors to get involved in The Laboratory of the Future.

“Architecture as a construction art is a kind of phenomenon. Similarly, a supermarket has become a kind of phenomenon. In terms of capacity, it has outcompeted concert halls, theaters and other cultural institutions, but that is today’s reality,” Culture Minister Nauris Puntulis (NA) said at the press conference, emphasizing that the concept proposed for the Venice Architecture Biennale, similar to previous years, asks the question of how to live the reality of this day.

“The exposition of the Venice Biennale gives Latvia an ideal opportunity to measure the temperature of world architecture and to see itself in the context of world architecture,” the minister wished success to this year’s Latvian pavilion team.

On the other hand, Latvian pavilion commissioner Jānis Dripe agrees that the supermarket chosen by our country is a social phenomenon: “The supermarket can probably and should be supplemented with some meaningful function – a spiritual or service function. It is not just shopping, because here we meet you today, here people come with children on holidays. Big shopping centers are such a meeting phenomenon – a social phenomenon. We can’t exclude it. I’m glad that the authors have responded to it. I think in an elegant way. I think they will attract attention in Venice.”

The exhibition will be carried out by the following team: the authors of the pavilion concept Ernests Cerbulis and Ints Menģelis, curator Uldis Jaunzems – Pētersons, project manager Austra Bērziņa, architect Toms Kampars and communication specialist Kalvis Kidals.

The commissioner of the Latvian pavilion chosen by the Ministry of Culture is Dr.arch. Jānis Dripe – adviser of the National Library of Latvia in matters of architecture and cultural policy, leading researcher of the RISEBA School of Business, Art and Technology.

The implementers of “T/C Latvija” want not only to show and talk about the store as a space or architecture, but to encourage thinking about its role and meaning, refusing to criticize, creating an interdisciplinary dialogue of the future. In the historical exhibition halls of the Arsenal of Venice, where goods were once stored, in the 70-square-meter space of the Latvian pavilion, it will be possible to find everything necessary for everyday life and “even more.” In addition, nowadays the supermarket is no longer limited to goods, it allows you to almost “travel” the world and be indirectly involved in everything that happens in the world, thus the exposition is intended to emphasize the global dialogue with the content of a local supermarket. The store is a story about the senses – sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. A story about a space and a man in it, and his place in the world.

The curator and artistic director of the 18th Venice Biennale is Lesly Lokko – doctor of architecture, teacher and author of several books. The theme of the next biennale is “The Laboratory of the Future”. The curator admits that the Venice Biennale itself is also a kind of laboratory of the future. walk around imagining the future.”

This year, the Venice Architecture Biennale exhibition will take place from May 20 to November 26.