How will we live together? Curator Hashim Sarkis has invited 112 participants from 64 countries to answer this question at the XVII Venice Architecture Biennale, which opens its doors tomorrow. The topic could not be more timely. In a world that is just glimpsing the end of the pandemic, marked by the climate crisis, massive migrations and racial, social and economic inequalities, traditional models of life are under review and lead to a brainstorming, such as this one from the Biennial , to respond to the housing challenges of a future that is already here. Sarkis has organized those responses into five chapters, in the Arsenal and Central Pavilion, entitled Among Diverse Beings, The New House, Emerging Communities, Across Borders and One Planet . The Biennial is completed by 63 national pavilions. And, outside, 17 collateral events.
“Micro-Urbanism” at the South Korean Pavilion
Among the contributions to the first chapter there are combative ones, such as Y our restroom is a battlefield , by Cassani, Galán, Munuera and Sanders, where it is demonstrated through theaters with an ancient aftertaste that an apparently neutral place like the public toilet can host very different episodes depending on whether it is in the US, Haiti or China. There are poetic ones, like Variations on a bird cage , by Studio Ossidiana, where the relationship between humans and birds is explored. And there are ironic ones, like the Catalog for the post human of Tim Parsons and Jessica Charlesworth, who ask: how will we live together if we are forced to increase our competitiveness? His answer is the creation and deployment of a product catalog, still fictional today, such as a wristwatch that marks the limit of manageable stress, or a vest with a nutrient dispenser to work without interruptions.
Hashim Sarkis: “This selection tells us that we must encourage dialogue to learn from each other”
Some of the most powerful proposals are in the chapter The new house O Emerging Communities , also in the Cordelería del Arsenal. In a rejuvenated Biennial, with a strong presence of professionals in their thirties and forties, the spectacular proposal of the veteran North American studio SOM impacts: Life beyond Earth . Its purpose is to explore the possibilities of living in uninhabited environments, with the splendid model of a settlement on a lunar plateau and, also, with that of a four-story housing capsule. It also imposes Material Culture , the proposal of Achim Menges and Jan Knippers, a pioneering structure made only with glass and carbon fibers –except for the staircase that goes to the first floor–, on the pretext that fiber composites are dominant in the constructions of nature and that could perhaps be an alternative to conventional construction, which pollutes so much.
La instalación ‘Life beyond Earth” by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
Along with these proposals are others of another scope. Like that of Fernanda Canales, who in After de house: Privacy in a shared world , explores the recovery of traditional Mexican “neighborhoods” with buildings that resonate with Rossi, Memphis, Escher or Terragni. Or as Ground , the 22×3 meter mosaic, in lead and gold, by the Portuguese Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus, a delicate and very beautiful reflection on space. Or as Hacking the resort by Cape Verdean Anahory and Schofield, who questions the opulence of tourist facilities in a poor environment.
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The four Spanish guests are present in this section: Lacol, with his La Borda cooperative housing block in Barcelona; Benedetta Tagliabue, with her projects for a metro station, urban plan and houses in Clichy-Montfermeil (Paris); Rojo / Fernández Shaw, with its sober installation of impenetrable rooms; o Practice, with its river regeneration project in Cluj-Napoca (Romania).
“Material Culture: Rethinking the physical substrate for living together”
The Central Pavilion houses the proposals of Across borders Y A planet , again diverse. Starting by Obsidiana rain , in which Karanja and Mutegi evoke a cave, with a roof made of obsidian stones, in which anti-colonial militants gathered in the middle of the last century. And continuing, later, with Recovering the sublime , a delightful installation by Agapakis, Ginsberg and Tolaas that recovers the fragrance of the Hibiscadelphus Wilderianus, which disappeared in 1912 in Hawaii and now recovered with DNA techniques from dried plants: an invitation to reflect on what human beings have lost, but also an emotional sensory reunion. There are also in the Central Pavilion, reflections on what will become of Venice when the temperature has risen by 5 degrees a year and also on how the poles or, without going so far, the Alps merge.
Spain with very young eyes
In the first room of the Spanish Pavilion, the visitor is greeted by a cloud made up of more than 400 pages: the requests for participation received at the time by the curators, the thirty-year-old from Tenerife Domingo González, Andrzej Gwizdala, Fernando Herrera and Sofía Piñero. “We are the first curators chosen by competition; in fact, this curatorship can be considered as our first professional project ”, they indicate. His selection –34 of the proposals received are exposed– is entitled “Uncertainty” and it is very heterogeneous, because there are also different ways of dealing with uncertainty in the architectural profession, and “because we prioritize works with a positive social impact over those where the iconic architectural component prevails ”. This selection includes everything from a new piece of urban furniture, a bench for emigrants signed by Baum Arquitectura, to a poetry by the recently deceased architect and poet Joan Margarit, through a renovating residence for the elderly by Óscar Miguel Ares in Aldeamayor de San Martín, or Kinesofos, an audiovisual mechanism by Sergi Hernández Carretero that synthesizes and visually captures movement. “Sarkis says that the plurality of voices enriches coexistence”, recall the commissioners. “Our proposal is entitled ‘Uncertainty’, which is something opposite to dogma,” they add.
Among the national pavilions, in the Giardini, the one in Denmark stands out for its simplicity and effectiveness. It is crossed by a watercourse of pluvial origin, which flows through a channel dug into the concrete ground. In one room it rains, in another there is a lake surrounded by a chill out which in summer will be one of the most cool of the Biennial. The enclosure lattice supports infusion plants, which are then served on site. Everything is connected in nature. Hence the title of this work by the architects Lundgaard and Trauberg, and the artist Reinbothe: Connectivity .
A girl plays in the Danish Pavilion
But if there is a dominant theme among the invited countries, it is that of wood, a building material on the rise. The USA exhibits its tradition of wooden structures, with models, photos and – convincing proof – a new façade and three levels, walkable, attached to the original one of the pavilion. Finland reviews its wooden architecture from WWII to today. And Japan abounds in this topic, but with an emphasis on sustainability, through the exhibition of the wooden components – some reused outside the pavilion – of a house built in 1954 in Tokyo, renovated, dismantled and now exhibited by pieces in Venice.
People visit “American Framing” at the United States Pavillon at the Biennale International Architecture exhibition, in Venice, Italy, during a preview for the press Wednesday, May 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Canada addresses in Impostor cities the issue of loss of identity (after becoming a set for many film productions that use their cities and landscapes and then attribute them to other countries); Switzerland deals with the issue of borders, presenting them not as a barrier but as an opportunity to meet. Ireland alert on Intertwining about the dangers of the cloud in which we hang our documents, in a noisy installation with echoes of Mad Max , to remind us that 30% of the electricity bill will soon go to cooling data centers full of computers. Which indicates that the cloud is not ethereal and immaterial, but that it punishes the Earth. Finally, in times of pandemic, Germany has left its pavilion empty, except for little mirrors on the ground to save the distance and QR codes on the walls that give information.
The Biennial includes many more ideas than can fit in this personal selection. Asked if, once he had gathered all these participations, he already had an answer to the initial question that summoned them, Sarkis declared the day before yesterday: “There is no single source, no single idea. What this selection tells us is that we must accept diversity and encourage dialogue to learn from each other ”.
Catalonia, the air you breathe
Olga Subirós, curator of the Catalunya Pavilion at the Biennial, goes further and wonders not only how we will live together, but how we will survive together. That is why it has been proposed that his work serves to make architects and urban planners aware of the problem posed by the low quality of the air we breathe; of an air stale by the emissions of polluting gases from vehicles, trapped between buildings by the so-called street canyon effect. He attributes seven million deaths a year to these emissions, 400,000 of them in Europe, more than 2,000 in Barcelona. Its installation is made up of two long walls. On its outer faces, audiovisuals are offered with data on pollution in Barcelona and the world, respectively. The work of compiling these data -of these tests- has been carried out by the 300,000 Kms team. Between both walls an immersive experience is proposed, with a sound installation by John Talabot and interpreted by Maria Arnal, while we are reminded of the dimension of the problem, our vulnerability and what we can do. “We have mapped this problem, providing evidence of the dangers it entails. It is essential that all architects know it, act accordingly and transform reality ”, concludes Subirós.
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