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14TH ARCHITECTURE BIENNALETHEMED ITINERARIES THROUGH THE PAVILIONS

ART AND EXHIBITIONS IN THE CITYBOOKS NOT TO BE MISSED

JULY 2014

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Instant is partof the editorialsystem of

RCS MediaGroup SpAProprietario ed editoreSede sociale:via Angelo Rizzoli 820132 Milano

Editorial di Silvia Botti 5

Reportage In the Labyrinth of Modernity 6 text by Luca Molinari

photo by Filippo Romano

Map The Biennale and Venezia 32 curated by Roberto Ricci

Elements Primary characters 36 curated by Chiara Maranzana

Absorbing Modernity / 1 In Search of a Continuity 60 text by Alessandro Benetti / 2 Concentrated Modernity 70

text by Simona Galateo / 3 After Colonialism 78

text by Simona Galateo / 4 The Future Has Begun 86

text by Alessandro Benetti

Italian Pavilion Continual Metamorphoses 96 text by Luca Molinari

Monditalia / 1 Research on the Frontier 110 text by Rossella Ferorelli

/ 2 Photographic Investigations 116 text by Emilia Giorgi

/ 3 The Many Paths of the Sacred 122 text by Emilia Giorgi

/ 4 The Remains of the Boom 130 text by Rossella Ferorelli/ 5 The Tradition of the Avant-garde 138

text by Rossella Ferorelli

Press Review curated by Chiara Maranzana 148

Booklist text by Luca Galofaro 152

Awards The Lions of Architecture 158

Fuori Biennale Between Art and Architecture 162 text by Sara Banti

JULY 2014# 01

Editor in chiefSilvia BottiScientic EditorLuca MolinariArt directorEugenio Schinelli

Design Fabio Grazioli

Central ofceChiara MaranzanaManaging editorMonica GualaEditorial secretary

CorrespondentsSara BantiAlessandro BenettiRossella FerorelliSimona GalateoLuca GalofaroEmilia GiorgiRoberto RicciFilippo Romano

Translations Shanti EvansDavid Lowry

Advertising manager

Andrea SchiavonCover:Belgian Pavilion

photo Filippo Romano

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Abitare is back. And one step at a time it is revealing its multimedia system.After Abitare Instant , devoted to the Biennale, to download and keep,

more new features are on their wa y. Register at www.abitare.itto receive a preview of the new magazine, which has been completely

revamped and redesigned. The print edition will be on newsstandson 19 September . In the meantime follow us

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E D I TO R I A L

What you are browsing through is the first free digital editionof Abitare . It is not the digital version of the magazine.Rather it is a service that the technology allows us to offer you.We have called it Instant , as it lets us do what our natureas a monthly publication prevents us from doing: participatingin events while they are still underway. And in fact the first issueis devoted to the 14 th Venice Biennale of Architecture,that will remain open until 23 November.We reported to you on the Biennale live on the web and throughthe social networks in the days of its opening at the beginningof June. Now we are offering you some reflections and someitineraries that, we hope, will help you choose what to visit,enrich your understanding and deepen your judgement. Abitare Instant Biennale is supported by a microsite devotedentirely to the exhibition in Venic e (biennale.abitare.it ), whichwill give all the basic information. It is an account of what isgoing on at the Arsenale, in the Giardini and in the city.It is a concentration of the most interesting productions, linesof research and reactions to a complex event that places Italyat the heart of the international scene and continues to stir debate.

Silvia Botti

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ReportageIn the Labyrinthof ModernityThe 14th Venice Biennale of Architectureis an account of a world undergoing profoundmetamorphosis, a workshop to be exploredwithout necessarily finding answers

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Every two years the Venice Biennaleof Architecture issues a challenge to thecritics, the culture of the discipline anda public arriving from all over the worldby bringing architecture to the centreof attention for a few months andproposing a possible key to understandingit and looking to its future.This year the gauntlet thrown downby the custodians of the Golden Lionhas been an ambitious and risky one:entrusting the direction of the exhibitionto Rem Koolhaas, the man who manyconsider the most influential architectand intellectual of the last part of the20 th century, and betting on a differentformula from that of previous years.The choice made by the Dutch architecthas been radical: not to focus onarchitects but on architecture and its

meaning, imposing three very bindingthematic and conceptual frameworkson the two large central pavilions, usuallycurated by the director, and on the manynational pavilions that have alwaysconstituted the other fundamental partof the exhibition.After many years of exhibitions in whicharchitecture appeared to be an emanationof the person who had conceived it,affirming the centrality of a star system in

interweaves stories of windows andbalconies, walls, faades, floors, ceilings,sanitary fixtures, doors, stairs, rampsand escalators, corridors, lifts and roofsspeaks to us of the complexity of everyelement, of the obsessions that haveoften left their mark on the works ofmany great architects and of the endlessartisan and industrial experimentsthat have driven the evolution of eachof these materials in human history.Monditalia is instead a highlyexperimental attempt to bring togetherall the arts with which the Biennaleis concerned (except art itself).This is the first time that the artisticdirector of the Architecture Biennale hasdedicated the whole of one of the mostrepresentative places in the exhibitionto the host country, regarded as

a unique and paradoxical laboratoryof the contemporary condition.At the entrance visitors are greetedsimultaneously by the illuminationsof Santa Rosalia and some detailsof Lorenzettis frescoes of GoodGovernment . Then a strictly cadencedsequence of 41 micro-installationsentrusted to young researchers alternateswith the images of 82 films devotedto Italy, dance sessions and, above all,

which Koolhaas himself played a leadingrole, an attempt has been made to changetack, focusing attention on the primarycharacteristics of a world undergoingprofound metamorphosis and shifting theemphasis from the exhibition as a pictureof the state of the art to the event asan unsettled workshop in which to wanderwithout necessarily finding responses.Fundamentals is the central theme, andsprings from the need to go back to thebasics of architecture, to its primaryand symbolic elements in order to lookat what this universal discipline, sappedby years of crisis in its structure and itsmeaning, actually is and what it couldbecome. And starting from this centralhub, Koolhaas has structured three, largethematic containers: Elementsof Architecture at the Central Pavilion

in the Giardini,Monditalia in the Corderieof the Arsenale and Absorbing Modernity:1914-2014 as a guideline for the nationalpavilions.Elements of Architecture is an exhibitioncrammed with often absorbing ideascapable of stimulating visitors curiosityand prompting the questions neededto look at the 14 primary elementsof architecture identified by Koolhaas.The exhibition that, room after room,

schizophrenic slivers of a country unableto find an acceptable normality betweenancient and modern ruins, psychedelicfragments, memories of the Radicals,sighs of a faded economic boom,traditional and novel spaces of religiosity,Alpine sublime and contemporaryephemera.

Absorbing Modernity is undoubtedlythe most successful part of Fundamentalsbecause the decision to ask countriesto reflect on the difficult relationshipbetween modernity and contextthroughout the last century has resultedin the construction of a grand historyin fragments of our recent architecture,bringing to light stories never told beforeand interesting authors in stimulatingpresentations that allow us all to makea unique journey through the history

of the architecture of the long 20th

century.The last century is not brought toa definitive close with this importantsection of the exhibition, as its curatormay have hoped, but we are certainlyoffered an involuntary, extremelypowerful image of what we are and of themany contradictions in which we areimmersed, as we wait to find the invisiblethread that will at last lead us outof the labyrinth of modernity.

TEXT BYLUCA MOLINARIPHOTO BYFILIPPO ROMANO

R E P O RTA G E | IN T HE L ABYRINT H OF MODE RNIT Y

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PARTECIPATING COUNTRIES

Armenia ca Zenobio, CollegioArmeno Moorat RaphaelDorsoduro 2596 [4 ]Cipro palazzo MalipieroS. Marco 3198[6 ]Costa dAvorio chiesa S. Francesco della VignaCastello 2786 [3 ]

Kenya isola di S. Servolo [9 ]

Lussemburgo ca del Duca, S. Marco 3052[7 ]

Montenegro palazzo MalipieroS. Marco 3079 [6 ]

Nuova Zelanda palazzo Pisani, Cannaregio 6104(calle delle Erbe, S. Marina)[2 ]

Paraguay liceo artistico stataleM. GuggenheimDorsoduro 2613 [5 ]

Romania palazzo Correr, Cannaregio 2214(Campo S. Fosca) [1]

Ucraina riva dei Sette MartiriCastello [8 ]

EVENTS/EXHIBITIONS

Arsenale, Castello 2126/a (campodella Tana): Happiness forecourt= Largo da felicidade;Fundamentally Hong Kong?Delta Four 19842044 [18]

Arsenale Nord, spazio Thetis: Air fundamental: collisionbetween inflatable

and architecture [12] Arsenale Nord, Tesa 100: AcrossChinese Cities Beijing [11]

Caasi, palazzo S. Maria NovaCannaregio 6024 (campielloS. Maria Nova):Young Architectsin Africa [5 ]

Ca Foscari esposizioniDorsoduro 3246: MikhailRoginsky beyond the red door [7 ]

Cantieri navali, Castello 40(fondamenta Quintavalle):Grafting architecture.Catalonia at Venice [20 ]

Conservatorio B. MarcelloS. Marco 2810(Campo S. Stefano): Planta [15]

Ex chiesa di S. LorenzoCastello 5069(campo S. Lorenzo): Masegni [10]

Fondazione Cini, Isoladi San Giorgio Maggiore[26 ] :Glass Tea House Mondrian

Fondazione di Venezia,Dorsoduro 3488/u (Rio Novo):M9 / Transforming the city [6 ]

Fondazione GuggenheimDorsoduro, 701-704 [22 ]:Solo per i tuoi occhi (fino al 31 agosto); Azimut/h(dal 20 settembre)

Fondazione Prada, Calle Corner2215, 30135[3 ] : Art or Sound

Istituto S. Maria della PietCastello 3701:The space thatremains: Yao Jui-Chungs ruinsseries ; Moskva: urban space [17]

Piazzale Roma

Ca Giustinian

Ferrovia

Accademia

Zattere

Rialto

Isola della Giudecca

Isola di S. Giorgio

Arsenale

Giardini

Isola di S. Servolo

Officina delle Zattere, Dorsoduro919 (fondamenta delle Zattere):Lifting the curtain [21]

Palazzetto Tito, Dorsoduro 2826[23 ] : Modern Times

Palazzo Bembo, S. Marco 4793(riva del Carbon):Time Space Existence [9 ]

Palazzo delle Prigioni,Castello 4209 (S. Marco):Township of domestic parts:made in Taiwan [16]

Palazzo FortunySan Marco, 3780 [8 ]

Palazzo FranchettiS. Marco, 2847 [14]:Genius Loci Spirit of Place

Palazzo Grassi, CampoSan Samuele, 3231 [13]:Resonance; Lillusione della luce

Palazzo Michiel dal BrusCannaregio 4391/a (StradaNova):Made in Europe [4 ]

Palazzo Mora, Cannaregio 3659(Strada Nova): Time SpaceExistence [1]

Palazzo Trevisan degli UliviDorsoduro 810 (campoS. Agnese ): Gotthardlandscape the unexpected view;Once upon a time in

Liechtenstein; Salon Suisse:the next 100 years scenariosfor an alpine city state; Z club. onmoney, space,

postindustrialization, and [25 ] Palazzo Zen, Cannaregio 4924

(Gesuiti): Adaptation [2 ] Punta della Dogana,

Dorsoduro [24 ] : Prima Materia Zuecca project space

complesso delle ZitelleGiudecca 32(fondamenta delle Zitelle):The Yenikapi project [27 ]

The Biennale and Venice

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CURATED BYROBERTO RICCI

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FUNDAMENTALS

Elements of ArchitectureCentral Pavilion [16]

Monditalia

Corderie [15]

Absorbing Modernity1914-2014

Arsenale

Albania [10] Argentina [11]Bahrain [12]Cile[12]Cina [14]Costa Rica [10]Croazia [12]Emirati Arabi Uniti[11]Estonia [12]Indonesia [12]Iran [10]Irlanda [12]Italia [13]

I l i l

Kosovo [12]

Kuwait [12]Lettonia [12]Macedonia [10]Malesia [12]Marocco [12]Messico [11]Mozambico [12]Per [10]Portogallo [12]Repubblica Dominicana [12]Slovenia [12]Sudafrica [10]Thailandia [12]Turchia [10]

Giardini

Australia [22 ]Austria [17]Belgio[30 ]Brasile [20 ]Canada [44 ]Corea [42 ]Danimarca [34 ]Egitto [19]Finlandia [27 ]Francia [37 ]Germania [43 ]Giappone [40 ]Gran Bretagna [41]

T H E B I E N N A L E A N D V E N I C E

GIARDINIARSE NAL E

Grecia [25 ]

Israele [29 ]Olanda [26 ]Padiglione Venezia [21]Paesi Nordici [35 ]Polonia [23 ]Rep. Ceca e Slovacchia [36 ]Romania [24 ]Russia [39 ]Serbia [18]Spagna [33 ]Stati Uniti dAmerica[31]Svizzera [38 ]Ungheria [28 ]Uruguay [32 ]

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Elements of architecturePrimary characters

The exhibition curated by Rem Koolhaas is a sinuous routethrough the most basic entities of architecture,

the fundamentals of construction. It tells stories of windows,balconies, walls, floors, doors, stairs and corridors. It reveals

their complexity, the experiments to which they have beensubjected over the course of human history and even

the obsessions they have generated in many architectsCURATED BYCHIARA MARANZANA

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[16]

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E L E M E N T S O F A R C H I T E C T U R E | PRIMARY CHARACT E RS

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Bahrain [12]

AbsorbingModernity/1In Searchof a ContinuityA look at the last 100 years of history goingbeyond differences of time and politics:an approach that characterizes the researchof countries which differ greatly from oneanother, from Croatia to Paraguay, from Bahrainto Brazil, from Austria to the United States

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The arbitrary limits of Koolhaass centuryframe a hundred years of turbulenthistory, marked by upheavals so frequentand contradictory as to bring intoquestion the existence of any formof continuity within the period. And yet itis precisely the aspiration to tracecontinuous dynamics in the processof reconciliation between modernityand the local identity that the reflectionsof many of the participants in AbsorbingModernity: 1914-2014 have in common.Infra- ireann, for example, focuses onthe construction of infrastructure on Irishterritory as the vehicle of a modernused to construct a sense of nationalidentity after independence from Britain.It is amazing, from this viewpoint, thatthe recent invasion of the country by the

multinationals of digital communicationshould be seen as the outcome of a linearprocess, and not as an alarming signalof a new form of colonization.In the dialectic between importers andexporters of modernity, it goes withoutsaying that the United States belongsto the second category. OfficeUS putson display the daily life of a big Americanarchitectural firm, location of a productionthat has no fear of quantity leading to

a renunciation of quality and that findsin the design of offices its preferred fieldof action on the global scale.The Brazilian pavilion responds tothe hegemonic convictions of the USAby laying claim to the absolute centralityof the motherland in the worldwidearchitectural debate, now as in the past.Modernity as Tradition cancels outthe dichotomy (temporal and cultural)between the two spheres and proposes,not without a touch of boasting, theimage of an always modern nationthat would certainly have deserved morecourageous choices of presentation.Staying on the South American continent,Peru emphasizes the importance of Limaas a proving ground for the highly topicaltheme of the reconciliation between

formal (modern) and informal (local)residential architecture, while Paraguayoffers with humility its own originalcontribution to world modernity: theaptitude for the optimization of humanand material resources proper toa peripheral and far from affluent nation.Denmark and Thailand propose morecontradictory visions and look to traditionas a source of inspiration for thereactivation of virtuous processes

Ireland [12]

USA [31]

TEXT BYALESSANDRO BENETTI

A B S O R B I N G M O D E R N I T Y | 1 . IN SE ARCH OF A CONT INUIT Y

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is a feeling that this might have beenan alibi for research that has not attaineda sufficient level of synthesis; Bahrainand the United Arab Emirates have unitedtheir forces in a commendable attemptto track down and preserve the mostsignificant episodes of ill-treated Arabmodernism, as a cultural climate that heldsway in the countries of the Near East

throughout the century. Austria, finally,has had the merit of choosing a clearand well-defined theme (the space of thepolitical debate, in its permanent as wellas evolutionary dimension), of p roducinga rich taxonomy of it and of translating itinto a presentation of great scenic effect with three-dimensional reproductionsof government buildings that definea surprising rustication on the insidewalls of Hoffmanns pavilion.

of modernisation, running out of steamtoday: the natural element and thespiritual sphere are the key elementsof the two approaches.Still greater anxieties emerge from twocountries that were once partof Yugoslavia: while Serbia turns its backon history and takes architecture intothe autonomous and abstract realm

of drawing, Kosovo, which has neverabsorbed modernity, represents itselfthrough a kaleidoscope of images withouthierarchy, remains of a national identitythat the 20 th century has literally blown tosmithereens.Frequent, finally, is the recourse to theexpedient of the archive of designs, asguarantee of a thematic coherence thatdoes not always reach satisfactory levels:in the case of Croatia and Uruguay there

Paraguay [5]Brazil [20 ]

Peru [10]


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Croatia [12] United Arab Emirates [11]

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AbsorbingModernity/2

ConcentratedModernityGreat Britain, Japan, Chile, the Netherlands,France and the other countries that have chosento look back at the events of the period betweenthe 1950s and the 1970s in order to make theirown contribution to contemporary architectureChile [12]

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The individual countries taking partin the Biennale reacted in differentand sometimes even contrasting waysto Rem Koolhaass invitation: for all it wasan opportunity to examine their particularcontribution to contemporaryarchitecture over a period of history.A sort of fil rouge , a unifying strandrunning through the exhibition, is the wayboth Old World countries and someoverseas nations have focusedin particular on the period betweenthe 1950s and the 1970s for their criticalanalysis, and have traced the problems,the features, the strengths andweaknesses of the Modern Movementback to the happenings of those decades.It is no coincidence that this is the criticalapproach adopted by Great Britain,France, Germany and the Netherlands:

the profound changes of those yearsmarked a turning point in the historyof the architecture of those countries,leaving behind an indelible markand a lasting legacy still to be explainedand understood.Great Britain and France, for example,devote their investigations to theconsequences of the technological,industrial, scientific and socialdevelopment of the Modern Movement

on the society of the day and oncontemporary society. The British Pavilionwas curated by the London-basedFAT studio, together with CrimsonArchitectural Historians, which has puttogether a colourful, pop-inspiredexhibition entitled Clockwork Jerusalem .The contents prompt a reflection on how,starting from a combination of interestsand disciplinary crossovers, thedevelopment of British modernism forgeda new vision of society and on how all thisstill influences modern consciousnessand contemporary panoramas. The Frenchpavilion curated by Jean Louis-Cohen turns its attention to modernity and itscontradictions, in terms of innovationon the one hand and of side effects onthe other. Starting from sequences fromJacques Tatis film Mon Oncle , which is

a good example of the contradictoryelements which the exhibition sets out topresent, one wonders if the developmentof the modern, in all the various facetsof technological, social and economicinnovation, was a promise or a threat.A different approach was takenby Germany, the Netherlands and Chile,which each focused on a specific designproject as a manifesto and a startingpoint for a reflection on the contemporary

Great Britain [41]

France [37 ]

A B S O R B I N G M O D E R N I T Y | 2 . CONCE NT RAT E D MODE RNIT Y

TEXT BYSIMONA GALATEO

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individuals to lead a fulfilling life,with plenty of special websites to openthe debate. The Chile pavilion bringsto Venice the first concrete panel (whichonce bore Salvador Allendes signature)produced in the first prefabrication plantof 1972, and fills the space with originalitems from the living-room of a certain

Seora Gutierrez, a resident of oneof the first prefabricated concretehousing blocks, completing the exhibitionwith 28 models of building systems usedin the world between 1931 and 1981.The Belgium pavilion has gonein a different direction, as have theSwitzerland, Japan and Scandinavianpavilions. The Belgians offer a glimpseof domestic landscapes, taking the themeof interior design as a fundamental

world. Germany asks questions on thesubject of representation and the ideaof architecture as a political and socialmedium, by reconstructing partof the Kanzlerbungalow, the chancellorsreception space in Bonn beforethe German capital moved back to Berlin,searching for points of comparison,

dialogue, interaction and new, virtualmeeting places. The Netherlands goeseven further presenting Jaap BakemasOpen Society project a utopian visionof the generative power of architecturein giving form and content to an open,democratic, egalitarian and inclusivesociety as a possible model for thecontemporary world to accompanydevelopment and the emancipationof society and at the same time to allow

Germany [43 ]

The Netherlands [26 ]

Belgium [30 ]


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by young guides. The elaborateinstallation inside the Japan pavilionincludes a collection of materials,archives, drawings, work booksand videos, for visitors to consult, worksby those architects who in the 1970swere taking their first independentand innovative steps towards modernity,

giving substance and form to experimentalresearch that would have an influenceon later decades.The Scandinavian countries, meanwhile,have chosen to look at the legacyof their architecture in African countries,presenting an extensive panoramaof idioms, encounters, transformations,crossovers and the work of little-knownarchitects in the diverse landscapesof Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia.

component of architectural theory. It thusinvestigates the lived-in spaces withinthe constructed environment, and theway their occupants modified, adaptedand personalised them, in an almostethereal space immersed in white,and closely related to previous editions,with fragments of furnishings, panels

with plenty of printed images but littlein the way of text. Switzerland, underthe guidance of Hans Ulrich Obrist,chooses to develop the concept of its ownresearch for the whole durationof the exhibition, through meetings,conversations and lectures, with Italianand international guests, offering thepublic a vision of two important historicalarchives, those of Cedric Price andof Lucius Burckhardt, explained to visitors

Switzerland [38 ] Japan [40 ]

Nordic Pavilion [35 ]


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Cyprus [6 ]

AbsorbingModernity/3AfterColonialismThe complex reflections on the modernof countries that have experienced foreign rule

in the past or more recent separations behindthe Iron Curtain, from Czech Republic to Iran, fromRomania to Mozambique, from Cyprus to China

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A varied group of pavilions approachKoolhaass chosen theme of one hundredyears of architecture by regardingmodernity in relation to the politicand historical events that took placein that period. Some explorethe contrasting legacies of formsof colonialism, others look at civil warsand the succession of regimes that haveseized power over the decades.The Cyprus pavilion, for example, offersan elaborate and colourful testimony(through a series of collages createdusing images and other fragments)of the way it has been invaded, conqueredand colonised down the ages, highlightingnot always in a perfectly clear waythe legacy that each invading force leftbehind. Romania, on the other hand,commissioned Mihai Sima to curate

the Site under Construction exhibition,which retraces the way in which thecountry pursued an urban policy basedon intensive industrial development,presenting the construction of inner-cityindustrial plants as a symbol of acquiredmodernity that left a huge urban problemto resolve after their demise.Several different approaches were takenby Czech Republic and Slovakia (togetherat Giardini), Iran and Mozambique, all

of which carefully highlight alongsidethe architectural developments what has happened in their respectivecountries national histories.Czechoslovakia has lived through manyturbulent periods in the last hundredyears: Nazi occupation, socialism,Communist oppression, the VelvetRevolution and the breaking upof the country into two separate states.The exhibition 2x100 mil. m 2 offersan interesting interpretation and takessocial housing as the unifying themeunderlying historical events over the timeframe in question and takes the visitoron a journey that starts in the homeof a 20 th-century blue-collar worker,examines the collective homesof the Communist period, then progressesto the detached houses after the fall

of Soviet power, indicating residentialbuilding work on a huge black map.Similarly, the Iran pavilion looks backat events in its history by focusingon three key periods in the 20 th centuryon a long white wall, a narrative sequencethat illustrates the architectureof the revolution, presented alongsidethe buildings that went up under thevarious Shahs, in an attempt to see intheir differences the existence of a desire

Cyprus [6 ]

Romania [24 ]

TEXT BYSIMONA GALATEO

A B S O R B I N G M O D E R N I T Y | 3 . AFT E R COL ONIAL ISM

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the other events being held elsewherein Venice fits in logically with the nationalanalyses in the Giardini pavilions.

Across the Chinese Cities Beijing ,curated by Michele Brunelloand Beatrice Leanza, examines howthe Chinese capitals Dashilar district

has managed to survive the processof demolition and upward developmentthat has affected the rest of Beijing.The sober, fluid exhibition presentsin chronological sequence models of theroads that encloses the district, togetherwith a set of themed rooms that offer anaccount of local practices of conservationand productive development, concludingwith a vision of how urban developmentmight continue in the future.

for experimentation that never bore fruitin contemporary production.The Mozambique pavilion offers itsreflection on modernity in an exhibitionentitled Architecture Between Two Worlds ,with two extensive sections: the first givesan account of the country as it is today,

in terms of landscape, infrastructureand social, economic and urban aspects,in a geographical and cultural context;the second brings together and comparesexamples of significant worksof architecture from the hundred-yearperiod with works of architecture inMozambique, as the basis from whichother forms of local architecture havedeveloped throughout the country.Another interesting exhibition among

Czech Republic and Slovakia [36 ]

Iran [10]

Mozambique [12]


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Across the Chinese Cities Beijing [11] being held in the spaces

of Arsenale Nord, can be reachedwith a special vaporetto service.


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Russia [39 ]

AbsorbingModernity/4

The FutureHas BegunModernity is seen as a process that is by nowcomplete and leaves room for new visionsin the pavilions of Korea, winner of the GoldenLion at this Biennale, and countries like Morocco,Turkey, Canada, Spain or Kuwait

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The Koreans of Minsuk Cho, curatorof the pavilion that won the Golden Lion,look to the future above and beyondtheir ideological polarization. In the smallpavilion overflowing with pictures,drawings and data, the socialist Northand the capitalist South flaunt their ownspecific characteristics, convincedof the absolute extraneousness of theother half of the apple, but discoverthemselves, with surprise, to be far morealike than they expected.Perhaps this new awareness can inspirethe contemporary constructionof the Korean nation, which passesfirst of all through the reappropriationof the Demilitarized Zone that cutsthe peninsula in half.Like the Korean, many pavilions takeadvantage of the research themeproposed by Koolhaas to turn their backson the modernity of the last century,

considered a process now concluded. Itslogic, aesthetics and ambitions become aterm of comparison for the developmentof new visions and processes projectedtowards the next hundred years.The settling of accounts with the recentpast has not always been done peacefully.Fair Enough , at the Russian pavilion, sellsoff the symbols of the socialist utopiaat a very lively architecture fair, fullof stands with evocative names and

smiling hostesses. Through a schizophrenicmix of original materials and intentionallycheap reproductions, the curators shoutto the world their scathing criticismof the impoverishment of the culturaldebate in the country that was the cradleof the most visionary of the 20 th-centuryavant-gardes.More cryptic but equally effective are thechoices made in Potential Monuments ofUnrealised Futures , Albanias contributionto the 2014 Biennale. The paintingsof Edi Hila refined and aestheticizingreinterpretations of banal examplesof architectural superfetations andAdrian Pacis video which documentsthe transformation of a block of stoneinto a column on a voyage across theoceans speak of a modernity that hasinvaded the country only to turn its backon it. On the other hand, it is preciselythe omnipresent incomplete modern

that carries the future potentials of anation happy to be faced with a possiblenew beginning.Synthesis of the contents and elegancein the mise-en-scne are the bestqualities of the Israeli pavilion too:the reflection on a century of settlementof the territory, which has determinedthe current urburban (a neologismrich in spatial and cultural meanings)condition, is rendered sublime in the

Korea [42 ]

Albania [10]

TEXT BYALESSANDRO BENETTI

A B S O R B I N G M O D E R N I T Y | 4 . T HE FUT URE HAS BE GUN

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Morocco [12]

Canada [44 ]Israel [29 ]

rhythmic ballet of pantographs on thesand, a very welcome poetic jolt ata Biennale that is sometimes too prosaic.Canada and Morocco look at thepotentialities of their more peripheralregions where the climate is more extreme,the Nunavut and the Western Sahara

respectively: in places where modernityhas surrendered to the forces of nature,the architecture of the future may findits most effective design responses.Among the nations of the Iberianpeninsula, Spain and Catalonia underlinethe importance of the themesof the Interior and Grafting as terrainof confrontation and material overlapbetween modern pre-existences andcontemporary design, while Portugal

aspires to take the debate over housingto the highest levels of disciplinaryreflection, delivering it from the excessivepower of market dynamics.Hungary and Turkey stress the centralityof the human being as constructor,user and producer of the imagery that

accompanies architectural practice:in particular, the Eurasian nationinvestigates the role of immaterialmemory as key to the understandingof the relationship between modernand contemporary.Curious, finally, is the response of Kuwaitto Koolhaass call: Acquiring Modernityis the slightly out-of-sync perspectiveof a nation that is only now constructingits own modernity.


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Turkey [10]

Kuwait [12]Portugal [12]

Spain [33 ]


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Italian PavilionContinual MetamorphosesIt is an anomalous idea of modernity, the Italianone, recounted by the curator Cino Zucchithrough graftings, i.e. actions that allowthe incorporation of earlier statesand the generation of new configurations

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Innesti/Grafting is the title and underlyingtheme chosen by Cino Zucchi, curatorof the Italian pavilion at this yearsArchitecture Biennale and one of the bestcontemporary architects in Italy, in orderto satisfy Rem Koolhaass request toreinterpret modernity over the last 100years through a national point of view.For Zucchi the basic proposition is thatItalian architecture from the First WorldWar to the present day exhibits ananomalous modernity, representedby its capacity to interpret and incorporateearlier contexts through constant change.This has not involved merely formaladaptations of the new with respect towhat is already there, but grafts capable

of shaping the conditions of the contextinto a new configuration. This was anattitude once viewed by some as nostalgicor a compromise, but which is todayadmired in Europe and the rest of theworld as the most original contributionof the Italian culture of design.And the question of grafting in design istackled in the first place by the Milanesearchitect through a high quality form of journey that accompanies you physicallythrough the different sections on showand offers some interesting innovationsin the entrance and in the spaces of thegardens at the back, with a large andcontemporary version of the Ear ofDionysius that invites you in and a long

TEXT BYLUCA MOLINARI

ITALIAN PAVILION | CONT INUAL ME TAMORPHOSE S

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Cino Zucchi devotesthe first part of the pavilionto Milan, which he considers

the most original and extensiveworkshop for Italian-style

modernity in the 20 th century.

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The second part of the pavilionpresents over 90 worksset in historical con texts,traditional landscapes, outlyingmetropolitan areas.

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strip of metal that becomes a sinuousseat/roof in the outdoor area at the endof the exhibition.Inside Zucchi has sought to respond tothe familiar limitations and potentialitiesof this space (the biggest national pavilionat the Biennale) by splitting it up intoa series of thematic areas that aimto enter into dialogue with one anotherbut that, when seen as a whole,are treated as stories with a clearindependence of narration and language.The first part of the pavilion is devotedto Milan, which Zucchi considers thelargest and most original experimentallaboratory for Italian-style modernityof the last century.If the entrance space is taken up by adifficult attempt to look at the Expo fromthe perspective of the post-2015 future,most of the rest of the space is organizedinto a proper exhibition with sections thatanalyse the most significant experiencesof Milanese modernity, starting out fromthe activity of the Fabbrica del Duomo,the institution responsible for themaintenance, preservation andrestoration of the cathedral, and passingthrough Filaretes Ospedale Maggioreand the Foro Buonaparte, but lingeringabove all on the golden age of the periodfollowing the Second World War and the

PA D I G L I O N E I TA L I A

Left to right: Carmelo Baglivo,Display space on Piazza Navona , 2013,digital photomontage; Luca Galofaro,Stazione Spaziale Ritorni 01 , 2013,digital photomontage; CherubinoGambardella, Supernapoli. Napoliwith new structures grafted on , 2014,mixed technique and collage on paper;Agostino Osio, Milano Liberty , 2014,collage; Beniamino Servino, Squattower with Nervi citation , 2014,digital photomontage.


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constructions is provided by a great wallof architectural drawings curated withclarity and sensitivity by Emilia Giorgi,who focuses on one of the most livelyand complex areas of research anddiscussion in terms of the currentarchitectural scene through originaldrawings by Baglivo, Servino, Gambardella

and Galofaro, which are used to createa powerful picture gallery.Behind the drawings is another wallof images curated by Studio Azzurro,which brings together hundreds of videotestimonies collected through socialnetworks and which tries to show the real,inhabited and most problematic landscapesin the country and which can be followedthrough a small and delicate presentationdesigned by Matilde Cassani.

second generation of Italian modernarchitects, which is given a fresh visualinterpretation.The second part of the pavilion paysgreater attention to the current situationin Italy, with an increase in the numberof voices and their potential, and a senseof necessary inconsistencies, which are

regarded as the true richness of Italianarchitectural culture in todays worldand seen by the curator as a kind oflandscape in which one can move freelyaround. Over 90 designs of buildings aregrafted onto historical contexts,traditional landscapes and metropolitansuburbs to map out the state of Italianarchitecture and as one of the moretraditional ways of interpreting it.A contrast with this landscape of actual

Behind the second roomof the Italian Pavilion, a wallof images curated by StudioAzzurro brings togetherhundreds of videos publishedon social networks.


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Monditalia/1Researchon the FrontierLimits, edges, thresholds, barriers, marginsand enclosures: the theme of the boundaryin a world undergoing constant geopoliticalrealignment and in a country that finds itselfin a unique geographical position,that of gateway between North and South

Italian Limes

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TEXT BYROSSELLA FERORELLI

One of the most interesting subjectsof contemporary research in the areasthat make up the vast fields that we callarchitecture today is that of theboundary. Limits, edges, thresholds,archipelagos, barriers, margins andenclosures: these are the names thata growing body of literature has chosento apply, in recent years, to a seriesof multiscalar spatial phenomena, unitedby the role of impediment to movementthat architecture plays in them.It may be because the changes underwayin the geopolitical order areunprecedented, and it may also be thatthe pure architectural form is no longera relevant paradigm, but it is evident thatan attention to themes of a geographicaland global nature is common to a broadswathe of the international researchcarried out by young designers. And soit has been given a prominent placein Monditalia , whose ambition is toconstitute a representative sampleof this transnational network devoted

to investigation.The installation that has focused mostclearly on the theme is Italian Limes ,curated by Folder, whose interestingperspective treats the borders of Italyas a territorial system made up in equalmeasure of regulatory instruments andspatial questions. Starting out froma 2009 provision of the government that,owing to the melting of the Alpineglaciers, recognizes the mutability

of the northern Italian border, Folderand its collaborators have built a machineconnected to a series of GPS trackingunits they have placed on the Similaunglacier. Thus the installationin the Corderie is a device consistingof a mechanical arm, controlled byan Arduino board, that draws the Italianboundary on the basis of signals receivedin real time via satellite from the sensorson the glacier, continually producing mapsthat visitors can take away with them.The story of the evolution of that borderin the north is entrusted to a three-dimensional model onto which a seriesof graphic images is projected.The project has been assigned a specialmention by the jury of the Biennale.In an almost complementary manner,Pietro Pagliaro and Giacomo Cantonipropose Post-Frontier , a project that looksat Italy as the southern frontier of Europeand, at the same time, a territory inconstant and contradictory relationshipwith the Mediterranean, itself an area of

conflict and of negotiation over freedomand rights. Exclusion, confinement andsurveillance are the paradigms aroundwhich the architecture gels, generatingfrontier-buildings which give concreteform to all the regulatory and biopoliticalambiguities that govern the movementsof large numbers of human beingsat a global level. Pagliaro and Cantonisdevice is a plaster model that constructsan impossible place, one with an absurd

M O N D I TA L I A | 1 . RE SE ARCH ON T HE FRONT IE R

Italian Limes

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concentration of buildings and spacesthat are in reality scattered all aroundthe Mediterranean. What they have

in common is their role as symbolic polesof this southern frontier. The installationalso includes an acoustic side, recordedin airports and places of exchange,a collection of photographs and a video-dialogue with Frontex, the agencyfor management of the bordersof the European Union.The AUC, Cdric Libert and ThomasRaynauds 152 Mediterranea also looksat the Mediterranean. Here the theme of

the boundary is tackled through a studycarried out into the insular condition.In fact there are 152 Italian islands, whose

distinctive and ambiguous features aredescribed with the aim of depictingthe hybrid and disturbing condition thatcharacterizes them. It is no coincidencethat the installation is located in an out-of-the-way place, the Gaggiandre of theArsenale, and presents a table with a longcollection of documents in the formof drawings and pictures, alongwith a video interview on the islandof the Ottagono Alberoni in the lagoon.

M O N D I TA L I A | 1 . RE SE ARCH ON T HE FRONT IE R

Post-Frontier

152 Mediterranea

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Monditalia/2PhotographicInvestigationsThe documentary spirit of this exhibition on Italyhas received a special contribution from images,narrations suspended between past and present,between monumentality and everyday life,between landscape and humanity

Alpi

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TEXT BYEMILIA GIORGI

M O N D I TA L I A | 2 . PHOTOGRAPHIC INVE ST IGAT IONS

Beginning in the deep South and endingin the Alps, a multifocal and wide-ranging journey that passes through thearchitecture, cities and landscapesof the peninsula and takes shape inside

Monditalia . If the intent was to providea theoretical key to the interpretationof Italy in a documentary style, then theapproach taken by the photographersto drawing up this complex and variedmap has proved fundamental.The starting point is The Third Island ,the name that was given to Calabria,as its curator Antonio Ottomanelli recalls,because the configuration of the landmade the region so difficult to reach.

At the centre of his photographicinvestigation lies the unendingconstruction of the Salerno-ReggioCalabria highway, a project that issculpting the territory and on which work

continues despite having been started allthe way back in 1964. Next comes StefanoGrazianis installation A Minor Historywithin the Memories of a NationalHeritage , an imaginary journeyaround the peninsula made throughthe photographic reproductionand consequent reinterpretation of 24images selected from the archivesof the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogoe la Documentazione in Rome. Alongside

The Third Island

A Minor History within the Memories of a National Heritage

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this personal collection of visions thathave contributed to forging the sense

of national unity, the photographer hasplaced two symbolic pictures of an ApeCar and a basket of oranges to evokethe normality of the life that goeson around the monuments.Bas Princen proposes instead The Roomof Peace (Siena) , a new narrative wovenout of the celebrated allegorical frescoespainted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti for theSala dei Nove of Sienas Palazzo Pubblicoin the 14th century. Lorenzettis

representation of the city and thesurrounding countryside under conditions

of bad government (tyranny) and goodgovernment (the recently installeddemocracy) is reinterpreted by Princenin such a way as to establisha relationship with the architecturalspace that houses them and withthe contemporary fabric of the city.WithNightswimming Giovanna Silva haschosen to portray Italy from a singularangle, that of the extraordinary vitalityand recent decline of the discotheques

which from the 1960s until just a decadeago were theatres for experimentation in

architecture and many other forms of art.She does so by combining a pieceof photographic research that has neverpreviously been shown and a seriesof interviews with the protagonists of thislong period of creativity, from PietroDerossi (Strum Group) and Andrea Branzito Patty Pravo, with historic imagesfrom the 1960s and 1970s.Finally, we come to the Alps , with ArminLinkes film of the same name, the fruit

of research conducted for almosta decade with the architect

and anthropologist Piero Zanini. Oneof the largest and most complex naturalecosystems in Europe, and at the sametime the most anthropized mountainrange on the planet, the Alps become anopen-air laboratory in which to probe thesocial, economic and political relations ofthe present. At the centre of the research,the use that human beings make of theAlps and the imagery that has alwaysbeen linked with these landscapes.

NightswimmingThe Room of Peace (Siena)

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Monditalia/3The Many Pathsof the SacredAn exploration of the different formsof rituality that are still to be found in Italyand are at the centre of powerful socialand cultural hybridizations

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TEXT BYEMILIA GIORGI

Thousands of white light bulbs andSwarovski crystals outline an ephemeralstructure that evokes the archesof Venetian Renaissance palaces to mark

the entrance to Monditalia . An enormousillumination, handcrafted by one of themost important workshops in Puglia(Fratelli Parisi of Salento), that symbolizesthe journey around a country in whichnumerous and diverse forms of ritualitybetween the sacred and the profanestill play a fundamental role, althoughone contaminated by contemporaryexperiences that construct whollyunprecedented landscapes.

integrated and even helps to make oneof Italys most famous products,Parmesan cheese.The installation Business of People

by the photographer Ramak Fazel looksat the almost religious dedication to work.The space, which is reminiscent ofa church, symbolically divides up the timeof the working day with a seriesof kneelers. At the centre of the researchthe pictures and the private and everydaystories of Italian workers, giving riseto a multiple and anything but obviousportrait of the Peninsula.The theme of the sacred returns

The Felliniesque enchantment suggestedby the illuminations finds an immediatecounterpart inside the exhibition inMatilde Cassanis installation Countryside

Worship . Two large lenticular prints createan optical illusion to display differentimages of the same place. Looking at thephotographs from a certain angle we seea typical and completely empty Italianlandscape; changing position the spaceis suddenly filled with colour and peoplecelebrating Vaisakhi, the harvest festivalof the Sikhs. This happens every yearin some small villages of the Po Valley,where the Sikh community is well

in the research conducted by MarcoSammicheli, Andrea DallAsta and GiulianoZanchi. Designing the Sacred sets out tostudy the manner in which architects,

designers and artists are capableof renewing with more or less effectiveresults liturgical imagery in the lightof progressive social changes, influencingthe evolution of the Churchas an institution that looks to the future.Sammicheli is the protagonist of ananother investigation of the sacred in theinteresting research he carried out withAMO studio and Giampiero Mariottini for

Assisi Laboratory . The result offers much

Countryside Worship

M O N D I TA L I A | 3 . T HE MANY PAT HS OF T HE SACRE D

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food for thought about the way thata small Italian town with just 28 thousandinhabitants is able to cope every yearwith an influx of six million tourists, manyof them pilgrims. The interviews with fourpeople working in the town show how it,rather than being frozen in the imageof an ancient past, is in reality a workshopin continual movement. An efficientmachine for tourism that aims to get anextraordinary heritage to hold a dialoguewith the needs of a contemporary identity.Italy can become a global point ofreference according to Elena Pirazzoli andRoberto Zancan too. Their proposal UrbsOblivionalis is a study of the effectson architecture and the urban fabric ofthe repeated acts of terrorism carried out

in the 1970s and 1980s. In what waycan the country offer a response in termsof design to the attacks that afflictcontemporary cities al l over the world?Two imposing circular elements constructan ideal room in which to considera question of extreme topicality. The twoouter sides house highly symbolic images.On the one hand the PAC in Milan,the centre dedicated to contemporary artthat was damaged by a bomb in 1993.On the other, in a provocative manner, thethreat made by the Mafia boss GiovanniBrusca in very bad Italian: Ma se ungiorno vi svegliaste and non trovereste pila Torre di Pisa? (But if you were to wakeup one day and the Leaning Tower of Pisawerent there anymore?).

Urbs Oblivionalis

Designing the Sacred

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The Remnants of a Miracle

Monditalia/4The Remainsof the BoomThe rhetoric of the economic miracle has at lastbeen set aside, the necessary critical distancehas been attained. Now it is possible to lookat the phenomena of those sensational yearsof Italian modernization with the required maturity

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Although Absorbing Modernity is the theme reserved, at the Biennale,for the national pavilions, speakingof Italy in the terms suggestedby Koolhaas i.e. through a combinationof research and journalistic investigationthat also makes use of particularanecdotes to explore questions of generalinterest easily leads to a situation wherewe have to face up to events that belongto the countrys more or less recent past.

And so within the framework of Monditalia we find a small seam of projects that areable to present a picture of the Italyof the modern era (i.e. thatof the economic boom) free from idyllicovertones, showing that a critical distancefrom that modernity, however powerful,has been achieved and that the processof mourning over this crisis has ledto a long-awaited maturity.In this set of works we can include

The Remnants of the Miracle , curatedby Luka Skansi and the result of a projectstructured as a journey throughimportant fruits of research in planningand engineering in the 1950s and 1960s:fruits which have met a sad fate andtherefore now lie in an abandoned state.Certainly not a new theme, that of theoblivion which follows the discardingof works of architecture, even the goodones (so that even the young people

of de Gayardon Bureau are proposinga version concentrating on the placesof entertainment of Milano Marittimain their installation entitled Dancingaround Ghosts ), but Skansis work mustbe given credit for not succumbingto the fascination of the ruin. Thus it hassucceeded in producing an unvarnishedaccount of a simple fact: that objectsof great value were realized in thoseyears, that some of them have been

M O N D I TA L I A | 4 . T HE RE MAINS OF T HE BOOM

The Remnants of a Miracle

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Z! Zingonia, Mon Amour

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forgotten and that there therefore existsa precious architectural heritage

which we still have time to salvage.The installation is perhaps even frugal,but the photos and videos of whichit is made up show how buildings of thecalibre of Gellner and Zorzis MountainHoliday Home at Borca di Cadore, NervisTobacco Factory in Mantua or Goriand Saviolis Flower Market in Pesciadeserve to be preserved.Also very interesting from the documentarypoint of view is Z! Zingonia, Mon Amour ,

Zingonia was essentially a failure: dividedadministratively among five municipalities

and prey to the economic and politicalinstability of the First Republic, it rapidlybecame depopulated and subject to socialdecay. Notwithstanding the plan for itto be a self-sufficient town (with anintegrated manufacturing district createdfrom scratch) and not a satellite, Zingoniarepresents the breakdown of modernistpositivism and provides evidenceof the need for it to give way to the age ofcomplexity. The installation tells this story,

curated by Argot ou la Maison Mobileand Marco Biraghi. Through wide-ranging

and thorough historiographic research,the installation sets out to reconstructthe rise and fall of the dream of RenzoZingone an entrepreneur whose visionslay somewhere between Olivettisenlightened patronage and a Berlusconianpopulism before its time and his mostgrandiose creation, Zingonia, a projectfor a town with 50 thousand inhabitantsnear Bergamo. Realized in the spaceof a few years from 1965 onwards,

intertwining the factors that influencethe destiny of a town with that of a nation

and conveying the nature of thatunpredictability. It does so by succeedingin grasping the naivety of the majoroperations launched in a country that waslaboriously attempting to equip itselfwith an aggressive modernity, in order toquickly make up for the agonies of thewar. The respectful way in which this storyis told is perhaps the hoped-for signof a maturity, one in which Italy has at lastlearned to look back without regrets.


Dancing around Ghosts

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Monditalia/5The Traditionof the Avant-gardeThe spirit of the generation of the ItalianRadicals, the only one to have questionedthe standard methods of teaching architectureand experimented with alternatives, permeatesmany parts of the exhibition at the Corderieand defines its educational character

Space Electronic

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At Koolhaass Biennale, the part played byresearch is unmatched in the entire historyof the Venetian event. It is a record that noone was better suited to set than a manwho, in his own studio, has a doppelgnger

devoted entirely to cross-sectoralinvestigation, of great cultural breadth.The total lack of reserve towards researchis what has made OMA a great factoryfor the production of architectural talentand, at the same time, a machine ableto reproduce by means of infiniteparthenogenesis, generating hostsof heirs and epigones. But, concentratingas it had to on the Italian phenomenon,it was inevitable that a substantial part

of the exhibition would be taken up witheducation and give a great deal of spaceto the generation of the Radicals, the onlyone to have experimented with anydegree of constancy with possible

alternatives to the standard methodsof architectural training.Radical Pedagogies is the name of theimposing installation curated by BeatrizColomina and numerous collaborators.A wall that assembles material producedin over three years of academic studiescarried out at Princeton University,all focused on the developmentof unconventional methods of trainingby Italian architects, their success and

M O N D I TA L I A | 5 . T H E T RADIT ION OF T HE AVANT-GARDE

Space Electronic

Radical Pedagogies

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their international dissemination. Throughatlases and timelines tracing these moves,

a collection of texts related to the mostimportant experiences between 1940and 1980 placed at the disposal of thepublic and an interesting experimentin augmented reality conducted by dpr-barcelona, the installation is anexhaustive and significant one, almost theexploded diagram of a thematic library.But Monditalia has found roomfor the Radicals and their legacy in otherinstallations too. Space Electronic , curated

in fact curated the re-enactmentof an installation created by Superstudio

for Venice Art Biennale in 1978, juxtaposing an original videoof a performance they put on in the sameyears with a book-interview brought out,instead, for this years exhibition.The spirit of the Radicals pervades thewhole exhibition, peppering other worksnot expressly focused on the subjectwith their legacy. This celebration has longbeen awaited in Italy, where the heritageof the Radicals has been slow in finding

by Catherine Rossi, is an interestingaccount of one of the few projects realized

by a collective of the Italian avant-garde(although not a very well-known one).In 1969 the Gruppo 9999 designeda discotheque in Florence, with the samename as the installation, that throughoutthe 1970s functioned as a stagefor multimedia experimentation involvingarchitecture, music and theatre,establishing itself as one of the symboliclocations of the movement. There is spacetoo for total revival. Gabriele Mastrigli has

space in the official channels used forthe cultural dissemination and discussion

of architecture. Perhaps it was necessaryfor an intellectual perspective fromoutside to make its importance clear,expressing in a concrete form within theframework of as powerful an operationas only a Biennale can be. But nowthat this face of modernity is also readyto be absorbed, it will be necessaryto ensure that its extremism does notyield to the dizzy temptation of becominga new tradition.

Superstudio. The Secret Life of the Continuous Monument

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Press ReviewCURATED BYCHIARA MARANZANA

Aprs avoir pass limmense porche lumineauxo clignote Monditalia, la visite est beaucoup moins ludique.Trop lire. Trop de vidos. Si bien que, assoiff demotion,on nit par sextasier devant la tour en tabouretsde bois du pavilion du KosovoBatrice de Rochebout , Le Figaro , 7.6.2014

Questa volta tutte fuori le archicelebrit,tranne lui, Rem KoolhaasNatalia Aspesi , la Repubblica , 5.6.2014

The show [Elements] deliberately lacks much commentaryon the cumulative signicance of these architectural elementsin contemporary design, making the selected objects,as well as the exhibition design, feel somewhat arbitrary.But thats not necessarily a bad thingWilliam Hanley , archrecord.construction.com , 5.6.2014

Belgium: John Pawson does IkeaKorea: Megastructural utopianismGermany: Strenght through joyBritain: Electric-pastoral-psyco-brutalismAustria: Parliament as ornamentIran: Persian heroismPoland: Mausoleum of modernityAntarctica: TechnofrostscapeNutshells by Oliver Wainwright , theguardian.com , 10.6.2014

I think itsvery importantto have livedin the time of Rem,

like to have livedin the timeof CorbusierPeter Eisenman interviewed by Dezeen Magazine , 9.6.2014

Chi si attendeva una mostra [Elements] rivolta al futuro, costretto a volgere le spalle allindietro per ssare il recente

passato. Chi si aspettava la girandola dei linguaggi,si trovato sotto al naso il grado zero della scritturaarchitettonica: quegli elementi primari [...] che gli esteticonsiderano come il lato oscuro dellarte di costruireFulvio Irace , Domenica del Sole 24 Ore , 8.6.2014

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P R E S S R E V I E W

Cual George Orwell, Koolhaas previeneque la casa inteligente capaz de registrartodos los datos y movimientos de sus habitantes se ha enmascado como un eufemismo

para un potencial agente de inteligenciaVanessa Graell , elmundo.es , 5.6.2014

Of course the digital revolution is upon architectureand its elements just like every other discipline and the ideaof my waste product or my hot ashes being controlledby some Orwelliam sensor system feels, well,somehow almost pornographic. Im not sure I likemy privacy invaded by body sensors any morethan my credit card bouncing all over the webPatricia Zohn , hufngtonpost.com , 4.6.2014

Il richiamo di questa Biennale appare quellodi non abbandonarsi al piacere per la magnicenzadelle rovine e, tantomeno, alle rovine fruttodi una corruzione che affonda anche la pietra.Bens, invertendo il noto passo di Eliot,puntellare su queste rovine italiane (la gloriosa antichit)i nuovi frammenti di architetturaPierluigi Panza , Corriere della Sera , 7.6.2014

The portrait of Italy that Monditalia paints is certainlynot rose-tinted: it also includes surveys of the residencesof Maa members in Milan and the sites of terrorist activityin Bologna [...] Describing two possible visionsof collective lifes one ideal, one nightmarish they establisha dichotomy that runs through Monditalias portraitof this most marvellous and troubled of nationsEllis Woodman , architectsjournal.co.uk , 9.6.2014

Die diesjhrige Architekturbiennale ist keineLeistungsschau, sondern ein ffentlich zugnglichesLabor. Wenig Architekten. Viel Architektur. Endlich!Ute Woltron , diepresse.com , 13.6.2014

Visitors to Elements will be presented not with the usual arrayof the latest, show-off iconic buildings, but the bits and pieces,the elements of buidings that, drawn from around the worldand across the centuries, aim to demonstrate ways in whichwe have come to live increasingly in Calvinos TrudeJonathan Glancey , telegraph.co.uk , 10.6.2014

Elementos de arquitectura [es] un riguroso recorridoque sirve en sus enciclopdicos contenidos no solamente

para profesionales, sino para el hombre contemporanoen general. Se trata de un ilustrado viaje a la gnesisy desarrollo de cosas con las que convivimosRoger Salas , El Pais 6.6.2014

This year s Italian Pavilion at the Biennale di Veneziais well worth a visit. [] Its a relief to see again an exhibition worthy of its special place and occasioneven if some serious curatorial issues remainDavide Tommaso Ferrando , zeroundicipiu.it , 18.6.2014

Come ha potuto questa mente prodigiosa creare la pi noiosadelle biennali? Inutile girarci attorno, un classico caso di hubris.Koolhaas, che odia la condizione dellarchitetto semprein bilico tra onnipotenza e impotenza, ha scelto la prima,e la seconda si vendicataLucia Tozzi , Alfadomenica , 29.6.2014

Ringraziamo Koolhaas per averci indicatocome non deve essere larchitettura del futuroe gli rendiamo grazie, come si rende grazieai capi di abbigliamento passati di modaValerio Paolo Mosco , doppiozero.com , 17.6.2014

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BooklistTEXT BYLUCA GALOFARO

An exhibition of architecture likethe Venice Biennale is anopportunity to start up debatesagain and to exchange moreor less coherent and interestingviews. It is a starting point.Usually the comments die downjust a few days after theopening, ending with an I likeit or not, and with a collectionof more or less new picturecards to take home. This time,however, it is different.The debates that have takenplace have exceeded allexpectations. We have begunto talk about architecture again.We are doing this by followinganother track, that of books,which this time are theprotagonists of many interesting

stories. We should not forgetthat a book stays with us longerthan an exhibition. We are ableto visit it again and again,looking for its meaning.Here is my list, more or lessin order of preference.

where it remained for many years, onlyto be brought today to Veniceto symbolize this story of modernity.The book contains the voices of workersat the factory and people who live in thehouses, photos of the interiors of thosehouses and articles from newspapers.And it does not forget to pay attentionto the individual components that havebeen combined to give rise to all thebuildings constructed with this technique.

Korean PavilionCROWS EYE VIEW: THE KOREANPENINSULA Archilife 2014

At the end of the Second World War,the Korean peninsula was divided in two.Today it is still one of the few nations splitbetween worlds that are completelydifferent from one another in spiteof their common origins. The Cold Warproduced a fracture in a country with

thousands of years of history that hasdeveloped over the last 80 yearsin two opposite ideological, politicaland economic directions. The traumaof that war, in addition to simplifying thiscontrast, has also consigned the wholecultural tradition of this nations pastto an uncertain future. This situationthreatens to shatter a culture richin complexity forever, and it is preciselythe attempt to present a picture of this

Chilean PavilionMONOLITHHatje Cantz 2014

While every exhibition at this Biennaleis a reflection on the theme of AbsorbingModernity, the book on this onein particular goes beyond, in a coherentway, what is in the exhibition itselfand begins to tell more complicatedstories; stories that become a perfectmetaphor for the way the historyof architecture merges with the politicalhistory of a country, with that of itsinhabitants, who have turned even asimple prefabricated concrete panel intoa symbol. Thus the fine volume publishedby Hatje Cantz overcomes any dispersionof energies around this Biennale throughthe telling of a simple tale.The story is that of the first panelproduced by the KPD plant, donatedby the Soviet Union in 1971 to supportPresident Salvador Allende in his attempt

to lead the country towards socialism.From the moment the first panel was castand signed by the president, it has beenthe subject of a number of political andideological controversies. Allende signedthe wet concrete and for this reasonalone the panel was turned back-to-front,plastered and transformed into an altarfor devotees of the Virgin Mary onPinochets ascent to power. The panel wasthen abandoned in the yard of the factory,

complexity that is described in the bookedited by Hyungmin Pai and Minsuk Cho.The title Crows Eye View is taken froma collection of poems written byan architect-poet influenced by the Dadamovement. The poem, published in 1934,is the symbol of a fragmentation in termsof the vision of this poet, who aspiresto be a modern architect: a vainaspiration for someone trained underJapanese colonial rule and who cannotreconstruct his past with clarity. In thissubtle account, we meet a divided countrythat is courageously seeking to re-forgeits unity through architecture. Images andtexts construct a dense sense of narrationthat explores through differentsources the possibilities of a unitaryreconstruction of the Korean peninsula.This is an invaluable book for anyone whowishes to know more about this history.

LA VITA SEGRETADEL MONUMENTO CONTINUO

Edited by Gabriele Mastrigli Artists book

Here, three members of Superstudiotell their stories in La vita segreta delmonumento continuo (The Secret Lifeof a Continuous Monument).The book is in a sense a continuationof the work on the Superstudio archivescarried out in collaboration with StefanoGraziani and presented on San Rocco s

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B O O K L I S T

great table at the last Biennale. It is alsothe last duty of three architects whothrough their secret life together, as wellas through their individual contributions,have pursued a very personal ideaof architecture, giving rise to the workof Superstudio. The most important newaspect here is that this book is dedicatedto three individuals, Adolfo Natalini,Cristiano Toraldo di Franciaand Piero Frassinelli, and to the differentperspectives they bring to tellingthe same story, their story, the story of aproject they have always shared, despitethe diversity of their approaches, andtheir unquestioned love of architecture.

Belgian Pavilion INTERIORS. NOTES AND FIGURES

Interiors. Notes and Figures assemblesand organizes the landscape of domesticspaces through photographs, diagramsand descriptive texts that underlinethe processes of accumulation andmodification in the various roomsof the house. This is a demonstrationof how the objects produced by modernityare capable of consuming and absorbingthemselves.The immobility of furniture, or ratherthe stratification of the household objects

that occupy the spaces of our daily lives,is the main subject of this book, which isa long series of photographs,and a catalogue of typical spaces.This piece anthropological research startswith an analysis of the thousandsof photographs that the team of curatorsof the exhibition, Sbastien MartinezBarat, Bernard Dubois, Sara Levy andJudith Wielander, gathered in five monthsof investigation of Belgian territory. This

in the Middle East, which i s presentedas a dense and also homogeneousphenomenon.

Slovenian Pavilion FIRST SPACE ARCHITECT:HERMAN POTOC NIK Noordung

A small book that explores a veryinteresting theme (for me at least):architecture in the absence of gravity and looks at it through the work of theSlovenian architect Herman PotocnikNoordung, who is a pioneer ofarchitecture in outer space. Speakingof fundamentals, in fact, we should neverforget how the whole of our life isinfluenced by gravity. With his 1928 bookThe Problem of Space Travel The RocketMotor , Potocnik offered a first visionof an architecture that would permitthe survival of human beingsin an extreme situation like thatof space, in the absence of gravity.

DO YOU READ ME?Harvard Design Magazine, n. 38

The Biennale is also a good occasionfor the presentation of new magazines.An example of this is Do You Read Me?

which marks a new direction for thisHarvard University magazine, which haschanged its format slightly, getting bigger,and at the same time it invites its readersto look at its themes through the lensesof different disciplines. This issue,concentrates on the themeof understanding or the lack of it,and the question of legibility or illegibility,terms of the ambiguities containedwithin contemporary architectural thinking.

is a work of stratigraphic interpretationaround how interiors of houses show uswhat it means to have a home today,or rather how objects accumulatein domestic settings that representthe habits, aspirations and personalitiesof their respective inhabitants.

Italian Pavilion INNESTI/GRAFTING Marsilio 2014

Here we have not just one book but threewhich aim to describe wh

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