The Venice Biennale organised by the Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena does not disappoint. Above all, in this fluid world where everyone knows everything before it happens, this is no déjà vu. In most cases, this also applies to the famous works, which are held hostage by installations: some symbolic, hermetic and evocative, others highly material, some both.
And the challenge of not only addressing architects is, at least in part, well met. Here are some of the trends running through the 88 presentations in the main exhibition, split between the Arsenale and the Central Pavilion in the Giardini.
The potential of materials for reuse and recycling
The tone is set right from the entrance, where visitors are greeted by 100 tonnes of waste material generated by the de-installation of last year’s art biennale: 10,000 sq. m of plasterboard and 14km of metallic support structures. That is, we should design with the second life of the materials we are using in mind. So the group of US students from Rural Studio will, come November, donate the walls and benches of their theatre of spring-coil beds and insulation panels to the homeless in nearby Marghera and to social housing on Venice’s Giudecca island. The same applies to the plasterboard panels of the various exhibitors—everything is destined for a future construction site.
Also looking to so-called poor materials, Solano Benítez from Paraguay is showing a surprising lattice structure of mud bricks and cement, while the Colombian Simón Vélez turns to bamboo and Germany’s Anna Heringer to raw earth.
The social demand for a habitat
Migrations, conflicts and natural disasters require a rethink of the relationship between the ephemeral and the permanent, between the nomadic and the sedentary. Rahul Mehrotra’s research on the temporary urbanisation of Kumbh Mela, a Hindu festival that takes place every 12 years and gathers five million people for 55 days, with peaks of up to 20 million, calls into question the very concept of the city.
Technical experiments
Advanced research and the ability to surprise go hand in hand. This is true of the seemingly massive volume but almost-zero weight of the white textile structure by the German architect and engineer Werner Sobek; the poetic installation Lightscapes, which mimics the natural effects of the sun’s rays in a forest, by his countrymen Transsolar; and the audacious tectonics of the “compression-only” roofing structures of the Block Research Group at ETH Zurich.
The end of the “starchitects”?
For those who live on more than bread and social engagement alone, keep calm; there are also exhibits pushing the frontiers of theoretical speculation and self-referential form, in the name of pure aesthetics. As for the “starchitects”, the big names are scattered here and there in the Arsenale but keep a relatively low profile. Including Renzo Piano, who has installed the space for his G124 group dedicated to Italian suburbia as a retrospective, with the usual models, plans, elevations, sections, sketches and photos.
“The era of the starchitect waiting in his office for a phone call from a sheikh is over,” announced Paolo Baratta, the president of the Venice Biennale, at the press conference. To the applause of the audience, Aravena himself said: “The problem is not iconic architectures, which there are and will be. Our enemies are the logic of profit that does not respond to need along with the mediocrity and banality of built environments. But complaining isn’t enough, we have to work for quality, make projects that can tell stories. Venice can be an important step in this process.”
• Venice Architecture Biennale, various venues, until 27 November
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