Venice Architecture Biennale 2021: Our first impressions

3 min read

For you we were at the Architecture Biennale in Venice and took a look around. Curated by Hashim Sarkis, the theme of this year’s biennale is “How will we live together?” We can already tell you one thing: There was a lot to discover! Whether the German, the British, the Danish or the Spanish pavilion – each country pavilion pursues its own architectural and artistic approach and fascinates with a wealth of ideas and a lot of creativity.

Biennial entrance

Germany

Commissioner: Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community
Curators: 2038, initiated by Arno Brandlhuber, Olaf Grawert, Nikolaus Hirsch, Christopher Roth
Exhibitors: Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Diana Alvarez-Marin, Andrés Arauz, Arts of the Working Class, Mara Balestrini and many others
Title: 2038 - The New Serenity

2038 – The New Serenity, invites you to discover a story between fact and fiction. In a series of films, it tells the history of a better world in which everything, though imperfect, is better in some pretty profound and radical ways. Based on the knowledge and visions of a collaborative team of international experts from Architecture, Art, Ecology, Economy, Philosophy, Politics, Science and Technology, team 2038 strives to explore our future society through prefigurative politics, illustrating modes of organization and social relationships to come.

Great Britain

Commissioner: Sevra Davis, Director Architecture Design Fashion, British Council

Curators:Manijeh Verghese, Madeleine Kessler (Unscene Architecture)

Exhibitors: Unscene Architecture, The Decorators, Built Works, Studio Polpo, Public Works, vPPR

Title: The Garden of Privatised Delights

 

Inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Garden of Privatised Delights looks at how spaces such as the British High Street and the Playground are under threat from increasing privatisation. The exhibition will engage in the current debate around ownership and access to what we perceive as public space.

Denmark

Commissioner: Kent Martinussen, Danish Architecture Center
Curator: Marianne Krogh
Exhibitors: Lundgaard & Tranberg Architects
Title: con-nect-ed-ness

 

All life depends on water. Water exists everywhere on the planet in a dynamic cycle that the exhibition con-nect-ed-ness links to. Water collected from the roof of the pavilion is made visible and tangible and flows through the exhibition – who knows where it has been before and where it will go next? Who knows what other bodies, countries, and centuries it has passed through? The cyclical flow and immanent boundlessness of water tie past, present, and future together and preclude any possibility of isolating ourselves from each other, acknowledging that we are connected. The water carries time, disaster, life, and others. It flows through our shared spaces.

Danish pavilion
Danish pavilion
Danish pavilion

Spain

Commissioners:Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA), State Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), Acción Cultural Española (AC/E)
Curators: Domingo Jacobo González Galván, Sofía Piñero Rivero, Andrzej Gwizdala, Fernando Herrera Pérez and many others
Exhibitors: Carmen Moreno; Sebastián Arquitectos (Sergio Sebastián Franco); Baum Arquitectura (Marta Barrera, Javier Caro, Miguel Gentil)
Title: Uncertainty

 

Interpreted as the freedom to act in unexpected ways and to generate opportunities within the creative process, uncertainty is an optimistic solution to the complex problems that demand answers from more than one actor at a time. Uncertainty explores the answers to the question How will we live together? from the perspective of social input, accomplished through crossdisciplinary processes. The exhibition celebrates the architectural practices that go beyond the usual framework and the architects who implement innovative strategies for social impact that redefine the core of the discipline.

Spanish pavilion
[Translate to englisch:] Spanischer Pavillon
[Translate to englisch:] Spanischer Pavillon
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