Peru | 14th Architecture Biennale

In/formal: urban encounters for the next 100
Exhibition of Peru

The exhibition of Peru at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale describes the coexistence of formal and informal architecture that characterized the modernization process of the country after 1946. In Peru, and particularly in Lima, two different forms of urban development mixed together: the Unidad Vacinal, promoted by the Government and inspired by the modern urban planning strategies adopted in most Western Countries, and the Invasion, a form of spontaneous unauthorized settlement mainly adopted by the immigrant population. Eventually, these two worlds, apparently opposite, have melted creating the contemporary Peru urban panorama. The exhibition is based on a sequence of backlit tables where examples of such forms of development are illustrated, producing a quite interesting and visually appealing result.

Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014
Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014 is an invitation to the national pavilions to show, each in their own way, the process of the erasure of national characteristics in architecture in favor of the almost universal adoption of a single modern language and a single repertoire of typologies – a more complex process than we typically recognize, involving significant encounters between cultures, technical inventions, and hidden ways of remaining “national”.