Kosovo | 14th Architecture Biennale

Absorbing Modernity: “Visibility” (imposed modernity)
Pavilion of the Republic of Kosovo

The exhibition of the Republic of Kosovo at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale is neither large nor particularly complex, nevertheless, it is some of the most captivating ones, due to its strong visual impact and the pertinence of the proposed theme. For the Republic of Kosovo, the forms of modernity were the symbols of the authoritarianism of the regime, and have never been assimilated by the society. The installation shkëmbi tower, made by stacking 720 shkëmbi, a traditional stool whose name also means rock, emphasizes the recovery of memory as a necessary step toward Kosovo’s advancement; in another installation, entitled Postcard wall, many images depict Kosovo before and after its forced “modernization”, underlying the progressive loss of local identities.

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”.