16th Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 – pavilions, program, events

The Venice Pavilion at the Biennale Gardens; photo Inexhibit

Also this year, Inexhibit will be at the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2018 to cover broadly its major exhibitions and events. The sixteenth edition of the Architecture Biennale will take place from Saturday 26 May through Sunday 25 November 2018.

Entitled “Freespace”, this year’s exhibition is co-directed by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, founders of Dublin-based architectural office Grafton Architects.

Theme
Freespace focuses on architecture’s ability to provide free and additional spatial gifts to those who use it and on its ability to address the unspoken wishes of strangers. (…) Freespace encourages reviewing ways of thinking, new ways of seeing the world, of inventing solutions where architecture provides for the well being and dignity of each citizen of this fragile planet.
We believe that everyone has the right to benefit from architecture. The role of architecture is to give shelter to our bodies and to lift our spirits. A beautiful wall forming a street edge gives pleasure to the passer-by, even if they never go inside. So too does a glimpse into a courtyard through an archway or a place to lean against in the shade or a recess which offers protection from the wind and rain. (From the manifesto by Ivonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara).

Core exhibitions and national pavilions
The core of the Biennale 2018 will consist of the two curators’ exhibitions at the Arsenale Corderie and in the Central Pavilion at Giardini which will feature seventy-one participants overall /including Alvaro Siza, BIG, EMBT, Alison Brooks, DS+R, Chipperfield, Carme Pinós, SANAA, Souto Moura, Peter Zumthor, O’Donnell + Tuomey, Studio Gang, Odile Decq, Cino Zucchi, and Maria Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo), these main sections will be completed by two Special Sections: the first, with16 participants, is titled “Close Encounter, meetings with remarkable projects”, and will present works that originate in a reflection on well-known buildings of the past; the second, “The Practice of Teaching”, will collect projects developed by 12 participants as part of teaching experiences.

Along with the curator’s exhibitions, the 16th Architecture Biennale will include 65 national pavilions which will develop their own interpretation of the main theme. Seven countries participate in the Architecture Biennale for the first time: Antigua & Barbuda, Saudi Arabia, Guatemala, Lebanon, Mongolia, Pakistan, and the Holy See.

We report below themes and curators of some of them.
“Arcipelago Italia”, the Italian pavilion curated by Mario Cucinella, will focus on small architectures and redevelopment projects in smaller urban areas in Italy.
The United States pavilion, curated by Niall Atkinson, Ann Lui, and Mimi Zeiger, will investigate the concept of citizenship.
The exhibition of the German pavilion, titled “Unbuilding Walls” and curated by GRAFT and Marianne Birthler, will reason about the current debates on nations, protectionism, and division.
Entitled “Island”, the U.K. exhibition curated by Caruso St John Architects and Marcus Taylor will feature a piazza located on the roof of the pavilion, that will be left empty.
“Infinite Spaces”, the French pavilion curated by Paris-based office Encore Heureux, will consist of 10 “cabinets of curiosities”, made of timber recovered from the last year’s exhibition, focused on the concept of “place” as something different from that of “building”.
The Nordic Pavilion, entitled “Another Generosity” and curated by Finnish architect Eero Lundén, will explore the relationship between nature and the built environment.
Entitled “Repair”, the Australian pavilion, curated by Mauro Baracco and Louise Wright, will recreate a typical Australian grassland on which large-scale projections will showcase examples of Australian architecture that are also aimed at repairing the ecosystems they occupy.
Momoyo Kaijima from Atelier Bow-Wow will curate the Japanese pavilion and its exhibition titled “Architectural Ethnography from Tokyo： Guidebooks and Projects on Livelihood”.

From now and for the entire duration of the event, you’ll find here articles and news on the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale. More to come…stay tuned!

Artist’s impression of the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018; image courtesy of the University of Queensland

Maps of the Arsenale and Giardini in Venice; images courtesy of La Biennale (click for a larger version)