by Martina Dolejsova

Overview:
 

The entire city of Venice is activated by the Biennale with multiple pavillions sprouting up in museums and gallery spaces. The two main spaces (needing a ticket) are at the Arsenale and the Giardini. The Arsenale, a building that was historically dedicated to shipbuilding and the making of ropes for ships, holds thirty exhibitors expanding along the linear building with eight additional international pavillions that have been invited into the space. The Giardini is the home to thirty international pavillions each with their own number of architects exhibiting, including the large Italian Pavillion with 56 architects showing a multitude of installations, presentations and explosions. The exhibition is running from September 14 to November 23, 2008


Review:

Directly surrounding me are architects Deborah Gans (Gans Studio), Benjamin Ball (Ball-Nogues Studio), Laurent Gutierrez and Val�rie Portefaix (MAP Office) who have taken the seat to play with meanings. A few days prior to the opening of the Venice Biennale: 'Out There: Architecture Beyond Building', I grabbed a chair from the interior of the Dutch Pavillion, a cubed transparent plastic container that was forming the walls, while others created tables and drank wine with laughter at a hosted dinner for all participants. The discourse has already begun and Gans hit a resonating idea that rings in my ears as I walk through the event during the opening days; "The word building is both a noun and a verb and subsequently an object and an action. We are always in a state of 'building'. The idea is to leave the object but not the act of making. It should be renamed, 'Building Beyond Architecture'." - Deborah Gans

Ball-Nogues Studio
Unseen current
2008, 3000 catenarie, stampa a getto d�inchiostro su maglia. 7,5 x 5 x 4 m, Extension Gallery, Chicago Illinois, USA, Photo: Michelle Litvin, Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia


MAP Office
Underneath: Giocare di notte 2 / Underneath: playing at night 2
Guangzhou, Cina 2005, Dettaglio, fotografia, 17 x 11,5 cm, � MAP Office, Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

The Venice Biennale succeeded in overwhelming the heady assumptions of being 'out there'. The reaching arms of architecture of experiementation into the digital world, the fields of science, fabrication, urbanity, and social responsibilities were represented to the point of numbing the mind.

Entering into the Italian Pavillion at the Giardini does not prepare you for the mishmash of projects that you stumble into. You are eased in by J�rgen Mayer H. 's numeric wallpaper leading to the opening of a bamboo construction of highly crafted chairs acting as joints foresting the space. This installation designed by Herzog & DeMeuron and Ai Weiwei, brought the skill and craftsmen of Chinese farmers who use woodworking in the everyday. This fascinating and pleasurable display came as a result from the interactions of H+DM during their stay in China for the construction of their famous Bird's Nest Building at the 2008 Olympics.


J�rgen Mayer H. Architects
pre.text / vor.wand
2008, Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

From that room a maze of disjointed exhibits are filling walls and floors as if consumption was the design criteria. Before feeling almost hopeless in this menagerie, the punching bag assisted video game provided by Collectif Exyzt materializes in the next room. Each hit tears down an adjacent plasma screened building with the fun of a Wii. It works out the frustrations of constantly asking yourself, "What am I looking at? What does this mean?" Last I saw, the high score was 286 hits.

This is where there is a disservice for there are wonderful examples like Rectas Urbanas housing solutions, J,P:A Jones Partners Architecture , Stefano Boeri 's film of urban ecologies, and exhibits well worth spending the better part of an hour like in Madelon Vriesendorp 's collection of objects and paintings. What is needed are the spaces for contemplation and pause in this thought induced environment. The glue that holds the show together (perhaps the graphic Thonik designed wall border) fails as a theme to allow the mind to understand how it all relates to architecture.


Recetas Urbanas
Cartel UH
Photo: � Recetas Urbanas, Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

J,P:A Jones Partners Architecture
(Wes Jones, con Mary Aramian, Jennifer Dinardo, Necmi Karaman, Ming Cheng Chang)
La vista / The View
Dubai, 2008, Disegno digitale, 21,6 x 35,6 cm, Courtesy: the Author and Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

Boeri Studio
Torre ZIP
2008, Padova, Italia, � Boeri Studio, Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

Madelon Vriesendorp
Ecstasy of Mrs Caligari, 1973
Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

Thonik
Graphic Tapestries
Installazione site specific per l�11. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura � La Biennale di Venezia, Photo: Stefano Graziani, � La Biennale di Venezia

In escaping to the other Pavillions, Poland (Nicolas Grospierre , Kobas Laksa), winner of the Golden Lion Award for the Best National Participation, juxtoposes built structures and a possible 2050 future through photography and digital manipulation. Imagine a Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed glass and steel building transformed into a dystopic, gotham city revival of a factory hiding under a massive future highway system. Thinking beyond the archictecture.

Or thinking about the architecture, like the France, Australian and Chile Pavillions (Chile found in the Arsenale) that showed models which uniquely fit the scaled forms into a defined restriction. Slick bubbles held the models of France, whereas Austrailia displayed around 300 differenet architects with the broad range of architectural ideas, experiemental and physical fitting roughly onto a one foot diameter disc. I found these to provide a genial presentation of discovery and enjoyment in representations of built and unbuilt work.

Next, the country with no pavillion, Estonia (Maarja Kask, Neeme Kulm, Ralf Looke), that obscurs the walkway with a neon yellow painted structure: a gas pipeline. Like it or not, this pipe represents the struggle of construction and economy all over the world, highlighting the need of good design and consideration. Cameras inside transmit live to screens in the Arsenale and without knowing it, you've metaphysically made the leap to the other main site of the Biennale.


Zaha Hadid Architects
La torre Tatlin e il Tektonic �Worldwind�
The Great Utopia, esposizione al Museo Guggenheim, New York 1992, Acrilico e colori ad acqua su cartridge, 177 x 101 cm, � Zaha Hadid Architects, Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

Zaha Hadid Architects
Lotus
2008, Photo Giorgio Zucchiatti, � Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

Frank Gehry
Schizzo per il Museo della Tolleranza
� Gehry Partners, LLP, Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

Frank Gehry
Ungapatchket
2008, Photo Giorgio Zucchiatti, � Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

COOP HIMMELB(L)AU
Feedback Space
Installazione site specific per l�11. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura � La Biennale di Venezia, Photo: Stefano Graziani, � La Biennale di Venezia

Asymptote: Hani Rashid + Lise Anne Couture
Prototyping the Future: Three Houses for the Subconscious
2008, Installazione site specific per l�11. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura � La Biennale di Venezia, Photo: Stefano Graziani, � La Biennale di Venezia

Making your way down the into and down the Arsenale, past Zaha Hadid 's forms and Frank Gehry 's cracked clay curves, you'll walk past M-A-D's (Erik Adigard and Chris Salter) interactive digital screen, a confusing contemplation that addresses an experimental look at the qualities of surviellance in the environment. Who dares interact with it? It is an extremely powerful and fascinating study to people watch and develop an understanding of this post 9/11 world (yes, i'm still using that term). It is too bad you need someone to explain that to you as Salter did with me, eventually intriquing me enough to stay and observe others with it for a small time. If you continue walking, you'll run into Philippe Rahm Architects sensual hot and cold installation, Greg Lynn 's tables, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and the next string of hosted international pavillions.


Syd Matters
Performance
September 10th-12th 2008, Philippe Rahm�s Installation, Photo Giorgio Zucchiatti, � Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

Greg Lynn FORM
Recycled Toy Furniture
2008, Photo Giorgio Zucchiatti, � Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia
DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO
Chain City
2008, Courtesy: DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO and Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

Worth seeing, if you can survive the trek, is the landscaped garden by Gustafson Porter and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol hidden at the end of the road. You enter into a new garden of paradise, the concept behind GP and GGN 's design. Bean stalks and lettuce heads are sprinkled to your left and straight ahead, a grass field meant for refuge from the dizzying world of design. If the verdant experience doesn't save you, simply look up at a fabric mimiking the clouds, held by weather balloons, giving a graceful dance of white playing with the wind.


Gustafson Porter - Gustafson Guthrie Nichol
Towards Paradise
2008, Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

MAD Office
Super Star_A Mobile China Town in Rome
Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

cloud 9
Thirst Pavilion
Expo Saragozza, Spagna 2007, Collezione: cloud 9, Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

Collectif EXYZT
LABICHAMPI festival
Karosta, Latvia. 2007, Photo: Cyrille Weiner, Credits: EXYZT, Courtesy: EXYZT and Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

Elemental
Community design workshop
2007, � Elemental S.A., Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

Estudio Teddy Cruz
A housing Urbanism made of waste
Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

Stalker - Osservatorio Nomade
Pratiche spaziali di condivisione
IL TAPPETO VOLANTE, (Campo Boario / Roma 2000), Realizzato con i rifugiati curdi nel Centro socioculturale Ararat, con il sostegno del Ministero degli Affari Esteri e la Fondazione Orestiadi, Gibellina, Courtesy: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

The Venice Biennale has an overwhelming presentation of design that is not overly coherent. Forget trying to see it all. Take it in like an Italian workday; expresso, then one hour of exhibit, followed by another espresso and brioche, followed by the next hour, and so on. Or take a break over at the Stalker/ Osservatorio Nomade exhibit and have your I Ching foretold, like architects such as Peter Eisenmann, who I've heard ritually does this. I am taking with me from the Biennale a hazy memory of craft, digitization, urban solutions and a reading of good fortune for the year.


Martina Dolejsova

Martina is an architect and writer currently living in Los Angeles