2024-05-03T16:30:27-04:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/149948615/is-aravena-s-venice-biennale-merely-an-expression-of-pc-culture Nicholas Korody 2016-05-31T12:44:00-04:00 >2018-01-30T06:16:04-05:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/ca/cavyf3tw6z60sj4t.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>Aravena&rsquo;s main show, though full of timely and meaningful projects, doesn&rsquo;t succeed terribly well strictly as an exhibition &mdash; as a sensory and visual experience on its own terms... In part this weakness may be explained by the quick time frame; it also seems to flow from Aravena&rsquo;s generous sensibility, his interest in opening his arms wide to the architecture of the moment and featuring a range of voices usually not heard in Venice. In that sense a desire for inclusion is his Achilles&rsquo; heel.</p></em><br /><br /><p><em>"Some architects &mdash; some architects left out of the show, that is &mdash; complained in Venice that what Aravena has produced is little more than a politically correct biennale [...]&nbsp;</em><em>Yet the tone is more tolerant and curious than strident or doctrinaire. Ultimately the PC charge is a caricature, a reflection mostly of the anxiety of a Western architectural elite realizing that its influence is waning even in Venice, the place it has long gathered every two years to toast itself."</em></p><p>More dispatches from&nbsp;<em>Reporting from the Front</em>:</p><ul><li><a href="http://archinect.com/news/article/149948081/dispatch-from-the-venice-biennale-mediterranean-connections-through-the-crisis" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dispatch from the Venice Biennale: Mediterranean connections through the crisis</a></li><li><a href="http://archinect.com/news/article/149948478/dispatch-from-the-venice-biennale-a-couple-of-things-that-don-t-quite-fit" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dispatch from the Venice Biennale: a couple of things that don&rsquo;t quite fit</a></li><li><a href="http://archinect.com/news/article/149947992/dispatch-from-the-venice-biennale-cool-kids-and-guerrilla-interventions" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dispatch from the Venice Biennale: 'Cool' kids and guerrilla interventions</a></li><li><a href="http://archinect.com/news/article/149947957/dispatch-from-the-venice-biennale-uruguay-s-underground-germany-s-construction-site-britain-s-housekeeping-and-more-from-the-national-pavilions" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dispatch from the Venice Biennale: Uruguay's underground, Germany's construction site, Britain's housekeeping and more from the national pavilions</a></li></ul>