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Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena has been named architecture director of the 2016 Venice Biennale, in a decision made by Biennale's Board on July 18. Known for award-winning architectural work under his own Santiao-based firm, Alejandro Aravena Architects, Aravena also serves as the executive... View full entry
Start sharpening those pencils – the US Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale is now open for submissions. The Pavilion's theme of "The Architectural Imagination", curated by Monica Ponce de Leon and Cynthia Davidson, is looking for projects sited particularly in Detroit, while still having... View full entry
The U.S. pavilion's exhibition, "The Architectural Imagination", will focus on Detroit as a case study for architectural interventions worldwide, with keen interest in "creativity and resourcefulness", according to a press release issued from the University of Michigan. Co-curators Cynthia... View full entry
The police in Venice closed an art installation in the form of a functioning mosque on Friday morning, after city officials declared the art project a security hazard and said that the artist who created it, Christoph Büchel, had not obtained proper permits and had violated laws by allowing too many people inside the mosque to worship. — NYT
"There is no mosque in Venice, so the thousands of Muslim tourists visiting Venice must pray in a converted factory in Mestre, which is the polluted part of Venice.This until the swiss artist Buechler converted an abandoned and unused former catholic church into a functioning mosque for the... View full entry
The Armenian pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale has won the Golden Lion for best national pavilion. The pavilion, Armenity, features a group exhibition by 18 diaspora Armenian artists and grandchildren of survivors of the Armenian genocide, who the jury praised for “forming a pavilion based on a people in diaspora, each artist engaging their specific locality as well as their heritage”. [...]
American artist Adrian Piper was awarded Golden Lion for best artist.
— calvertjournal.com
"Here is a nice excursion into the early days of the discussion on facades and how to avoid them. Wish I had seen it in real, and at the time. " - via Karen LohrmannSome excerpts from the conversation between Rem Koolhaas, Stefano de Martino and Léa-Catherine Szacka discussing post modernism... View full entry
The 14th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale closed this Sunday. Curated by Rem Koolhaas, the controversial exhibition was themed "Fundamentals," inviting the 65 national pavilions (a record number) to critically consider the legacy of modernism. For the central pavilion... View full entry
For the first time in the 14-year history of the International Venice Biennale of Architecture, the Nunavut flag flew at the entrance to the Canadian Pavilion, an Inukshuk floating at the entrance of “Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15.”
The exhibit, curated by architects Lola Sheppard and Mason White, from Toronto-based design firm Lateral Office, coincides with the 15th anniversary of the territory’s creation.
— indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com
Previously: “Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15” to represent Canadian Pavilion at 2014 Venice Biennale View full entry
Hacking an architecture exhibition through augmented reality? Yes, there's an app for that. "Project Source Code" is a digital guerrilla-style exhibition created by architect/artist/researcher Güvenç Özel that lets mobile-device users "hack" key works in Rem Koolhaas' "Elements of Architecture"... View full entry
This year's Biennale reveals that neither modernism nor contemporary architectural practice is as it seems. The best architecture today may not be revolutionary, but then today more than ever the desirability of revolutions are in doubt. Situated modernism has for many years been and continues to dominate architectural practice with the opposite of flattening results. — newrepublic.com
Architecture’s largest and most public event needs to do more than just go through the motions. The Biennale, unfortunately, seemed to be driven not by passion or a desire to communicate, but by a sense of obligation. [...] Perhaps an ornamental city is simply an ill-omened venue for an event celebrating the most functional of arts. Venice may always be trapped in the past, but the Biennale should be at the forefront of a conversation about architecture’s future. — theawl.com
Friday, August 15 Farewell to the Old Okura: The famous Hotel Okura, built in the 1960s in a distinctive fusion of modern and traditional Japanese styles, is closing in response to prohibitive earthquake retrofits and larger, newer hotels in the area.Samsung Acquires SmartThings, A Fast-Growing... View full entry
While most attention falls on the national pavilions at the Venice Biennale, the city itself hosts an uncertain number of simultaneous, satellite events, operating somewhat under the public's radar but still orbiting around the Biennale's curatorial center. There are the Biennale-recognized roster... View full entry
This year's Venice Architecture Biennale, an international showcase of trends and research, showcases the work of a number of Princeton faculty and students. It marks the greatest number of invitations Princeton has received to participate in the Biennale, reflecting the University's strength in pioneering research.
"Much like other art biennales, its purpose is to present the current panorama of the discipline," said Alejandro Zaera-Polo, dean of Princeton's School of Architecture.
— princeton.edu
The "Fair Enough" exhibition of Russia's 2014 pavilion at the ongoing Venice Biennale gives a clever response to the Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014 theme that Biennale director Rem Koolhaas assigned to curators. Curated and designed by the Strelka Institute, Russia received one of three Special Mentions out of 84 national pavilions during the 2014 Biennale awards ceremony. — bustler.net
"The Russian pavilion's 'Fair Enough' exhibition responds to Koolhaas’ curatorial theme by the concept itself: 20 Russian architectural ideas are presented, using the universal language of the international trade fair...'Fair Enough' is not a fair of products, but an Expo of ideas."Read more... View full entry
