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Andrea Dietz spent four days in Venice reporting on the Biennale's opening for us, and brought back her reflections on the hallowed event—in all its chaotic, problematic, inspiring, messy glory—to discuss with us on the podcast. Amidst the fray, one thing came out clearly: the map is not the... View full entry
Reporting from the Front seeks to also explore which forces—political, institutional or other—drive the architecture that goes “beyond the banal and self-harming”. The 2016 Venice Biennale calls for entries that not only exist in and of themselves, but that are a part of a larger social... View full entry
This year's Biennale has tried to raise fundamental issues around the role of the architect through social and economic issues. Challenges of social inequality, housing, urbanisation, are found across the world but perhaps they are nowhere more apparent than in the cities of Brazil.The Curator of... View full entry
Aravena’s main show, though full of timely and meaningful projects, doesn’t succeed terribly well strictly as an exhibition — 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’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’ heel.
— Christopher Hawthorne | Los Angeles Times
"Some architects — some architects left out of the show, that is — complained in Venice that what Aravena has produced is little more than a politically correct biennale [...] Yet the tone is more tolerant and curious than strident or doctrinaire. Ultimately the PC charge is a caricature, a... View full entry
Alejandro Aravena’s brief for the Fifteenth International Architecture Exhibition at the 2016 Venice Biennale calls for projects that “are scrutinizing the horizon looking for new fields of action, facing issues like segregation, inequalities, peripheries, access to sanitation, natural... View full entry
The lady on the ladder chosen as the image for the 2016 Biennale Architettura sees, amidst “great disappointments[,] creativity and hope,” states Paolo Baratta, president of the Venice Biennale. “[S]he sees them in the here-and-now, not in some uncertain aspirational, ideological future.”... View full entry
The general atmosphere at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, Reporting from the Front, is one of excitement, of subversion. The Fifteenth edition of the Biennale explicitly calls for instances where architecture is an “instrument of self-government, of humanist civilization, and a... View full entry
May 26, 2016Aravena’s Biennale for architecture to give a damn might imply a specific kind of project, but, after one day on the ground, it is clear that there is no one way for it to respond. For one thing, there is a truly incomprehensible quantity of material to cover. The volume alone speaks... View full entry
As architects, we are living at a time of shifting paradigms. [...] It’s why I’m so interested in how architects and urban planners engage with other fields – economics, security, the environment and so on. Our challenge must be to go beyond architecture and speak the languages of these other disciplines, before translating our discussions into formal design proposals. [...] Our ultimate focus is still on form, but what informs this has expanded dramatically. — theguardian.com
Just a few key takeaways from Alejandro Aravena's piece for The Guardian:"As curator of Reporting From The Front, I want to reverse the idea that the Biennale only deals with issues that are of interest to other architects. We have begun by identifying problems that every citizen can not only... View full entry
The President of la Biennale di Venezia, Paolo Baratta, accompanied by the curator of the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, Alejandro Aravena, met today at Ca’ Giustinian with the representatives of 48 Countries.
The 15th Exhibition will take place from May 28th to November 27th 2016...in the Giardini and the Arsenale and in various other venues in Venice.
The title chosen by Alejandro Aravena for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition is: REPORTING FROM THE FRONT
— La Biennale di Venezia
"There are several battles that need to be won and several frontiers that need to be expanded in order to improve the quality of the built environment and consequently people’s quality of life," Alejandro Aravena states in the announcement. "More and more people in the planet are in search for... View full entry
