We need a new space contract.
Since the exhibition of the year 2000 curated by Massimiliano Fuksas I have been to every single Biennale, watching the pendulum swing between expanding boundaries, Out There: Architecture Beyond Building by Aaron Betsky, and returning to basics, People meet in architecture by Kazuyo Sejima, finally a woman, and the radically basic, Elements by Rem Koolhaas in 2014.
This year’s Biennale, curated by Hashim Sarkis, returns to the urgency not seen since Ricky Burdett’s 2006 Cities, Architecture and Society which practically launched the ‘urban age’. The urgency derives from the simultaneous catastrophes of climate crisis, social and economic inequities, and health challenges, all of which are indirectly tied to architecture. For Sarkis, the social and political realms have failed to respond to these challenges and he suggests that perhaps architecture can step in to provide answers.
The question posed is “How will we live together?”, a purposely open question with no single ideological answer but rather the hope for a diversity of answers from a plurality of sources which will hopefully “enrich our living together, not impede it.” (Short Guide, p. 27)
The well-crafted words of Hashim Sarkis and the decision to structure the exhibition around five scales provide a strong framework for this Biennale, but it is not quite strong enough to carry all of the content which has been loaded upon it. Perhaps the extra year, caused by the pandemic and the Biennale’s postponement, allowed extra material to be produced, when one would have preferred the time be spent on editing down the original proposals. One is reminded of Richard Saul Wurman’s book Information Anxiety which addresses our inundation with data but lack of tools and patterns to give it meaning.
The scales addressed begin with Among Diverse Beings about our bodies, how they interact with other bodies, human and otherwise. Other than some suggestions about wearables and restrooms and learning from bees, the most compelling immersive architecture installation is Grove by Philip Beesley and Living Architecture, which experiments with the idea of open space in constant flux. But the most interesting exhibition in this area wasn’t a proposal but rather the first of 24 research stations, An Archaeology of Disability, about making the Acropolis in Athens more accessible, and consequently more applicable, to all.
The next scale is “As New Households”, asking how we will live in setups that differ from traditional nuclear families. As families evolve and cities densify the empty spaces can be infilled with unorthodox uses, micro-apartments for singles, shared workshops and storage, dormitories with common eating facilities, tourist facilities which can be retooled as emergency shelters, etc. The most interesting installation here is called Rural Nostalgia/Urban Dream by Line+ Studio which documented the Dongziguan Affordable Housing village with a beautiful large physical model. Also interesting are NADAA’s projects for the Boston area which suggest new models for collective rural living in clear text and representations, and Beirut architect Lina Ghotmeh’s suggestive sculptural living tower, An Archeology of the Future.
Moving into the next sector called As Emerging Communities we explore common, shared space of multiple households, which can also be communities of individuals that transcend place, as the communities of adolescents connected globally in Minecraft unbeknownst to others in their household. Of interest to architects are the places where people can share physical experience, sounds, tastes, the complexity of city life or the intimacy of pockets of quiet space in cities. How can we live such spaces rather than entering them only to document our presence there, sharing a selfie to our ‘real virtual’ communities on line? This is not a minor question; in our online bubble it is unlikely we will meet ‘others’ as happens in a well-considered public space.
Here there are many interesting projects: Enlace Arquitectura’s cataloguing of the plant species in the barrios of Caracas, Danish team Effekt’s living model of a forest in Denmark watered through a hydroponic system (which will be interesting to see as months pass), and Michael Maltzan’s Sixth Street Viaduct Replacement Project in LA. The Open Collective research station addresses important ideas; like most of the exhibition content the temptation is to take note and delve into it later while seated at a computer.
The (casual?) contrast between SOM designs for lunar housing and the far more essential construction materials and details of the Tambacounda Hospital in Senegal spoke poignantly. Recalling the 2006 Biennale, big data and maps appear in Rahul Mehrotra’s satellite images of India and in Beirut Shifting Grounds.
The Arsenale contains a number of other exhibitions worth visiting, and some important new exterior constructions, but with limited space I will conclude with commentary on only two of them, that of the Philippines which explores Mutual Support Systems and the Italian Pavilion entitled Resilient Communities which explores everything and anything related to our times. In a sense, these two pavilions stand as opposites.
The Philippines one is open, easy to experience, and structured around clear ideas (almost like a microcosm of the Biennale as a whole). A clear participatory process is illustrated in six phases: Learning, Questioning, Making, Concept, Design, Build. Specific tools are examined, tools like storytelling, drawing, mapping and roleplay, and they are exhibited through case studies of different global cultures. Curator Alexander Eriksson Furunes, originally from Norway, educated in London, and now living in Vietnam, typifies the global nature of the profession, but seems the antithesis of the archistar. His role was downplayed in the exhibition but his presence speaking with visitors was tangible, and his name popped up elsewhere in the Biennale, for example as the person who arranged for the Japanese pavilion to find a future second life in Norway. One leaves the Phillipine’s pavilion understanding more about the concept, traditions and potential of Structures of Mutual Support to address the underlying questions of how we will live together.
The Italian Pavilion, by contrast, fills the visitor with Wurman’s Information Anxiety. Upon passing through the elegant portal (thankfully preserved from Cino Zucchi’s past exhibition) the visitor is cast into darkness and an aesthetic of post-apocalyptic cyber-steam-punk, unsure of which way to turn. The theme of climate crisis and resilience is of course of great relevance, as are health, equity, gender balance, and all of the other buzzwords which appear seductively in the dark chambers like designer drugs in a discoteque. The reuse of material from past Biennale’s which one learns about in the catalog — if it was written on the walls it wasn’t easy to find — is commendable but hasn’t the association Re-Biennale been doing this for years? The Italian realities displayed along the ramp may have been of interest but the text was illegible in the dark and the videos require stopping on the narrow ramp and blocking other visitors, so one’s best hope is to remember the projects and find them later online. (Don’t expect much help from the official pavilion website which contains more illegible text and complicated graphics but no useful information about the projects on display.)
The contrast between universally critical concepts and often banal contents pervades the entire Biennale. The framework is clear but the projects within often remain fuzzy. Optimistically — and as Hashim Sarkis says architects cannot help but be optimistic — the visitor will be inspired by the clarity of the message to seek their own answers to the urgent question posed in the title.
di Tom Rankin