Reporting From the Front, the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale
Paolo Baratta and Alejandro Aravena unveiled the details of the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale today.
The exhibition, Reporting from the Front, will be open to the public from the 28th of May to the 27th of November, 2016. It will include 61 National Participations in the historic pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in various venues across town. Philippines, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and Yemen will participate for the first time.
Reporting from the Front will be laid out in a unitary exhibition sequence from the Central Pavilion in the giardini to the Arsenale and it will include 88 participants from 37 different countries, 50 of the will be participating for the first time and 33 architects are under 40.
The Biennale has been announced through a photograph by Bruce Chatwin, chosen by Aravena. “The lady on the ladder who, clibing up onto the highest steps can gaze over a broader horizon, and by doing to conquers an ‘expanded eye’ annouceds the Biennale. We immediately loved this picture, because in a way it represents la Biennale as a whole, with our attitudes and our goals” stated Paolo Baratta.
This year’s Biennale will also feature three special projects. The first promoted by La Biennale, the other two the result of agreements stipulated with other institutions, organized and realized by the Biennale itself.
The exhibition curated by architect Stefano Recalcati, titled Reporting from Marghera and Other Waterfronts, to be held at Forte Marghera, will analyse significant projects for the urban regeneration of industrial ports, helping to fuel the debate on the conversion of production in Porto Marghera.
The second collaboration involves the Victoria&Albert Museum of London and takes its first step in the Applied Arts Pavilion at the Sale d’Armi, with the exhibition entitled A World of Fragile Parts, curated by Brendan Cormier.
Finally, in view of the United Nations – Habitat III world conference, to be held in Quito (Ecuador), and as part of the Urban Age programme, organized jointly by the LSE and the Alfred Herrhausen Society, La Biennale will present a pavilion in the Sale d’Armi dedicated to the themes of urbanisation: Report from Cities: Conflicts of an Urban Age, with particular attention to the relationship between public and private spaces, curated by Ricky Burdett.
The Biennale will also be accompanied throughout its duration by a programme of encounters to discuss the themes and phenomena presented in the Exhibition. Architecture Saturdays returns this year with the architects and protagonists of the Exhibition curated by Aravena. It is scheduled for every last weekend of the month. On the 16th and 17th of June 2016 the exhibition venue will host the annual Urban Age conference organized by the LSE.
