VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

copyright Manfredi BellatiThe Curator – Aaron Betsky: Biennale Architettura – 11th International Architecture Exhibition – OUT THERE : ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING. Phillip Rylands, director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, chats to the Biennale’s curator, Aaron Betsky outside the American Pavilion. According to Aaron Betsky – for six years director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

VENICE: The 11th International Architecture Biennale. Enel Contemporanea: Deep Garden a project by A12. Deep Garden is a site-specific project installation by the young Italian artists A12. The installation created to coincide with the 11th International Architectural Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, is on display in the lagoon until November 23rd, 2008. Deep Garden is a tribute to Venice and

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

photograph courtesy La Biennale di VeneziaTHE AWARDS – Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Frank O. Gehry. With this award, the desire is to stress, in line with the spirit of the 11th International Architectural Biennale, how much Gehry’s work is the significant result of years of experimentation. “Frank Gehry has transformed modern architecture”; writes Aaron Betsky in his motivation. “He

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

“WOOD” # 1 - The Arsenale. Ungapatchket, project by Gehry Partners, LLP. Frank Gehry has long been interested in the exploration of buildings that appear unfinished, that gesture beyond their confines, their sites and their programs, and that are sites of experimentation. He pursues his work through endless models and explores both form and space through multiple designs. As a result, nothing

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

THE AWARDS – Golden Lion for Best National Participation to Poland for Hotel Polonia The Afterlife of Buildings – Nicolas Grospierre and Kobas Laksa. Curators: Grzegorz Piatek and Jaroslaw Trybus. Welcome to Hotel Polonia: The Afterlife of Buildings. Have some rest, please. Take a seat on the hotel beds. The Polish Pavilion presents six buildings raised in Poland within the last decade.Nicolas

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

THE AWARDS – Golden Lion for Best Installation project in the International Exhibition to Greg Lynn Form (U.S.A.) for Recycled Toy Furniture. Our world is plastic. It changes shape and takes on qualities seemingly at will. In a more direct manner, more and more of it consists of objects made out of various forms of plastic. Here the architect, Greg Lynn appropriates one of the most ubiquitous

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

“SPACE” # 1. The Portuguese Pavilion. Out Here: Disquieted Architecture, project by Eduardo Souto de Moura and Angelo de Sousa. The curators, Joaquim Moreno and Jose Gil, invited the architect, Eduardo Souto de Moura and the visual artist, Angelo de Sousa to produce a multidisciplinary proposal that temporarily will be part of the Fondaco Marcello, The Portuguese Pavilion, on the Grand Canal.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

“SPACE” # 2 - The Belgium Pavilion. 1907… after the party, project by Office Kersten Geers David Van Severen – curator Moritz Kung. 1907 … after the party, the figures in the title refer to the year when the Belgium Pavilion was built – the first foreign one in the Giardini, designed by the architect Leon Sneyers. The project is a tribute to the historical pavilion and puts it on show in its

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

"SPACE” # 3 – The Italian pavilion. Going Walkabout, project by Ben Nicholson. The labyrinth is a raw architectural plan without substance, save the invitation to walk in dust. There certainly could be walls and windows, foundations and so forth, but the spatial construct of a labyrinth works perfectly well when the design is committed to memory and set down anywhere that a person sees fit. By

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

“OUTER SPACE” # 1 – The Arsenale. Astroballon 1969 Revisited Feed Back Space by Coop Himmelb(L)au (Vienna). Enter into the giant, inflatable and transparent “brain”, grab hold of the handles, and see your own heartbeat come into view on giant screens above your head, while your blood pressure swirls on LED screens. The amplified sound that seems to emanate from your body fills the space around

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

“OUTER SPACE” #2 - Uneternal City: Superstar project by MAD architectural Office (Beijing). Uneternal City is a specific section dedicated to the city of Rome. Thirty years after Rome Interrupted, Aaron Betsky asked twelve Italian and international design studios to re-imagine the city of Rome.Superstar a Mobile China Town. China Towns are out of date. They are historical theme parks, struck in

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

Photograph courtesy Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia“OUTER SPACE” # 3 – The Arsenale – Hall of Fragments by David Rockwell with Casey Jones + Reed Kroloff. The Rockwell Group, in collaboration with Jones + Kroloff, designed Hall of Fragments, the entrance installation to the main exhibition, at the Arsenale, for the 11th annual Venice Architecture Biennale. Passage through the installation

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

ENVIRONMENT # 1 – The U.S.A. Pavilion. Into the Open: Positioning Practice. The exhibition Into the Open: Positioning Practice was commissioned by William Menking and co-curatored with Aaron Levy and Andrew Strum. It explores how architects, urban researchers, and community activists are meeting the challenges of creating new work in response to contemporary social conditions and addresses

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

ENVIRONMENT # 2 – The Arsenale. Towards Paradise – Gustafson Porter and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol. Towards Paradise, is the first major landscape installation featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale. The garden is conceived as a contemporary allegory in the broadest sense. It takes the visitor on a journey through earthly dilemmas, evoking what has been lost and what can be gained. Situated

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

copyright by Manfredi BellatiENVIRONMENT # 3 - The Japanese Pavilion. Extreme Nature: Landscape of Ambiguous Spaces by Junya Ishigami. Ishigami’s greenhouses, outside The Japanese Pavilion, are not equipped with air control systems and are not sealed off from the outside by a strong barrier, so they do not create a perfect artificial environment. The weakness of the barrier results in an

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

photograph courtesy The German PavilionENVIRONMENT # 4 – The Germany Pavilion. 080 Technical Paradise by Tom Matton. The desire to escape reality and return to a paradisiacal condition is as old as humankind itself. To at least temporarily satisfy this desire, architects around the world are increasingly creating artistic paradises, often in the most inhospitable places. The construction and

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

WOOD # 2 – The entrance to the Giardini. Interbreeding Field – project: Somewhere Out There in The Venice Garden by Li H. Lu. Interbreeding Field conceives how new structures combine with old ones to produce a new kind of utilization and function, thus developing a relationship of dependence between the new installation and its external environment. This is not simply a question of form, but

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

WOOD # 3 – The Italian Pavilion. Masters of the Experiment by Herzog & De Meuron with Ai Weiwei. At the entrance of The Italian Pavilion in the Giardini is an imposing installation of bamboo chairs that are placed along a framework of bamboo poles Called Master of Experiment this massive installation is by architects, Herzog and De Meuron with Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei. During the first few

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

WOOD # 4 – The Russian pavilion. Beyond Building by Nikolay Polissky. The front and the back of The Russian Pavilion houses Nikolay Polissky’s Beyond Building structures. Polissky is a unique master of Russian land art and his striking revolution in Russian art involves a hybrid of conceptualism and folk craft. His absurdist performers are simple peasants, the inhabitants of the village of

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

Photograph courtesy Avatar Architecture and Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia“NUTRITION” # 1 – The Italian Pavilion. The Edible Edifice by Avatar Architettura. Eating, sleeping, breathing and protection from the elements will no longer be acquired privileges in exchange for money, but they will become daily actions that everyone can accede to naturally. The waste products from our ways of life

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BYOND BUILDING

“NUTRITION” # 2 – Uneternal City: Rome Limited project by BIG – Bjarke Ingles Group (Copenhagen). Uneternal City is a specific section dedicated to the city of Rome. Thirty years after Rome Interrupted, Aaron Betsky asked twelve Italian and international design studios to re-imagine the city of Rome.BIG - Bjarke Ingles Group - Rome Limited. Luminous maps packaged as pizzas. Today the original

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

“NUTRITION” # 3 - The Czech and Slovak Republic Pavilion. The Sideways, Parallel Ways and Worlds, installation in the Czech and Slovak Pavilion, created by Zerozero Untd, shows a row of identical fridges that contain various foods based on the social identity of the inhabitants of the apartment or houses. “In the last months, we have looked into the homes of our friends, their friends, and

Venice: 11th International Architectural Biennale – Collateral Event.

Copyright Manfredi BellatiVenice: 11th International Architectural Biennale – Collateral Event. Andrea Palladio and Contemporary Architects: Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher. To mark the 500th anniversary of Andrea Palladio’s birth Zaha Hadid and Patrick Schumacher have created Aura, which is installed at Villa Foscari, La Malcontenta, as part of the Venice Architecture Biennale. The

Venice: 60th Anniversary of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

Venice: 60th Anniversary of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. A group of young designers, Sam, Marta, Francesca, Valentina and Carine at Fabrica, the Benetton Group’s communications research center, have designed a new collection of items for the museum shop of the Venice based Peggy Guggenheim Collection, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Who is Peggy is a mini collection of objects

Venice: LIFESTYLE - A private party for Italian film director Ermanno Olmi

Venice – lifestyle: A private lunch party for Italian film director Ermanno Olmi. Tai and Rosita Missoni hosted a lunch party during the Venice Film Festival, for friends on board their barge Timoteo in honor of the Italian film director, Ermanno Olmi who received the Lifetime Achievement Award, twenty years after his film, The Legend of the Holy Drinker won the Leone d’Oro prize there.

VENICE: Palazzo Grassi - GUCCI GROUP AWARD 2008

Venice – Palazzo Grassi: The Gucci Group Award 2008. Each year at Palazzo Grassi, during the Venice Film Festival, the Gucci Group Award is bestowed to an international-acclaimed artist who has made a remarkable contribution to a film in any capacity within the past eighteen months, as a director, actor, screenwriter, set designer, or costume designer. The winner this year is Steve McQueen for