Architecture on Display: on the History of the Venice Biennale of Architecture

archITECTURE ON DIspLAY: ON THE HISTORY OF THE VENICE BIENNALE OF archITECTURE Aaron Levy and William Menking in conversation with: Vittorio Gregotti Paolo Portoghesi Francesco Dal Co Hans Hollein Massimiliano Fuksas Deyan Sudjic Kurt W Forster Richard Burdett Aaron Betsky Kazuyo Sejima Paolo Baratta archITECTUraL assOCIATION LONDON ArchITECTURE ON DIspLAY Architecture on Display: On the History of the Venice Biennale of Architecture ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION LONDON Contents 7 Preface by Brett Steele 11 Introduction by Aaron Levy Interviews 21 Vittorio Gregotti 35 Paolo Portoghesi 49 Francesco Dal Co 65 Hans Hollein 79 Massimiliano Fuksas 93 Deyan Sudjic 105 Kurt W Forster 127 Richard Burdett 141 Aaron Betsky 165 Kazuyo Sejima 181 Paolo Baratta 203 Afterword by William Menking 5 Preface Brett Steele The Venice Biennale of Architecture is an integral part of contemporary architectural culture. And not only for its arrival, like clockwork, every 730 days (every other August) as the rolling index of curatorial (much more than material, social or spatial) instincts within the world of architecture. The biennale’s importance today lies in its vital dual presence as both register and infrastructure, recording the impulses that guide not only architecture but also the increasingly international audienc- es created by (and so often today, nearly subservient to) contemporary architectures of display. As the title of this elegant book suggests, ‘architecture on display’ is indeed the larger cultural condition serving as context for the popular success and 30- year evolution of this remarkable event. To look past its most prosaic features as an architectural gathering measured by crowd size and exhibitor prowess, the biennale has become something much more than merely a regularly scheduled (if at times unpredictably organised) survey of architectural experimentation: it is now the key global embodiment of the curatorial bias of not only contemporary culture but also architectural life, or at least of how we imagine, represent and display that life. 7 The history of successive biennales isn’t architecture might yet still exist as (and not only just its register, as if a windsock, of architectural through) its own forms of communication. In the fashion, taste or interest. By this stage, the biennale case of Venice, this amounts to the forms of display has itself become a kind of living record – of archi- promoting architectural agendas and interests, and tecture’s own contemporary struggle as a form of not only projects or personalities. The display cultural production on the one hand, and that pro- of architectural ambitions, obsessions even; and duction on (and not only of ) display on the other. perhaps even of architectural ideas – this is certainly Seeing these dual tendencies as commensurate and something confirmed in the statements and equal, or as simply parallel and opposed, is simply remarks captured so vividly in the following book, too crude a (dialectical) view of knowledge (let marvellously edited and organised by Aaron Levy alone architectural knowledge) today. and William Menking in dialogue with the key We should recall, for example, just how curators whose ingenuity, energy and ambition many of modern architecture’s key battles were defined – and largely designed – the biennale we fought long before the Venice architecture biennale, know today. on sites such as world expositions (remember Mies Given that the art biennale in Venice is in Barcelona), international exhibitions (including now well over a century old and film enthusiasts the ‘International Style’ proclaimed by a New York have been going to their annual festival in Venice museum nearly a century ago), or landmark cultural almost since the medium’s invention (Frank Capra’s events (the architecturally staged ‘Kitchen Debate’ It Happened One Night was featured at the inaugu- between Nixon and Khrushchev in 1959, as ral festival there in 1932), architecture’s relatively one example among many). In effect, all of these late arrival in 1980 is only the first of many larger demonstrate something of the extended legacy questions about architectural culture today that of displaying and exhibiting architectural culture, this collection begins to explore. The largely oral well before Venice’s more recent and decidedly format, as a series of recorded conversations with contemporary twist in the form we now know as some of the immensely talented shapers of succes- the architectural bienniale. sive biennials and of larger architectural discussion, What the proven template of the biennale is one of the book’s great accomplishments. Oral offers above all, then, is perhaps this: the possibility history is returned to an event itself dependent that, by putting the work and thinking of architec- upon the idea of exchange, discussion and commu- ture’s key protagonists and prodigies on display nication (all traits at odds with a discipline like every two years in the Arsenale and Giardini, architecture, and its too frequently witnessed belief 8 9 in one-way communication, singular forms of representation or signature styles, monologues Introduction and declarations). The contribution provided by this book, as a genuine extension of the biennial Aaron Levy itself, is an immense – provisional, preliminary but genuinely valuable – aid. My thanks here to Although the Venice Biennale for architecture is Aaron Levy and William Menking for bringing considered to be one of the most prestigious forums this project to us at the AA School in London; to for architecture in the world, its history remains all the curators for their participation in the conver- relatively unknown and is marked by fundamental sations themselves; and to the wonderful editors tensions. These include its very point of origin, and designers at AA Publications who so swiftly as well as its integration with economic tourism and assuredly (over a matter of a few short weeks) and nation-state representation, its relationship to created and then delivered the book to Venice in the art biennale, and its dependence on theatrical time for its biennale launch. models of display. With these tensions in mind, William Menking and I began to conduct a living Brett Steele history of the architecture biennale in December Director, AA School of Architecture 2009. Through conversations with past directors of the biennale, we sought to understand the cultural, political and economic conflicts that have shaped each biennale, and the way in which the biennale is itself a living institution evolving in time. We were particularly interested in how the architecture biennale has developed from a relatively modest and informal proposition in the 1970s and 80s – one that intermittently explored the social function of architecture and questions of audience and display – to its present stature as one of the foremost architectural exhibitions. If there is an urgency to this project, it is not only on account of the late Aldo Rossi, director of the 1985 and 1986 biennales, whose work was 10 11 itself cognisant of the importance of historical conversations do not seek to recapitulate the memory, and whose voice is sadly missing from exhibitions themselves but rather explore the these pages. The Venice architecture biennale itself questions and themes that they raise. As a research constitutes a forgotten history whose recovery initiative, this project does, however, seek to be has consequences for contemporary practice. generative of future engagements with architectural Since its first articulation in 1895, the biennale curation, and begs the question of how previous has, in spite of its international visibility and models can inform contemporary practices. Perhaps attendance, remained one of the least accessible the challenge today is no longer one of resisting the sites for archival research. As the pulse of the past but rather of affirming its consequences for present subsides after each year’s biennale is over, present and future practice. the intensity of the experimental dispositions Traditionally, the origins of the architecture presented in Venice recedes into memory. It is biennale are thought to officially begin in 1980, thus important to unpack the implications of when Paolo Portoghesi organised ‘The Presence of the traces that remain in archives and the public the Past’. The section titled Strada Novissima, in the sphere more generally. In speaking with each of the newly restored Corderie dell’Arsenale, consisted of past directors of the Venice architecture biennale a series of dramatic facades by leading international (henceforth referred to simply as the biennale), we architects. The installation provoked a new therefore hope to supplement the official record understanding of Main Street, and is recognised with a more anecdotal and informal telling, one that as popularising the postmodern movement in acknowledges the individual passions that mark architecture. Its highly theatrical quality – it was their respective exhibitions. The traces they provide constructed with the assistance of craftsmen from also help us recover the forgotten history of cultural the Cinecittà film studios in Rome – continues experimentation that has taken place at each to serve as a benchmark for subsequent curation. biennale, and the social conditions that provide a Portoghesi’s exhibition also set a precedent in that context for these experiments. it was the first to receive international attention Readers may notice that there is not one from

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