http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/arts/design/15veni.html
Exploring Design as Metamorphosis
Armin Hess
Coop-Himmelb(l)au's Musée des Confluences in Lyon, France, one of the Hyper-Project exhibits in Venice.
By ALAN RIDING
Published: September 15, 2004
ENICE, Sept. 13 - It is fortunate that many people seem naturally drawn to architectural models because, without them, the ninth Venice Architecture Biennale would be reduced to photographs, drawings, videos and words. But even stunning handmade computer-designed models point to a problem with architectural exhibitions. They cannot show what architecture is really about - buildings and the contexts in which they are placed.
Still, after two days reserved for professionals and reporters, the doors of this year's biennale opened on Sunday to crowds of enthusiasts curious to share some of the buzz created over the past decade by a score or more of big name international architects, including Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas and Jean Nouvel. is probably more widely accepted today than in recent memory.
For Kurt W. Forster, a Swiss-born academic who is director of the architecture biennale, the sprawling show's main purpose is to reach a broader public. He is hoping for as many as 120,000 visitors before it closes on Nov. 7. And many leading professionals were also on hand including Mr. Libeskind, Zaha Hadid, Christian de Portzamparc and Peter Eisenman, who was awarded a Golden Lion for his lifetime achievements.
To turn a vast array of design into a manageable exhibition, Mr. Forster had two large spaces to work with: the immense galleries of the former medieval shipyard known as the Arsenale; and the Art Deco Italian Pavilion in the Gardens of the Biennale at the eastern end of Venice's main island.
But he also had help. Thirty-three countries have their own exhibitions, most of them in permanent national pavilions used in alternate years for the Venice Biennale art show. Limited by space, these architecture shows often focus more on an idea than on individual practitioners.
For instance, Belgium, which won the Golden Lion for best pavilion, used photographs and videos to explore the Congolese capital of Kinshasa as "the imaginary city."
Mr. Forster's main challenge, though, was to create a conceptual framework into which he could place some of the world's best designs and experiments. He therefore chose to name this biennale "Metamorph." In his view, the name highlights changes in architecture which, he said, "have taken on such breadth and depth as to suggest the advent of a new era."
For "Metamorph," the Arsenale was divided into five sections, each trying to make sense of the hundreds of models filling the 250-yard-long space. The first, Transformations, dwells on modernizations (some realized, some not) of existing buildings and structures.
Topography, the second section, illustrates the new possibilities of the use of computer technology to create designs that confront distinct geological or historical features. Many models show buildings and structures with sensual folded and curving surfaces that may never be built. Still, one that seemingly grows out of a hillside's topography is Mr. Eisenman's City of Galician Culture, and it is now under construction in Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.
A third section, Surfaces, explores not only shapes but also the new materials being used to cover buildings, as illustrated here by the Acconci Studio's artificial Mur Island in Graz, Austria. A fourth section, Atmosphere, looks at buildings, in Mr. Forster's words, "as living organisms rather than fixed objects." The final section is given over to Hyper-Projects. The Musée des Confluences, designed by the Austrian firm of Coop-Himmelb(l)au, under construction outside Lyon, France, lives up to this name in both size and futuristic shape.
In most cases, though, the architectural models struggle to convey either the scale or the context of unrealized projects. Some simply resemble beautiful sculptures.
Inevitably, then, words are used to explain buildings and ideas. But all too often, the language is obscure. On a wall in Brazil's pavilion: "The conscious architecture is not defined by the social profile of its user, but by the ethical-social praxis of the architect." And in Belgium's pavilion: "The physical body, with its specific rhythms, thus determines the rhythms of the city's social body and generates the relational networks through which the urban space is shaped."
--
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Exploring Design as Metamorphosis
Armin Hess
Coop-Himmelb(l)au's Musée des Confluences in Lyon, France, one of the Hyper-Project exhibits in Venice.
By ALAN RIDING
Published: September 15, 2004
ENICE, Sept. 13 - It is fortunate that many people seem naturally drawn to architectural models because, without them, the ninth Venice Architecture Biennale would be reduced to photographs, drawings, videos and words. But even stunning handmade computer-designed models point to a problem with architectural exhibitions. They cannot show what architecture is really about - buildings and the contexts in which they are placed.
Still, after two days reserved for professionals and reporters, the doors of this year's biennale opened on Sunday to crowds of enthusiasts curious to share some of the buzz created over the past decade by a score or more of big name international architects, including Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas and Jean Nouvel. is probably more widely accepted today than in recent memory.
For Kurt W. Forster, a Swiss-born academic who is director of the architecture biennale, the sprawling show's main purpose is to reach a broader public. He is hoping for as many as 120,000 visitors before it closes on Nov. 7. And many leading professionals were also on hand including Mr. Libeskind, Zaha Hadid, Christian de Portzamparc and Peter Eisenman, who was awarded a Golden Lion for his lifetime achievements.
To turn a vast array of design into a manageable exhibition, Mr. Forster had two large spaces to work with: the immense galleries of the former medieval shipyard known as the Arsenale; and the Art Deco Italian Pavilion in the Gardens of the Biennale at the eastern end of Venice's main island.
But he also had help. Thirty-three countries have their own exhibitions, most of them in permanent national pavilions used in alternate years for the Venice Biennale art show. Limited by space, these architecture shows often focus more on an idea than on individual practitioners.
For instance, Belgium, which won the Golden Lion for best pavilion, used photographs and videos to explore the Congolese capital of Kinshasa as "the imaginary city."
Mr. Forster's main challenge, though, was to create a conceptual framework into which he could place some of the world's best designs and experiments. He therefore chose to name this biennale "Metamorph." In his view, the name highlights changes in architecture which, he said, "have taken on such breadth and depth as to suggest the advent of a new era."
For "Metamorph," the Arsenale was divided into five sections, each trying to make sense of the hundreds of models filling the 250-yard-long space. The first, Transformations, dwells on modernizations (some realized, some not) of existing buildings and structures.
Topography, the second section, illustrates the new possibilities of the use of computer technology to create designs that confront distinct geological or historical features. Many models show buildings and structures with sensual folded and curving surfaces that may never be built. Still, one that seemingly grows out of a hillside's topography is Mr. Eisenman's City of Galician Culture, and it is now under construction in Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.
A third section, Surfaces, explores not only shapes but also the new materials being used to cover buildings, as illustrated here by the Acconci Studio's artificial Mur Island in Graz, Austria. A fourth section, Atmosphere, looks at buildings, in Mr. Forster's words, "as living organisms rather than fixed objects." The final section is given over to Hyper-Projects. The Musée des Confluences, designed by the Austrian firm of Coop-Himmelb(l)au, under construction outside Lyon, France, lives up to this name in both size and futuristic shape.
In most cases, though, the architectural models struggle to convey either the scale or the context of unrealized projects. Some simply resemble beautiful sculptures.
Inevitably, then, words are used to explain buildings and ideas. But all too often, the language is obscure. On a wall in Brazil's pavilion: "The conscious architecture is not defined by the social profile of its user, but by the ethical-social praxis of the architect." And in Belgium's pavilion: "The physical body, with its specific rhythms, thus determines the rhythms of the city's social body and generates the relational networks through which the urban space is shaped."
--
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