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COMMON DIENER & DIENER ARCHITECTS The National Pavilions in the Giardini in Essays and Photographs

PaviliONS WiTH GaBRiElE BaSiliCO 13th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale 2012

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ROGER DiENER, COMMON PaviliONS MONiCa BONviCiNi, iTaliaN PaviliON BaRT vERSCHaFFEl, BElGiaN PaviliON JÖRG HaSPEl, GERMaN PaviliON PETER COOK, BRiTiSH PaviliON aNDRÁS PÁlFFY, HUNGaRiaN PaviliON JEaN-lOUiS COHEN, FRENCH PaviliON alEXaNDER BRODSKY, RUSSiaN PaviliON EDUaRD BRU i BiSTUER, SPaNiSH PaviliON HENRiETa MORavCÍKOvÁ, CZECH aND SlOvaK PaviliON viTO aCCONCi, US PaviliON TaREK WalY, EGYPTiaN PaviliON MiliCa TOPalOviC, SERBiaN PaviliON aDaM SZYMCZYK & MONiKa SOSNOWSKa, POliSH PaviliON BOGDaN GHiU, ROMaNiaN PaviliON CaRSTEN THaU, DaNiSH PaviliON HERMaNN CZECH, aUSTRiaN PaviliON ZiSSiS KOTiONiS & Elia ZENGHEliS, GREEK PaviliON MaRCEl MEili, SWiSS PaviliON aMOS & BEN GiTai, iSRaEli PaviliON HERMaN HERTZBERGER, DUTCH PaviliON HENRY viCENTE, vENEZUElaN PaviliON JUHaNi PallaSMaa, FiNNiSH PaviliON TaRO iGaRaSHi, JaPaNESE PaviliON DiNU BUMBaRU, CaNaDiaN PaviliON MaRCElO DaNZa, URUGUaYaN PaviliON aRNFiNN BØ-RYGG, NORDiC PaviliON REGiNa SilvEiRa, BRaZiliaN PaviliON PETER STUTCHBURY, aUSTRaliaN PaviliON MaRTiN STEiNMaNN, BOOK PaviliON HYUNGMiN Pai, KOREaN PaviliON BiOGRaPHiES FlOOR PlaNS DiENER & DiENER, THE COMMON PaviliONS EXHiBiTiON

ITALIAN PAVILION 1895

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PADIgLIONe ITALIANO

1895, 1914, 1932, 1952, 1977

MONICA BONVICINI

eNRICO TReVISANATO, MARIUS De MARIA e BARTHOLOMeO BeZZI, gUIDO CIRILLI, DUILIO TORReS, CARLO SCARPA, VALeRIANO PASTOR

TRe O QUATTRO PAROLe Mi è stato chiesto di scrivere sul Padiglione Italia ai Giardini della Biennale. Il Padiglione in questione è stato a volte utilizzato per presentare gli artisti italiani alla Biennale, ma non sempre, non soprattutto e sicuramente non più.

Il Padiglione Italia si trova alla fine delle Corderie dell’Arsenale.

Nel 1999 ho vinto, insieme a quattro altre signore, il Leone d’Oro per la migliore partecipazione nazionale alla Biennale d’Arte. La 48. Biennale era curata da Harald Szeemann, che aveva cercato invano di rimuovere le rappresentanze nazionali dai rispettivi padiglioni. L’unico caso in cui aveva avuto successo, e l’unico caso del quale era direttamente responsabile, era quello del “padiglione italiano” che non “risiedeva” nella struttura del Padiglione Italia. Il mio lavoro per esempio era installato all’Arsenale. Una telefonata la mattina stessa della consegna del premio mi ha svegliato mentre ero in albergo. Ricordo di aver subito chiamato Rosa Martinez, che era nella commissione, dicendole che non sarei andata alla cerimonia ecc...

Rosa Martinez è riuscita a convincermi e un paio di ore dopo sono salita sul palco per ricevere il premio. Il bel Leone d’Oro, in una scatola rivestita all’interno di velluto rosso. La mia proposta di affettare il premio in cinque pezzi – di cui io molto volentieri mi sarei tenuta “il di dietro con la coda”– non è stata ascoltata. Dove sia finito il Leone d’Oro per l’Italia del 1999 non lo so.

ITALIAN PAVILION 1895, 1914, 1932, 1952, 1977

MONICA BONVICINI

ENRICO TREVISANATO, MARIUS DE MARIA E BARTHOLOMEO BEZZI, GUIDO CIRILLI, DUILIO TORRES, CARLO SCARPA, VALERIANO PASTOR

THREE OR FOUR WORDS I have been asked to write about the Italian Pavilion in the gardens of the Venice Biennial, a structure sometimes used to present Italian artists at the event but not always, not primarily, and certainly no longer.

The Italian Pavilion is located at the end of the Corderie dell’Arsenale.

In 1999 I, together with four other women, was awarded the Golden Lion for the best national participation in the Art Biennial. The curator was Harald Szeemann, who had attempted in vain to separate the national representatives from their respective pavilions. The only case in which this happened, and the only one for which he was directly responsible, was that of the Italian Pavilion, which was not located in the structure of the pavilion itself. My own work, for example, was installed at the Arsenale. I was woken up in the hotel by a telephone call on the very morning the prize was to be awarded. I remember phoning Rosa Martinez, a member of the committee, immediately to say that I would be unable to attend ceremony and so on.

She managed to talk me into going, and a couple of hours later I went up onto the stage to receive the award, a splendid Golden Lion in a box lined with red velvet. My suggestion to cut it up into five pieces—of which I would have gladly kept the tail and hindquarters for myself—fell on deaf ears. I have no idea where the 1999 Golden Lion for Italy ended up.

BRITISH PAVILION 1909

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BRITISH PAVILION

1909

PETER COOK

EDWIN ALFRED RICKARDS

ON THE VERANDAH It is said that dogs grow like their masters and that human couples—if they are together long enough—develop common characteristics and even start to look alike. My hunch is that this has happened, over the many years, to the British Pavilion in the Giardini.

Of course, there is its position: At the end of the rather stony path that leads up to the right as you enter the gardens, past the enduring magic of Sverre Fehn’s Scandinavian Pavilion, past the provocations that are usually to be found in the Japanese and Korean Pavilions, up with a slightly steeper last gasp and you arrive on the mound upon which sit the three old men of Europe.

Surely it was a decision of some cynical brilliance that placed the French, the Germans, and the British together. All three pleased with themselves, pleased with their assumption of cultural superiority—despite the more exciting or epoch-making displays that may come—one year or another from a Holland or a Hungary or an Australia or a wherever.

On close inspection of the mound, one discovers there is even a newer, fourth inhabitant— Canada, slyly tucked in between Britain and Germany, unglamorous but with quite often brilliant contents.

We should already be alerted by the basic treatment of Neo-classicism seen in the three old buildings: If the French is correct, the German more spacious but more pompous, it is the British one that is casual in its use of the parti. The main feature (always much in use) is actually the verandah. Perhaps it was this that appealed to the cultural “wallahs” of the Empire who said, “OK, it’s a deal” when offered this former tea-house. Perhaps it resonated in the same manner as some hill-station up from Bombay, its verandah doing nicely for a gin and tonic away from the chattering foreigners.

The other appealing feature might well have been the ground floor. Dark and low, it is rarely used for exhibition purposes but comes into its own for those chicken-drumstick-andwine occasions (which I notice also attract many punters with no visible connection with the British) on preview days. At other times this floor provides a blessed opportunity to escape or a discreet gossip.

But what of the main rooms? They offer a challenge to the designer and a leveling imposition upon the exhibitor, who can never in this pavilion really do anything that big or that sequential.

Like the family dog again, this space is not a hunter, or a show-animal, it has no tremulous bark but rather is friendly, cuddly, and open to gentle abuse. So, some of us have tarted it up with big sloshes of colour (the Brits always take the view that “If in doubt, how about some colour?”).

On occasion non-Brits representing Britain have blacked it out. The cool have whitened it out: But then the almost domestic friendliness of it bites back.

Coming from the seaside, I wrapped a large part of it behind a jazzy drape—as we might well do in Blackpool or Brighton. We put deckchairs… on the verandah. ( Where else?) We grew tomatoes in the conservatory at the rear. ( Why not?)

The part of the building that appeals to a certain instinct of the more romantic, more contemplative British person, the conservatory, has a veiled outlook toward a little local canal and some unremarkable plantation; facing away from the main business of the Biennale, it seems the place to be, still perhaps flummoxed by the intensity of the sun or, in autumn, charmed by the mist.

EGYPTIAN PAVILION 1932

97

EGYPTIAN PAVILION

1932

TAREK WALY

BRENNO DEL GIUDICE

ARCHITECTURAL CULTURE AN EGYPTIAN EXPERIENCE...

Human ability to build cognitively in the imagination surpasses the physical existence of space itself. Human awareness goes beyond the limitations of a certain space at a precise moment; the birth of architecture’s spatial configuration changes depending on variability within notions such as human perception and human interactions. The constant factor remains not what is tangibly perceived by our senses, but what lies within the orders that dictate the dynamics of the variables in a space. The geometrical order is the constant that ensures the rejuvenation of a certain space with the passing of time. Vision consequently changes for various reasons with the progression of time and occurrence of events; there are even alterations in people’s psychological states, or the recipients of the architectural message of a space. There might be unique personal interpretations, but the essence contains the common collectiveness of a person’s existence. Thus, such variation in vision allows endless chances for recreating what is physically materialized and yet constantly regenerative at each new creative experience. This is the prime notion that has been manifested in the successive rounds of the Biennale; forming a space that carries a dialogue between cultures with different backgrounds that converge or contradict in appearance but always interacts on a shared ground. The Biennale in this framework, with the inclusion of such cultural messages, provides a new, unique spatial experience with each session.