Biennale Architettura 2023 - The Laboratory of the Future - English Catalogue by La Biennale di Venezia

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Nkrumah Flats, Lartebiorkorshie, Accra AFI Workshop 6, Accra Festus Jackson-Davis 2022 Page 1

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Porto Novo, Benin Men guiding a Zangbeto (‘guardian of the night’ spirit in Vodun culture) Eric Lafforgue / Alamy

Ridge Towers, AFI Workshop 6, Accra Alice Clancy 2022 Page 2—3 Nkrumah Flats, Lartebiorkorshie, Accra AFI Workshop 6, Accra Festus Jackson-Davis 2022 Pages 4—5

“There is always something new out of Africa.” — Pliny the Elder

Biennale Architettura 2023

The Laboratory of the Future

Exhibition

La Biennale di Venezia

La Biennale di Venezia President Roberto Cicutto Board Luigi Brugnaro Vice President Claudia Ferrazzi Luca Zaia Auditor’s Committee Pasqualino Castaldi President Ines Gandini Angelo Napolitano Director General Andrea Del Mercato Artistic Director of the Architecture Department Lesley Lokko

La Biennale di Venezia Director General — Andrea Del Mercato Editorial Activities And Web

Organisational Structure

Head — Flavia Fossa Margutti

Central Services

18th International Architecture Exhibition Curator of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition — Lesley Lokko Artistic and Editorial Organiser — Emmett Scanlon Assistant to the Curator, Special Projects and Biennale College — Alice Clancy Assistant to the Curator, Exhibition Design — Laurence Lord Assistant to the Curator — Sarah de Villiers Visual Identity — Fred Swart Curator’s Research Team — Nana Biamah-Ofosu Charlotte Bird Sarah de Villiers Sarah Harding Lois Innes Nzinga Biegueng Mboup Olasumbo Olaniyi Ruth-Anne Naa Aku Sika Richardson Isaac Nanabeyin Simpson AFI Team — Festus Jackson-Davis Kofi Abankwa Kwabena Akosa Sara Asafu-Adjaye Dominic Daly Ernest Donkor Emily Jones Ruth Wade Kwakwa Naadira Patel Francesca Perry Anthony Wortsem

Legal and Institutional Affairs, Human Resources And Deputy

— Giovanni Alberti Roberta Fontanin Nicola Monaco Maddalena Pietragnoli Cristiana Scavone

Director — Debora Rossi Legal and Institutional Affairs — Martina Ballarin Francesca Oddi Lucrezia Stocco Human Resources — Graziano Carrer Luca Carta Giovanni Drudi Antonella Sfriso Alessia Viviani Rossella Zulian

Secretariats General Secretariat — Chiara Arisi Caterina Boniollo Maria Cristina Cinti Elisabetta Mistri Protocol Office — Francesca Boglietti Lara De Bellis Marta Isman Veronica Zuanel

Administration, Finance, Management Supervision and Sponsorship, Promotion

Biennale College Secretariat — Claudia Capodiferro Giacinta Maria Dalla Pietà

Director — Valentina Borsato

Institutional and Cinema Press Office

Administration, Finance, Management Supervision — Bruna Gabbiato Elia Canal Marco Caruso Martina Fiori Gregorio Granati Elisa Meggiato Emanuela Pellicciolli Cristina Sartorel Sefora Tarì Sara Vianello Sponsorship — Caterina De Marco Paola Pavan Promotion — Caterina Castellani Serena Cutrone Lucia De Manincor Elisabetta Fiorese Stefania Guglielmo Laura Gravina Emanuela Padoan Marta Plevani

Head — Paolo Lughi — Cesare Bisantis Francesca Buccaro Michela Lazzarin

Technical and Logistical Services Director — Cristiano Frizzele Exhibition Design, Events and Live Performance — Massimiliano Bigarello Cinzia Bernardi Maria Sol Buso Alessandra Durand de la Penne Jessica Giassi Valentina Malossi Sandra Montagner Facility Management — Giulio Cantagalli Piero Novello Maurizio Urso Information Technology — Andrea Bonaldo Michele Schiavon Leonardo Viale Jacopo Zanchi Purchasing, Procurement and Assets

Special Projects, Promotion Of Venues

Director — Fabio Pacifico

Director — Arianna Laurenzi

Purchasing and Procurement — Silvia Gatto Silvia Bruni Angelica Ciabocchi Eleonora Cialini

Special Projects — Valentina Baldessari Francesco Carabba Davide Ferrante Antonino Frenda Carolina Fullin Elisabetta Parmesan Promotion of Venues — Nicola Bon Cristina Graziussi Alessia Rosada

Hospitality — Linda Baldan Jasna Zoranovic Donato Zotta Assets — Maurizio Celoni Antonio Fantinelli

Visual Arts Architecture Department Executive / Head of Organization — Joern Rudolf Brandmeyer — Marina Bertaggia Emilia Bonomi Raffaele Cinotti Stefania Fabris Stefania Guerra Francesca Aloisia Montorio Luigi Ricciari Micol Saleri Ilaria Zanella Visual Arts Architecture Press Office Head — Maria Cristiana Costanzo — Claudia Gioia Collaborators for 18th International Architecture Exhibition — Anna Albano Andrea Avezzù Giovanni Bergamo Valentina Campana Antonella Campisi Elena Cattaneo Riccardo Cavallaro Gerardo Ernesto Cejas Marzia Cervellin Francesco di Cesare Francesca Dolzani Andrea Ferialdi Fabrizia Ferragina Giulia Gasparato Matteo Giannasi Manuela Luca’ Dazio Ornella Mogno Daniele Paolo Mulas Luca Racchini Valeria Romagnini Solfato Elisa Santoro Marco Tosato Lucia Toso Francesco Zanon Alessandro Zorzetto

Cinema Department Director General — Andrea Del Mercato Secretariat — Mariachiara Manci Alessandro Mezzalira Venice International Film Festival Programming Office — Piera Benedetti Giulia Erica Hornbostel Silvia Menegazzi Daniela Persi Venice Production Bridge — Chiara Marin Industry/Cinema Accreditation — Ilaria Cicconi Flavia Lo Mastro Biennale College Cinema — Valentina Bellomo

Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts Dance, Music, Theatre, Department Executive / Head of Organization — Francesca Benvenuti Secretariat — Veronica Mozzetti Monterumici Programming and Production — Michela Mason Federica Colella Maya Romanelli Dance, Music, Theatre, Press Office Head — Emanuela Caldirola — Ilaria Grando

Executive / Head of Organization — Debora Rossi Historical Archives — Maria Elena Cazzaro Giovanna Bottaro Michela Campagnolo Marianna Carpentieri Lia Durante Marica Gallina Helga Greggio Judith Kranitz Silvia Levorato Michele Mangione Manuela Momentè Adriana Rosaria Scalise Alice Scandiuzzi Library — Valentina Da Tos Valentina Greggio Elena Oselladore 13

As part of its Perpetual Arts Initiative, a broad portfolio of arts that extends through music, architecture, cinema and the Rolex mentoring programme, Rolex is proud to support the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, for the fifth time since 2014 as Exclusive Partner and Official Timepiece. In supporting artistic excellence and the transmission of knowledge to future generations, Rolex is making a lasting contribution to culture worldwide.

Media Partner

Thanks to: Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

We would like to thank the following donors for their generosity in supporting our Exhibition Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte Drees & Sommer UniFor

Demas Nwoko

Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

“Honorary degrees and lifetime achievement awards are very encouraging. I know that it might sound strange that a writer who has published many books still needs encouragement, but this is true”. — Joyce Carol Oates

One of the central themes of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia is an approach to architecture as an ‘expanded’ field of endeavours, encompassing both the material and immaterial worlds; a space in which ideas are as important as artefacts, particularly in the service of what is yet to come. With all of its emphasis on the future, however, it seems entirely fitting that the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement should be awarded to someone whose material works span the past 70 years, but whose immaterial legacy – approach, ideas, ethos – is still in the process of being evaluated, understood and celebrated. Baba (a Nigerian honorific title) Demas Nwoko is everything all at once: an architect, sculptor, designer, writer, set designer, critic and historian. When pushed, he refers to himself as an “artist-designer”, which speaks both to the polyglot nature of his talents and oeuvres, and to the rather narrow interpretation of the word ‘architect’ that has arguably kept his name out of the annals. The son of a traditional Obi (ruler), he was born in 1935 in IdumujeUgboko, southern Nigeria. His early forays into painting, drawing and carving at secondary school in Benin City pushed him to apply for a place to study

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Demas Nwoko, photographed in July 2022 at a hand-built drawing table in his home and studio in Idumuje-Ugboko, Nigeria. Andrew Esiebo Page 21

architecture at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology in Zaria. However, his discovery that the course focused more on technical drawing skills than the creative imagination prompted him to change tack, applying instead to study fine art. He was a founder member of the Zaria Art Society – a group that included Yusuf Grillo, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Uche Okeke and Simon Okeke, also known as the ‘Zaria Rebels’ – who were interested in a blend of modernity and African aesthetics as an authentic language to reflect the spirit of political independence growing in the 1940s and 1950s. This profound desire to blend and synthesise, rather than sweep away, has characterised Nwoko’s work for over five decades. He was one of the first Nigerian makers of space and form to critique Nigeria’s reliance on the West for imported materials and goods, as well as ideas, and has remained committed to using local resources. In a Wallpaper* article published in 2022, he says: “If we had kept faith with how our own ancestors did it, we would have reached a certain level with sensible management of natural resources for even the Western world to learn from. They’re using far too much energy for whatever they’re achieving.” Words to live and build by.

Although relatively few in number, Nwoko’s buildings in Nigeria fulfil two critical roles. They are forerunners of the sustainable, resource-mindful and culturally authentic forms of expression now sweeping across the African continent – and the globe – and they point towards the future, no mean achievement for someone whose work is still largely unknown, even at home. In 1977, writing about Nwoko’s first commission, to build the complex for the Dominican Institute in Ibadan, the architectural critic Noel Moffett wrote: “Here, under a tropical sun, architecture and sculpture combine in a way which only Gaudí perhaps, among architects, has been able to do so convincingly.” It gives me enormous pride and pleasure to award the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Baba Demas Nwoko, an architect of both the 20th and 21st centuries, and to encourage all visitors to the 18th International Architecture Exhibition to visit a small but perfectly formed and articulated display of his work in the Stirling Pavilion in the Giardini, alongside the Book Pavilion Project of The Laboratory of the Future. Lesley Lokko Curator

18th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia

The International Jury:

Nora Akawi Thelma Golden Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli Tau Tavengwa Izabela Wieczorek

Contents

Biennale Architettura 2023 Exhibition

30 Introduction Roberto Cicutto 40 Agents of Change Lesley Lokko 28

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AFI Workshop 6, Accra Festus Jackson-Davis 2022 Page 26 — 27

66 Force Majeure 120 Dangerous Liaisons 222 Curator’s Special Projects 270 Special Participations 288 Guests from the Future 356 Carnival 414 Acknowledgements 378 Biennale College 418 Participant Architettura Biographies 396 Archive of the Future and Credits 29

Introduction

Roberto Cicutto President of La Biennale di Venezia

The main responsibility for a President of La Biennale di Venezia is certainly the task, entrusted to him by the Foundation’s Statute, of choosing the Artistic Directors to be proposed for approval by the Board of Directors. This is why I try to explain (at least as far as I am concerned) what to expect during the process of the construction of an Architecture Exhibition and the various routes that lead to the choice of the Curator. 30

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My own formative moment was my experience with the 2021 and 2022 International Architecture and Art Exhibitions, both encumbered by the Covid pandemic, which presented additional difficulties and the need to make important decisions due to the uncertainty of whether they would ever be brought to fruition. The relationship of the President and the institution with the Curator is therefore essential for things to work out for the best. This is why I think that in choosing the Curator, after having interviewed and evaluated various possible candidates, trust and mutual understanding must prevail. The creative and productive autonomy of the Artistic Directors is all-embracing (this applies just as much to Architecture as it does to all the other disciplines of La Biennale). Once an Artistic Director has been confirmed and the title of the exhibition has been determined, their research is unfettered, just as there are no limitations on the installations the Artistic Director has decided to present. The Curator of the exhibition must therefore be certain they are able to act freely in terms of artistic choices. This trust is guaranteed thanks to the extraordinary professionalism taken into account at the time of the Curator’s appointment. 31

The other important aspect to keep in mind is how the previous exhibition was received by the different spectators who visited it: professionals in the field, the national and international press, general visitors, and the world of education. All this leads to a fusion that determines the perception with which the exhibition will be remembered. The ensuing exhibition must maintain a sense of evolutionary continuity or, on the contrary, of discontinuity. A decision that cannot ignore the many instances of the period in which an exhibition is produced, to support them or perhaps in part to oppose them. Very often, the exhibition is divided into sections that correspond to a theme. The sections determined by Lesley Lokko are Force Majeure, Dangerous Liaisons, Curator’s Special Projects, Special Participations, Guests from the Future, and Carnival. The sections (Scales/Scale) of Hashim Sarkis’s 2021 exhibition, titled How Will We Live Together?, were Among Diverse Beings, As New Households, As Emerging Communities, Across Borders, As One Planet, and Forte Marghera – How Will We Play Together? By simply looking at these two approaches, you can appreciate how the last two La Biennale editions have ‘crossed over’ from the science of building to observe the contents to which that science should refer. 32

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There were many concrete examples of architecture in the Sarkis exhibition, just as there will be concrete examples of architecture in the Lokko exhibition. Nevertheless, both have tried to provide an answer, first of all to themselves and to others, to the question of what the aim and purpose ought to be of contemporary architecture, which often positions the object in real contexts, thus demonstrating unparalleled problems and indispensable changes in the way of life of all the beings that inhabit our planet. I am convinced that this attitude not only responds to statements of principle or ideological positions but also fills a void: to give an even more complete sense to the work of the architect (or as Lesley Lokko prefers to say, of the ‘practitioner’), placing it within a complex 360-degree vision because of the huge impact it has in the life of billions of living beings (obviously, I am also including animals and plants here). In the many interviews and meetings with professionals in the field, before arriving at the final choice of who was to curate this Biennale Architettura, I became keenly aware of the tasks assigned to this discipline. Can an institution like La Biennale di Venezia, which makes research its fulcrum and is itself increasingly a laboratory that elaborates contents provided by its artistic directions, disregard this evolution? 33

Visual Arts, Cinema, Dance, Music, and Theatre already do. Can Architecture not do so, which of all the arts is the one that can most assuredly be defined as an ‘applied art’? After the press conference at which the project for the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, The Laboratory of the Future, was presented, there has been a flurry of articles in the national and international press. Many of these speak favourably of the Curator’s approach and have praised the visibility given to the African continent and the reasons for this choice. Others (a minority, if truth be told) have raised the question of whether this concept of the exhibition also responds to the needs of those who want to see concrete achievements and judge the beauty or lack thereof of the buildings; they have asked whether it answered, in essence, the question of “what will tomorrow’s buildings be like?”. At the time of writing, there are only a few weeks left before the opening of the exhibition, and everything that is still now a mere hypothesis will inevitably become part of the history of La Biennale and therefore the history of architecture, a heritage for all those who want to delve deeper into its contents. I would like to thank Lesley Lokko for having taken yet another step in this ‘investigation’ of architecture, for revealing the inordinate number of flaws that still surround us in today’s world, for completing a story that starts with concrete 34

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experiences lived in a continent we all speak about, but which in the final analysis we do not know or understand. A continent that has already experienced many of the critical issues affecting us all today. We would also like to thank all the participating countries and the new National Participations. We also thank the Italian Ministry of Culture, the local territorial institutions that support La Biennale in various ways, the City of Venice, the Veneto Region, the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape for the Municipality of Venice and its Lagoon, and the Italian Navy. Our thanks go to Rolex, Partner and Official Watch of the event, and to the Sponsors Bloomberg Philanthropies with Bloomberg Connects, and Vela– Venezia Unica. We also thank the Donors and the international bodies and institutions without whom Biennale Architettura 2023 would not be possible. In particular, our thanks go to Lesley Lokko and her entire team. Finally, a big thank you goes to all those of the Biennale who have shown great professionalism along with great dedication to the production and administration of this exhibition. Roberto Cicutto

President of La Biennale di Venezia 35

“There is never a time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.” — James Baldwin

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View from Ridge Towers, Central Accra AFI Workshop 6, Accra Alice Clancy 2022 Page 38 — 39

Agents of Change

Lesley Lokko

What does it mean to be ‘an agent of change’? The question has shadowed the gestation period of The Laboratory of the Future, acting as both counterfoil and lifeforce to the exhibition as it has unfolded in the mind’s eye, where it now hovers, almost at the moment of its birth. Over the past nine months, in hundreds of conversations, text messages, Zoom calls and meetings, the question of whether exhibitions of this scale are justified – both in terms of carbon and cost – has surfaced time and again. In May last year, I referred to the exhibition several times as ‘a story’, a narrative unfolding in space. Today, my understanding has changed. An architecture exhibition is both a moment and a process. It borrows its structure and format from art exhibitions, but it differs from art in critical ways which often go unnoticed. Aside from the desire to tell a story, questions of production, resources and representation 40

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are central to the way an architecture exhibition comes into the world, yet are rarely acknowledged or discussed. From the outset, it was clear that the essential gesture of The Laboratory of the Future would be ‘change’. In those same discussions that sought to justify the exhibition’s existence were difficult and often emotional conversations to do with resources, rights, and risk. For the first time ever, the spotlight has fallen on Africa and the African diaspora, that fluid and enmeshed culture of people of African descent that now straddles the globe. What do we wish to say? How will what we say change anything? And, perhaps most importantly of all, how will what we say interact with and infuse what ‘others’ say, so that the exhibition is not a single story, but multiple stories that reflect the vexing, gorgeous kaleidoscope of ideas, contexts, aspirations, and meanings that is every voice responding to the issues of its time? 41

It is often said that culture is the sum total of the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves. Whilst it is true, what is missing in the statement is any acknowledgement of who the ‘we’ in question is. In architecture particularly, the dominant voice has historically been a singular, exclusive voice, whose reach and power ignores huge swathes of humanity – financially, creatively, conceptually – as though we have been listening and speaking in one tongue only. The ‘story’ of architecture is therefore incomplete. Not wrong, but incomplete. It is in this context particularly that exhibitions matter. They are a unique moment in which to augment, change, or re-tell a story, whose audience and impact is felt far beyond the physical walls and spaces that hold it. What we say publicly matters, because it is the ground on which change is built, in tiny increments as well as giant leaps. The Laboratory of the Future is not didactic. It does not confirm directions, offer solutions, or deliver lessons. Instead, it is intended as a kind of rupture, an agent of change, where the exchange between participant, exhibit and visitor is not passive or predetermined. The exchange is intended as reciprocal, glorious and unpredictable in form, with each participant transformed by the encounter, and emboldened to go forward into another future. 42

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The Curator wishes to thank Darren Walker, President, Ford Foundation ROLEX Bloomberg Philanthropies for their generous support in realising critical parts of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition 43

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Rooftops in Somanya, Eastern Region, Ghana Festus Jackson-Davis 2022 Page 46 — 47

“Cartography is not passive, not merely a visual observation of the world. It is active. It has the power to shape the world too. Whether as instruments of conquest or resistance, maps transform culture. We have been taught to understand countries as if they were fixed, unchanging and eternal, and we have been taught to define ourselves in the same way. But countries disappear (Yugoslavia), appear (South Sudan), appear and then quickly disappear (United Arab Republic). Some are even younger than I am (Somalia).” — Isaac Nanabeyin Simpson

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World Watersheds, ‘Style M’, with Un-Interrupted (!) Oceanographics Chuck Clark 2000, 2023

The Laboratory of the Future

Giardini Central Pavilion

Exhibition Venues

Forte Marghera Arsenale Corderie and Artiglierie

Venice

1 2 3 50

Giardini Central Pavilion Arsenale Corderie and Artiglierie Forte Marghera Biennale Architettura 2023

Giardini

1. 2.

Central Pavilion Book Pavilion Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Demas Nwoko Biennale Architettura 2023

Central Pavilion

Force Majeure 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Adjaye Associates atelier masōmī BASIS with GKZ Cave_bureau Hood Design Studio Ibrahim Mahama Kéré Architecture Koffi & Diabaté Architectes MASS Design Group Olalekan Jeyifous SOFTLAB@PSU Studio Sean Canty Sumayya Vally & Moad Musbahi Thandi Loewenson Theaster Gates Studio urban american city (urbanAC)

Curator’s Special Projects Guests from the Future 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

Ainslee Alem Robson Banga Colectivo Blac Space Cartografia Negra Courage Dzidula Kpodo with Postbox Ghana Faber Futures Folasade Okunribido New South Riff Studio Tanoa Sasraku

Curator’s Rooms 27. 28. 29. 30.

Archive of the Future Loom Portico Shade Biennale Architettura 2023

15 8 23

20 21 5

18 28

7 Design

1 2

22 4 11

Arsenale

1. 2. 3.

Adjaye Associates / Force Majeure Studio of Serge Attukwei Clottey / Dangerous Liaisons Sumayya Vally & Moad Musbahi / Force Majeure Biennale Architettura 2023

3 2 1

3 3

Corderie and Artiglierie

58 64

32 50 32 30 28

33 32

29 14

23 23 58 10 10

31 31

60 2

13 13

57 57

21 21

34 34

2727

53 12 12

Dangerous Liaisons 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

AD—WO AMAA Collaborative Architecture Office for Research and Development Andrés Jaque/Office for Political Innovation Paulo Tavares/autonoma BDR Bureau and carton123 architecten DAAR — Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal David Wengrow and Eyal Weizman with Forensic Architecture and The Nebelivka Project Dream The Combine Dualchas Architects Estudio A0 Flores & Prats Architects Gbolade Design Studio Gloria Cabral and Sammy Baloji with Cécile Fromont

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28.

GRANDEZA STUDIO Huda Tayob kate otten architects Killing Architects Le laboratoire d’architecture Liam Young Low Design Office MMA Design Studio Neri&Hu Design and Research Office Office 24-7 and Lemon Pebble Architects orizzontale Rahul Mehrotra with Ranjit Hoskote SCAPE Landscape Architecture Stephanie Hankey, Michael Uwemedimo and Jordan Weber Studio Barnes

29. 30. 31. 32 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

Studio of Serge Attukwei Clottey Suzanne Dhaliwal Sweet Water Foundation The Funambulist Twenty Nine Studio Ursula Biemann White Arkitekter Wolff Architects ZAO/standardarchitecture Biennale Architettura 2023

54 36 50 63

1818 5 36 50 17 4

54 6 0

40 38

44 43 41

45 46

55 65

24 9

50 6

62 35

49 5

Guests from the Future

Curators Special Projects:

38. 39. 40.

41.

42. 43. 44.

Food, Agriculture & Climate Change BothAnd Group Gloria Pavita Margarida Waco Gender & Geography Caroline Wanjiku Kihato, Clare Loveday and Mareli Stolp in collaboration with Sedinam Awo Tsegah Gugulethu Sibonelelo Mthembu Ines Weizman J. Yolande Daniels

45.

46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51.

Mnemonic Adjaye Associates with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art Craig McClenaghan Architecture Looty Mabel O. Wilson, J. Meejin Yoon and Eric Höweler in collaboration with Josh Begley and Gene Han Special Participations Amos Gitaï James Morris Rhael ‘LionHeart’ Cape

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

Anusha Alamgir Arinjoy Sen Aziza Chaouni Projects Black Females in Architecture Dele Adeyemo Elementerre with Nzinga Biegueng Mboup and Chérif Tall Ibiye Camp Juergen Strohmayer and Glenn DeRoché Lauren-Loïs Duah Miriam Hillawi Abraham Moe+ Art Architecture Rashid Ali Architects

Curator’s Rooms 64. 65.

Portico Square 59

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Billboard along the George W. Bush Highway, Accra, Ghana Festus Jackson-Davis 2022

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Billboard along the George W. Bush Highway, Accra, Ghana Festus Jackson-Davis 2022

Force Majeure

Biennale Architettura 2023

atelier masōmī Cave_bureau Ibrahim Mahama Koffi & Diabaté Architectes Olalekan Jeyifous Studio Sean Canty Thandi Loewenson urban american city (urbanAC) Force Majeure

Adjaye Associates Basis with GKZ Hood Design Studio Kéré Architecture MASS Design Group SOFTLAB@PSU Sumayya Vally and Moad Musbahi Theaster Gates Studio 67

Excerpt from the Curator’s Letter of Consideration

issued 27 June, 2022

Irresistible: it seems an apt description of the sixteen participants included in the Central Pavilion. The field of participants is by no means exhaustive: it is a source of pleasure and delight to grasp its everexpanding nature in times of such uncertainty and fear. 68

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You are conceived of as a cultural and social ‘force majeure’, and the intention is that your contribution will be shown in the heart of the Giardini where some twenty-nine national pavilions are housed. I propose that the Central Pavilion is a collection of individual works, actions, trajectories, and distinctions, spatially and curatorially woven one into the other. Your work may be housed in one or more rooms; this will unfold as we work together over the coming months. The term ‘force majeure’ is a clause included in contracts to remove liability for the unforeseeable and unavoidable, usually framed as catastrophes. In some jurisdictions, there are three tests to determine whether the force majeure defense applies. The event must be unforeseeable, external, and irresistible. Questions about what is and what is not foreseeable in a legal sense have been raised recently, given the increased awareness of pandemics, climate change threats, social unrest.

“Force majeure: Irresistible compulsion.” — Oxford English Dictionary Force Majeure

Conditions of Scarcity Lagos

Tosin Oshinowo

Contemporary Africa has been affected by centuries of colonial exploitation and systematically devalued Indigenous cultural norms by Global North epistemologies. The 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were periods of intense activity: economies were formed, cities were developed and expanded, and the rural populations of most countries grew steadily. Cultural emancipation came with a promise of economic prosperity, a narrative that recast modernism as nationalism. Modernism offered a blank canvas and an opportunity to build a neo-equitable identity. It suppressed ethnic diversity in favour of new national identities, seen as necessary for those societies which emerged divided after colonial rule. This new so-called ‘Tropical Modernism’ also brought principles of climate-responsive design to the continent. The strong visual identity of tessellated breeze blocks, for example, allowed for natural air movement between sunny and shaded parts of the building to cool the structure and create privacy. 70

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These principles are fundamental to the use of concrete in the tropics but, like colonialist ideologies, it negated the value of culture to its context. The new architectural language worked across scales. In Lagos, Nigeria, the post-independence government in the 1960s embarked on ambitious rehousing programmes, taking people from the dilapidated slums in the heart of the city to a new housing district on the mainland. Surulere was built on modernist principles, with detached houses in cul-desacs, blocks of flats along wide streets, and support facilities. After its completion, the scheme, designed by Oluwole Olumuyiwa (the first Nigerian to be trained as an architect), was criticised for not considering Nigerians’ multiple ways of life and cultural habits. Modernism should have adapted to culture and not culture to modernism. Although climatically appropriate, projects such as Surulere were culturally disconnected. Like many similar schemes which failed to take existing cultural norms into account, these well-intended solutions have fallen into disrepair. Much of Africa has failed to live up to the promise of independence’s prosperity. Regional infrastructure development has continued to encourage rural-to-urban migration without upgrading city infrastructure to sustain this evolving densification. The postcolonial African city – a proposed model of progress – was crippled under the weight of the postcolonial state. Scarcity, once Force Majeure

regarded as a primarily pre-industrial condition, is now the basis of existence. In middle-class suburbs like Surulere, modernist cul-de-sacs have been converted to gated estates with controlled access for security reasons. Property fences are layered like age rings on a tree as heights have increased over time due to widening socioeconomic divides, keeping the rich in, and the poor out. Against the odds, in the 1980s and 1990s, innovation emerged from these conditions of scarcity. Olalekan Jeyifous’s Shanty Mega-Structures project is a futurist visual representation of this continued trajectory. The mega traffic jams of the mid-1990s turned streets into public markets, with street vendors offering frustrated commuters the convenience of purchasing practically everything from household items and mobile phone credit to live puppies from their car windows. Nifemi Marcus-Bello’s project, A Designer’s Utopia, has been cataloguing this collective contemporary knowledge of products brought about by socioeconomic conditions. From Banjul to Bujumbura, the story remains almost unchanged. Brought to the brink of collapse by inherited or adopted Western or Global North planning principles that simply didn’t work, African cities have slowly – somehow – managed to grow and thrive, largely because of ingenuity born out of these conditions of scarcity. This is where we learn the most valuable lessons from the African continent. 72

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Contemporary Africa’s challenges are not a threat, but an opportunity to rethink the premise that architecture can be imposed from top-down principles applied everywhere. Our traditions are collective knowledge born out of daily practice, resolve, and innovation. The architect’s response to a site cannot just be a solution: it has to be a nuanced understanding of the environment, culture, and context that informs design. Africa isn’t catching up with modernism – modernism is catching up with us. As the rest of the world faces similar scarcity challenges due to our urgent climate crisis, the continent’s resilience is a case for an alternative approach. Innovations based on ingenuity, materiality, and contextual relevance do work, but they lack industrialised speed and scale. Scaling up our responses to challenges could be a pivotal factor in our global solutions. African modernity will continue to be marked by rural–urban migration, which in turn demands faster and broader responses. Our cities are examples of bottom-up solutions and show how it is possible to adapt, rather than control. As we face the challenges brought on by climate change, the African continent offers myriad examples at both macro and micro scales of how cities have adapted and thrived. In more ways than is possible to count, the African city is The Laboratory of the Future, with many lessons learnt from the past. Force Majeure

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Force Majeure

Shopfronts in Makola Market, Accra Lesley Lokko 2009

Djinguereber Mosque, Timbuktu, Mali James Morris 2004

“I can hear the roar of women’s silence.” — Thomas Sankara

Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso (1983—1987), receiving French President François Mitterrand, on November 17, 1986, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. 76

Biennale Architettura 2023

Force Majeure

Getty Images

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Micro Kwaeε 2022

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Macro Kwaeε 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Adjaye Associates

Designed entirely of timber, the Kwaeε’s form and materiality take on the qualities of its namesake, which translates as ‘forest’ in Twi, one of Ghana’s main languages. It is envisioned as a space for both reflection and active programming. The overall design aims to support conversation and reflection, presenting doorway, platform, assembly, and window in a single, unified entity. The external structure takes the form of a triangular prism punctuated by two oculi, while the internal space is a sculpted ovoid reminiscent of a cave. The distorted shape is set at an angle and abuts the perimeter to create passages and apertures for entry and exit. By minimising discontinuity, the all-timber structure cultivates a forest of light and shadow. Leveraging its central location, the Kwaeε is at once an active and passive inhabitable structure, providing a space for respite and convening as well as multipurpose events. Functioning as a device for calling and recording, the activity within the Kwaeε will extend not only to lectures, panel discussions, and performance, but will also be a space for archival auditory experiences. Extending the thematic of Adjaye Associates’ parallel projects at The Laboratory of the Future, the Kwaeε is also a space for listening to the past in which thematically relevant archival storytelling, music, poetry, recitals, debates, and lectures will be played. Force Majeure

Kwaeε 79

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Phyigital Futures Lab 2 2022

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Phyigital Futures Lab 1 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Adjaye Associates

The Adjaye Futures Lab features a field of physical models paired with narrative films. The selected projects showcase narratives that emerged outside of the dominant canon, such as the Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library and its precolonial inspiration, and the Edo Museum of West African Art/Creative District, which aims to reconstruct, resurrect, and reposition ancient Benin City as a powerhouse of cultural output. These are narratives that speak to an ongoing quest to define, amplify, and encourage diasporic connection and cultural production, expressed through the Newton Enslaved Burial Grounds and Museum project and the Africa Institute in Sharjah. Collectively, the selected projects speak to notions of placemaking, identity, memory, and meaning as central to the design process with the ambition to create structures conducive to positive forms of human transformation. Force Majeure

Adjaye Futures Lab 81

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Of the Earth 2022

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Adjaye Futures Film 2 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Adjaye Associates

The Lost Knowledge Systems (LKS) film is curated through the lens of four materials of the land: earth, timber, thatch, and stone. Through scripted narration, historical imagery, and reproduction of archival drawings, LKS will illustrate how the tribal states of pre-colonial Africa had their own architectural morphology, iconography, and construction methodology – each predicated on unique geographical, climatic, and cultural conditions. In dialogue with LKS, the Adjaye Futures film features a series of projects. Each at various stages of development, from concept to completion, these films provide a window into Adjaye Associates’ ethos and design process, illuminating a type of architecture that emerges as an extension of our collective being, rather than an obstruction or disruption to humanity. Thematically intertwined, the selected projects are based on intercultural dialogue within a global setting. Each has been formed by narratives that emerged outside of the dominant Western and Eurocentric canons and collectively speak to the idea that placemaking, identity, memory, and meaning are central to the design process. The projects include the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, UAE; the African Institute in Sharjah, UAE; District Hospitals, located in multiple locations in Ghana; Edo Museum of West African Art in Benin City, Nigeria; Newton Enslaved Burial Grounds and Museum in Bridgetown, Barbados; National Cathedral of Ghana in Accra, Ghana; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City, USA; and the Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library in Johannesburg, South Africa. Force Majeure

Lost Knowledge Systems 83

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HIKMA 2018

Biennale Architettura 2023

atelier masōmī

To make architecture in a context of scarcity, extreme climate and economic vulnerability, we rely on process to bring local narratives to the fore, translating dispossessed identities and history into architectural form. We call this approach Process. Our installation foregrounds the precedents, narratives, and ideas that sit at the core of our work. Our location in Niamey, Niger, with the ecological, economic, and cultural characteristics of our context, and the erasure of traditional building techniques from the public consciousness, provides us with a laboratory from which to make thoughtful architecture that is inspired by the past while innovating towards the future. Process is a collision between the future and the past in search of innovative architectural approaches that are relevant to today’s challenges. atelier masōmī’s approach to design takes seriously the heritage, narratives, ingenuity, and identity of a particular context. We narrow in on three precedent studies of Sahelian architecture, placing them side by side with our projects HIKMA Community Complex, Bët-bi Art Museum, and the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development. Through models, videos, and handdrawn plans, Process is a journey into our own laboratory of the future in Niamey. By choosing to draw the plans onto the walls, Mariam Issoufou Kamara inscribes into the narrative of this year’s theme, drawing attention to the complexity in simplicity and treading lightly on the earth. Force Majeure

Process 85

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Robots of Brixton 2011

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Biennale Architettura 2023

Basis with GKZ

This work is a narrative exploration into counterfactual pasts and hypothetical futures, fusing the mediums of film, sound, and computation to transport audiences beyond the constraints of the present. Robots of Brixton is an architectural discourse, narrated through the languages of montage and film, that explores themes of race, class, immigration, and contemporary urban London. Its story is specific to a place (Brixton) and time (1980s), but it is eerily prescient of more recent urban protests across the globe. It follows the trials and tribulations of young robots surviving at the sharp end of inner-city life, a predictable and precarious existence, underpinned by poverty, disillusionment, and mass unemployment. When the police invade the one space that the robots can call their own, the fierce and strained relationship between the two sides explodes into an outbreak of violence echoing the protests of 1981. Djali explores storytelling and visualisation of hypothetical worlds, narrated from the perspective of an artificial intelligence present in them. Experientially, Djali is interactive, building on advances in natural language processing, computer vision, and computation to simulate our human ability to mentally explore possible and even impossible worlds with our mind’s eye. Force Majeure

Djali 87

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Freedom Forest 2023

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Freedom Forest Map 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Cave_bureau

We choose to celebrate the original African archives, passed down from generation to generation, using stories, songs, dance, and poetry. These archives were held together by our custodians of culture who conjured narratives and events that were both real and imagined. These were often, if not always, intertwined with the natural biosphere systems of earth, sea, and air around us. These archives kept us in continuous communion with caves, forests, deserts, valleys, oceans, mountains, and grasslands, as well as with the rest of life in both the seen and unseen realms across vast cosmological territories of being and existence. For The Laboratory of the Future, we present our oral-architectural praxis, opening our film and audio archive through the display of community engagements that are often held within natural settings such as caves and forests. It is a tripartite compendium projected within a dark room showcasing our work methodologies in the following wall channels. In Channel 1, our oral engagements with cave communities, and the “more-thanhuman life” all around, is narrated. Channel 2 shows a running display of our Anthropocene Museum folder system, with sounds of bats, baboons, insects, birds, songs, and machinery, among other immaterial outputs. In Channel 3, there are drawings, maps, and models of work done across vast geological sites of historical importance. Force Majeure

Oral Archive (New Age Africana) 89

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Three Trees 2019

Biennale Architettura 2023

Hood Design Studio

Erasure threatens the Black cultural landscapes of Charleston, South Carolina, and the Lowcountry. Wetland development and diminishing rural land tenure endanger these ‘native’ cultural landscapes, which stretch 12,000 square miles from North Carolina to Florida, forging a dialectic between the enslaved Gullah Geechee people, plantations, Carolina Gold rice, sweetgrass baskets, and Africa. Descendent of its adjacent plantation landscape, the 1,000-acre rural agricultural settlement of Phillips is today a modest residential community along the historic Route 1. The landscape beyond its small area of cultivated land is called the ‘overgrown’, rife with native flora such as pine, oak, and palm. Native(s) Lifeways suggests that Phillips can be born again. It reconsiders the word ‘native’, exploring an alternate vocabulary to critically think about new hybrid formations of Indigenous and foreign landscapes. Route 1 was the historic path for exhibiting and selling sweetgrass baskets, a cultural landscape celebrating the Gullah Geechee. But so-called ‘progress’ replaced the road’s soft shoulder with kerb and gutter. As shown in The Laboratory of the Future, we propose a new Arts Lifeway in the creek wetland of Phillips, enmeshed within grasses and reeds. Basketmaking pavilions evince their logic of production and ornamentation along a sweetgrass walk connecting the communal landscape. Large rice-toting baskets that men used for harvest inspired the columns, while the ornamental basketmaking of children and women influenced the roof and awnings. Constructed of renewable wood harvested from the overgrown, the houses and walkway speak to a continued occupation of a native landscape. Force Majeure

Native(s) Lifeways 91

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20th-century Elephant leg furniture 2022

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Occupation of shea trees with the Parliament of Ghosts 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Ibrahim Mahama

Parliament of Ghosts was originally conceived for The Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester as part of the Manchester International Festival in 2019. The work addressed historical ideas around materials and issues of colonial exploitation, but it was subsequently transformed into the architecture of Red Clay in Tamale, Ghana. The set-up allows objects and ecosystems to coexist with architectural form, from a conceptual, philosophical, and physical point of view. Memories are excavated through the placement of non-human forms while young audiences are encouraged to acquire new perspectives on their relationship to architecture. The space was inspired by both the residue of the Gold Coast Railway infrastructure and abandoned modernist buildings from the 1960s Nkrumah’s Voli-ni in Tamale. How do we restore memories to which access was denied? How do we excavate the past in order to build new futures? Force Majeure

Parliament of Ghosts 93

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Craftswomen applying wall finishes in Tiébélé 2021

Biennale Architettura 2023

Kéré Architecture

The entire continent of Africa is responsible for less than 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. This startling fact gives us pause. A moment in which to look and feel. To consciously create goals in line with needs determined from within. To find modes of building that do not replicate loss but rebuild ancient knowledge. To find knowledge that is not worthless but rather constitutes an invaluable wisdom that can fuel hope. To do just that, Counteract celebrates West African architectural prowess of the past, takes stock of today’s situation and nudges us towards a different approach. It is a viable and fantastic vision of architecture. We consider materials and skills required to build buildings that are not too hot or cramped, dwellings that existed in a time before the current status quo. We re-centre the value of this embedded knowledge, proposing it as a ‘counteract’ to the chase for modern architecture. For this ‘counteract’, it is essential for us to hold an understanding of both what was and what is. Why do we build how we build? What has changed and why? What remains the same? We argue that use of light, motivations to build, material innovation, everyday objects, and amenities as well as people’s needs in each location can offer alternative approaches to today’s architecture that are not simply copied and pasted, but their very own option. Force Majeure

Counteract 95

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Ebrah Village 2019

Biennale Architettura 2023

Koffi & Diabaté Architectes

Building an African city is synonymous with building an African architectural practice. The story of Ebrah, a village located to the east of Abidjan, the economic capital of Côte d’Ivoire, is also the story of our practice, Koffi & Diabaté Architectes. We have chosen to write, draw, and model our practice and approach to architecture into a live display, intended as a tool, which simultaneously explains and explores. Our installation is divided into three parts: memoir, manifesto, model. Memoir is the story of us, the team of over 70 people who make up the largest architectural practice in Côte d’Ivoire, a country of 27 million people with less than 200 registered architects and no internationally accredited school of architecture. In such a context, we believe the architect must be a force, one able to define an ecosystem they control from the concept to the finished product. Notions of scale and visible impact thus appear as key elements. Memoir looks at who we are, how we have materialised our vision progressively over the years, and our hopes for the future. Manifesto explores the multifaceted approach we have developed in response to the practicalities of dreaming, proposing, building, and executing the African city. We look at complexities such as governance, services, energy, food security, mobility, housing, and ecology. We believe solutions must be inherently local. Model brings the first two parts together in a real-life case study centred on Ebrah, our vision for the African city of tomorrow. Force Majeure

Living Differently: Architecture, Scale and the New Core 97

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MASS Design Studio 2020

Biennale Architettura 2023

MASS Design Group

The idea that the architect is the single author of the creation process of architecture no longer holds, if it ever did. For many young African creatives, this perception is a barrier to achieving their full potential unless given the opportunity to work in large-scale, wellfunded, and generally exclusive projects. In a world where the gap between aspiration and opportunity is rapidly widening, the profession needs to examine how the definition, journey, and expectations of architects are understood today, and what needs to change. Future architectural know-how will benefit from constructive contributions to the body of creative knowledge that makes good architecture possible. There is limitless scope and appetite for new voices and experiences that can contribute to a new, more relevant canon, if only the discipline will ‘allow’ it. These new voices are not external to architecture, but rather already exist within it. Change cannot be outsourced to clients with enough capital and project requirements to realise change. African architectural practice must be intentional in shaping, promoting, nurturing, and valuing change. AFRITECT posits an expanded definition of the word ‘architect’, introducing a new generation of African architects to the world who focus on solutions and ideas that are simultaneously genuinely African and globally inspiring. Force Majeure

AFRITECT 99

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AAP Lagos: Departure Lounge 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Olalekan Jeyifous

In the wake of the Pan-African movement and African decolonisation, imperialist infrastructures devoted to economic exploitation and resource extraction are rapidly dismantled, while local environmental groups throughout the continent consolidate into what is known as the African Conservation Effort (ACE). To repair the damage done to the continent’s ecoregions by former colonial powers, ACE applies Indigenous knowledge systems to developing advanced networks that synthesise renewable energy and green technologies. Chief amongst these is the All-Africa Protoport (AAP). A comprehensive system for renewable and sustainable energy production that can simultaneously accommodate rapid air, land, and sea travel within and between continents, it soon becomes Africa’s pièce de résistance due to its implications, both for continentwide socioeconomic and environmental collaboration, and for deepening solidarity throughout the diaspora. AAP is now a network of sprawling lowimpact, zero-emissions travel complexes situated off the coasts of major ports throughout the world. Until recently, there were twelve AAPs located in the following cities: Lagos, Mombasa, Port Said, Dar es Salaam, Durban, Salvador da Bahia, New York, Los Angeles, Port-Au-Prince, Barranquilla, Havana, and Montego Bay. A new AAP complex completed in 1972, unlike its coastal counterparts, is embedded, somewhat controversially, in the Barotse Floodplain in Zambia’s Western Province. Here, an integrated, synergistic network of tidal, solar, and algal energy systems has been established to maintain biodiversity and improve food security and production while accommodating the proprietary AAP travel systems. The Barotse Floodplain’s AAP imaginary lounge is presented in The Laboratory of the Future. Force Majeure

ACE/AAP 101

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Dreadlocks Plan 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

SOFTLAB @ PSU

Forming a space between two words, ‘dreadlock’ is a word of uncertain etymology. For English speakers, this is clearly a portmanteau, two words making one. Dread, fear, anxiety about the future, but also awe or reverence. And the word ‘loc’, Germanic in origin, which refers to a curl or strand of a person’s hair that curls together, or the property of matted hair, tangled beyond untangling, knotted forever. The word ‘loc’ is related to a piece or tuft of wool, the shortest cheapest wool from a sheep’s legs. Here, we rove from knowledge and language that the weaving hand knows into computational and digital knowledge systems. We experiment with locking techniques related to felting in textile practice and digital combing/sorting to make a hybrid threshold. Computationally, this dreadlocked or felted fabric structure is made by a randomised process, unlike braiding or crocheting, which relies on precision. The digital threshold space in the installation uses machine learning trained on a designed database of global hair textures. The physical threshold is a knitted isacord passage made of felted dreadlocked material. The installation also considers the threshold in all organic bodies, including our own, between the physical and electromagnetic. The installation provides a relational, scaled-up version of the negotiation between these, with enmeshed digital and physical textile thresholds upon entry. The space inside is a ‘freespace’ hair salon for performance and interaction, where artists are invited to twist, braid, loc, and ‘do’ their hair. Force Majeure

Textural Threshold Hair Salon: Dreadlock 103

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104

Two Sheds, Elliot, South Carolina Unknown Date

Biennale Architettura 2023

Studio Sean Canty

This is an installation loosely based on two sheds constructed by my great-grandfather Edgar in Eliott, South Carolina. I called him Bubba. One shed is a home of joy, belonging, and struggle. The other is a juke joint filled with smoke, rhythm, and blues. The beauty laid bare in Bubba’s sheds acknowledges a set of practices entirely foreign and overlooked, steeped in the Black vernacular. In these simple forms, quite extraordinary inventions abound. Values of reuse and care are of the same essence. Vernaculars are indeed steeped in these exceptional circumstances. The origins of architecture will forever be a myth. For me, these origins are genuine. They will forever signify my roots and my place in the world. In the Black tradition, aspirations of beauty and betterment are entangled in struggle and selfdetermination. Like Bubba’s sheds, complicated and contradictory impulses are everywhere in this installation. Its function is simple, offering a series of outdoor rooms for shade and events. The symbolically over-scaled roof is the first act of sheltering. Its asymmetry is a backdrop to one side and entry to the other. Its tectonics are carefully accounted for and easily demountable for reuse. Its cladding relaxes the precision of the plan and section, occasionally conjoining the wall and roof. Its interior can be filled with sound or the quietness of its surroundings. This is Edgar’s shed. Force Majeure

Edgar’s Sheds 105

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106

A choreography or maqam of a qawwali performance 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Sumayya Vally and Moad Musbahi

As a space for sorting and processing, The African Post Office brings together different ‘posts’ from across the continent as well as the lagoon of Venice. The project develops an intercontinental bureaucratic apparatus using the simple technology of the post. It operates in two dimensions: as a spatial reinterpretation of the post as a pole, and as the infrastructural mechanism of a postal network that considers routes of prior passage. Experienced both visually and aurally, a language and related index of the ‘post’ is developed, building on the logic of minarets and totems, two sociocultural technologies with far-reaching African influence. The field of posts of various thicknesses and heights have individual markings and attachments. Some hold flags of nations that no longer exist, and others are simply attachment points waiting to be moored. By marking out a point, inscribing and elevating it, a project emerges that orchestrates space and social relations. This work builds on our work in the ‘maqam’, an Arabic word that defines a musical scale and a physical space for gathering. The aural accompaniment indicates the distant landscapes and territories to which each of the posts refers, collapsing the present physicality of the space with other times and places that are gathered here. In this moment, the single post is used as a modest unit of power to radically reorganise passage and territory. Force Majeure

The African Post Office 107

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108

Graphite panels detail – Work in progress 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Thandi Loewenson

African liberation movements are indelibly tied to questions of the land: who may work the earth, to what end, and under what conditions? Such foci betray the true nature of the African struggle today: taking place on the ground within the thickness of eroding topsoil, down the mineshaft where rare earths glimmer in the dark and, simultaneously, within the ozone, the cloud, and the ionosphere, where Earth’s atmosphere meets outer space, too. Across a series of composite graphite panels and an accompanying film, The Uhuru Catalogues stitch together entangled sites through which African liberation must be sought. The struggle is on the ground and in the air too, and within the thickness of graphite these terrains are drawn into focus. The drawings are composed of industrial graphite, typically used in the production of lithium-ion batteries and in short supply due to an exponential increase to meet demand in the Global North. In the transition to renewable energies for some, new sites of extraction, exploitation, and expropriation are forged for others. Through this work, graphite is given a new context. It is no longer simply a humble mark maker or an attendant mineral for lithium’s electric work, but now it is a drawing plane too. Here, graphite is put to use as a conduit, a charged medium, that aims to energise a consciousness of the conjoined terrains of earth and air in movements for climate justice and equitable futures for all, on the continent and beyond. Force Majeure

The Uhuru Catalogues 109

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Sonic Imagination Black Artist Retreat Convening at the Park Avenue Armory, New York 2019

Biennale Architettura 2023

Theaster Gates Studio

For the past decade, Theaster Gates – whose practice comprises installation, performance, and engagement strategies – has realised Black Artist Retreat (B.A.R), an ongoing project of convening artists in Chicago. Since 2013, Gates has invited artists from all over the world to reflect together on their making practices, explore challenges in the industry, and advance mentorship and knowledge sharing. Gates and many philanthropic funders have supported small and large B.A.R convenings in cities across the country, and globally. The retreat has taken many forms over the past decade: from the artist’s studio to large institutions and public venues. For the Biennale Architettura 2023, Gates debuts his documentary film Black Artist Retreat: Reflections on 10 Years of Convening (2023). By sharing this film within the context of The Laboratory of the Future, Gates demonstrates the complexities of the very notion of Black space, and the ways in which temporal Black spaces can be built to advance the cause of the arts and convene artists of colour in a self-determined manner. For Gates, architecture and design are not about the built environment alone. The unique ability of artists to take the tenets of the retreat back to their studios and communities results in the creation of new social architectures. Force Majeure

Black Artist Retreat: Reflections on 10 Years of Convening 111

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Path to Towers in a Forest 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

urban american city (urbanAC)

There is an undeniably dystopic past at the core of every African American’s history. However, this narrative is not exclusively situated in pain. Within every Black space and body that holds this trauma, there exists an element of the fantastic that breeds resilience and creativity. Between the milestones of Juneteenth and the Civil Rights Movement, Blacks in Northern America migrated to segregated cities and built prosperous economies, producing extraordinary Black wealth, technologies, and culture. However, as Sylvia Wynter describes, our value has always been “measur[ed]… according to the single yardstick of technoscientific accomplishment that is defining the contemporary West’s [and White] ‘mechanical perfection’”. Land Narratives — Fantastic Futures exposes the lost histories and unrecognised imaginations of creativity born in spite of the segregation and land vacancy found in ‘Black Belt’ neighbourhoods of Chicago’s South Side. It develops new, multiple, and wayward ‘yardsticks’ for identifying and working with previously unmeasured cultural values. The installation uses collage, mapping, film, and voice-generated 3D clay objects to transform and translate the cultural practices, joys, and dreams of eight Chicagoans into a fantastic future – a vision composed of a taxonomy of ‘archi-textures’ for Black space, ownership, and development. Force Majeure

Land Narratives — Fantastic Futures 113

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Adobe walls of the Nando Mosque, Mali James Morris 1999 Page 114 — 115

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Adobe walls of the Nando Mosque, Mali James Morris 2004 Page 116 — 117

Dangerous Liaisons

AMAA Collaborative Architecture Office for Research and Development

BDR Bureau and carton123 architecten

AD—WO

Andrés Jaque/ Office for Political Innovation DAAR — Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal

David Wengrow and Eyal Weizman with Forensic Architecture and The Nebelivka Project Dream The Combine Dualchas Architects Estudio A0 Flores & Prats Architects Gbolade Design Studio Gloria Cabral and Sammy Baloji with Cécile Fromont GRANDEZA STUDIO Huda Tayob 120

Biennale Architettura 2023

Killing Architects Liam Young MMA Design Studio

kate otten architects Le laboratoire d’architecture Low Design Office Neri&Hu Design and Research Office

Office 24-7 and Lemon Pebble Architects Paulo Tavares/autonoma

orizzontale

Rahul Mehrotra with Ranjit Hoskote SCAPE Landscape Architecture Stephanie Hankey, Michael Uwemedimo and Jordan Weber Studio Barnes Studio of Serge Attukwei Clottey Suzanne Dhaliwal Sweet Water Foundation The Funambulist Twenty Nine Studio Ursula Biemann White Arkitekter Wolff Architects ZAO/standardarchitecture Dangerous Liaisons

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“Pascal: Didn’t I promise you the brightest future when I took you on here? Azolan: You did, though it still remains too bright to see with the human eye.” — Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses 122

Biennale Architettura 2023

Dangerous Liaisons

123

Excerpt from the Curator’s Letter of Consideration

issued 29 June, 2022

In his review of the 59th International Art Exhibition, – The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani – critic Aaron Betsky writes: “The sprawling exhibition [is] doing something that architecture is not yet fully addressing: the dissolution of the borders between the figure and its surroundings, long-predicted by science, and now increasingly a fact in our digital age; the change of our conception of identity, further fuelled by an awareness of our hybrid and global nature; and the interweaving of both technology and organic matter, and the various species and life forms that inhabit our earth.” 124

Biennale Architettura 2023

Architecture’s long-standing preoccupation with borders and boundaries is well known and understood, from the boundary that delineates inside from outside, to the endless debates about what does or does not constitute architecture. In a professional sense, the boundary that separates architecture from other adjacent disciplines is robustly policed. Engineers are not architects. Artists are not architects. Only architects are architects, and the process by which the title is conferred is tightly regulated and controlled. Although legal protection has generally served the public well, reducing risk and raising standards and awareness, all too often it encourages a risk-averse insecurity that seems increasingly out of place in today’s more complex and fluid world. The 18th International Architecture Exhibition, The Laboratory of the Future, is a quintet, made of five interlocking parts, held together by their responses to two of today’s most pressing concerns: decolonisation and decarbonisation. Dangerous Liaisons focuses on practitioners working at the productive edge between architecture and its myriad ‘others’ – landscape, ecology, policy, finance, data, public health, AI, heritage, history, conflict, and identity, to name a few – through methodology, materials, or matter, charting new territories of professional and conceptual relevance and urgency. Dangerous Liaisons

125

On Becoming Undisciplined: A Meditation on Unbounded Architecture

Kuukuwa O. Manful

Accra/London

I begin this meditation with ideas from two scholars on subverting the bounds of discipline. First from Christina Sharpe, who writes about Black scholars in the academy being disciplined into using methods and frameworks that negate and obfuscate and exhorts us to “become undisciplined”.1 Second from Lesley Lokko, who, in discussing the potential of fluid epistemologies, suggests that architects and scholars of architecture assess and reconsider the “edges of our discipline”.2 126

Biennale Architettura 2023

Architecture has historically been able to, as Lokko writes, “negotiate between and across boundaries” of discipline.3 Indeed, I would contend that this characteristic of flexibility, tractability, and fluidity is core to the nature of architecture. Yet as fluidly as architects and architecture scholars manoeuvre between established and accepted sources of knowledge about the world, ultimately, we seem to keep colliding with the hard edges of discipline – manifested in unyielding, dominant architectural paradigms and “epistemes”.4 Perhaps, the most unyielding element of the dominant architectural paradigms and epistemes can be found in the boundedness of what is designated as capital ‘A’ Architecture – typically designed by capital ‘A’ Architects or accepted as exemplary historical precedents. It is visible in what is archetypically considered worthy of being studied, referenced, and accepted in visions of order – in the past, present, and future. All else – a vast, diverse, vibrant array of architectural imagination, knowledge, and production – is relegated to the margins, destined to be characterised as aberrant, insignificant, and unworthy. Much of African architectures, as with the architectures of other formerly colonised regions, has historically and contemporarily not been considered worthy of being designated capital ‘A’ Architecture. Dangerous Liaisons

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As I think of and imagine Africa as a “Laboratory of the Future”, an “expanded field… of recovery and cooperation”, I find opportunity and hope for reimagining beyond the bounds of discipline and designation.5 For, within Africa, we locate a trove of ways to imagine otherwise – in creative expressions of form, communality, and beauty, as well as in moving, brilliant responses to minoritisation and marginalisation. Take, for instance, the eighteenth-century Asante Traditional House as a unit of living. It is a melding of indoor and outdoor living, with internal compounds that interconnect organically into urban passages and streets, fostering community and communal living. And there are no individual capital ‘A’ Architects, just communities of architect–builders. From these architectures and countless others, there is much to learn from and adapt to our contemporary needs. I end this meditation with words from two writers on imagination and dreaming. First, from Lebogang Mashile, who declares and reminds that: “You and I / We are the keepers of dreams / We mould them into light beams / And weave them into life’s seams.”6 Second, from N. K. Jemisin, who opens the prologue of The Fifth Season with: “Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.”7 128

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5. 6. 7.

C. Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016). L. Lokko, “Introduction”, La Biennale di Venezia, available at https://www.labiennale.org/en/ architecture/2023/introduction-lesley-lokko (accessed 15 February 2023). Ibid. I use epistemes in the sense defined by Foucault as “the ‘apparatus’ which makes possible the separation, not of the true from the false, but of what may from what may not be characterised as scientific”. See M. Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972– 1977, edited by C. Gordon (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1980). L. Lokko, “Introduction”, La Biennale di Venezia. L. Mashile, “You and I”, available at https://daughtersofafricablog.wordpress.com/2016/10/06/ national-day-of-poetry-you-and-i-by-lebo-mashile/ (accessed 7 March 2023). N. K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season (London: Orbit, 2015).

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“The ultimate question of human history, as we’ll see, is not our equal access to material resources (land, calories, means of production), much though these things are obviously important, but our equal capacity to contribute to decisions about how to live together.” — David Graeber and David Wengrow 132

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Ghebbi Study I 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

AD—WO

The Amharic word ‘Ghebbi’ connotes a territory surrounded by a wall or fence; a zone of respite and relative stability carved out of an errant and restless city. Slight shifts in enunciation of the word ‘Ghebbi’ produce different meanings: it could mean “come in”, “the one that infiltrates”, or “income”. Linguistic ambiguities demonstrate cultural proclivities of secrecy and opacity. Ghebbis contain houses, schools, gardens, and spaces of worship and commerce. The boundary of the Ghebbi has literal and metaphorical depth. It is not a line on a map, but a zone of contestation pushed and pulled by shifts in politics, culture, and economy. A variety of materials are used to fence in the plots: eucalyptus trunks, corrugated sheets, tarpaulin, metal grills, stone, and masonry. Our installation in The Laboratory of the Future grapples with these instabilities in meaning and effect. Two corrugated panels are suspended from the rafters, thickening the threshold between two zones of the Arsenale, currently demarcated by a brick wall. An immersive space, akin to the lush interiors of the Ghebbi, is recreated by two monumental tapestries suspended on either side of the existing arched opening. Each tapestry functions as a ‘time-scape’, collapsing formal and material articulations of the Ghebbi. A deteriorating brick wall of the Arsenale is clad with scaffolding and lined with a tarpaulin that is tethered to the frame with rope, evoking the scaffolding that covers countless construction sites in Addis Ababa and the ongoing erasure of the Ghebbi. Dangerous Liaisons

Ghebbi 135

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Barn vs Pavilion 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

AMAA Collaborative Architecture Office for Research and Development

Decarbonisation is a challenge that today faces every architect. AMAA explores this challenge by comprehensively considering the reuse of the ex-NATO base of Monte Calvarina, in the municipality of Roncà, overlooking the valleys of Vicenza and Verona in Italy. The military base, active from 1959 to 1995, hosted a missile unit of the Italian Air Force. But there is a deeper and more ancient reading to be found in this landscape. There is evidence of a majestic volcanic complex there. It originated in the Cenozoic era, later modified by meteoric erosion and, more recently, by human intervention connected to the military base. Decades after its abandonment, the Calvarina complex today finds new social and operational use. The years of decay are substituted by a lively and disruptive facility, set up by Fondazione SAFE (Security and Freedom for Europe) as a hub to organise training and simulations for emergency response and testing of innovative technologies. The local transformation of the base aligns with the EU Climate Change and Defence Roadmap, the European Green Deal, and the joint EU–AU Green transition strategy. Calvarina provides a clear example of reinventing former carbon-intensive military facilities as new zeroemission hubs for innovation. Calvarina will be an open workshop where innovation and natural preservation coexist; a kind of ‘laboratory of the future’, but in the present. Dangerous Liaisons

It’s Kind of a Circular Story 137

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Xholobeni Yards 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Andrés Jaque/ Office for Political Innovation

New York’s high-end architecture is produced from distant materials, bodies and knowledge. These are extracted from their local ecosystems to become resources; commodities circulating in a contemporary economy based on global accumulation. For example, in New York, the stainless steel façade of Hudson Yards is made possible through the massive mobilisation of the chromite extracted from the earth of the Great Dyke of Zimbabwe. Its shine is produced by the abrasive capacity of the ilmenite from Xholobeni’s ground in South Africa. The act of building above the railways, the single operation that provided the ground on which this part of New York now stands, would have been impossible without the cobalt extracted from the Nyungu mines of Zambia. Even the blueness of the sky as seen from the interiors of Hudson Yards depends on the massive use of catalysers New York City regulations impose, which are only made possible using platinum extracted from the eighty-nine platinum mines in South Africa. Hudson Yards, in New York, is thus fundamentally grounded in transnational extractivism. Extraction is segregation. Material extraction is the way for architecture to participate in the making of segregation. It is this concern we address in the installation. Dangerous Liaisons

Xholobeni Yards 139

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Site workshop 2021

Biennale Architettura 2023

BDR Bureau and carton123 architecten

Kappaert is a school campus that includes a variety of activities: a school for children with special needs, art spaces, and summer recreational activities. As a campus, it fits into a heterogeneous built environment characterised by underutilised public spaces and a cemetery that will disappear over time. In our project, we deal with the theme of coexistence, understood as the simultaneous occurrence of ‘things’ that have a relationship with each other. Coexistence – our form of ‘liaison’ – is governed by the ‘edge between things’, here reasoned with an approach through different scales. The project is defined by an ambiguity between dissolving boundaries and creating boundaries, in order to define protected spaces for children living with forms of autism. We work to translate this ambiguity into built form. Any line can be an insurmountable boundary depending on the individual. A separation can accommodate a zone of transition. An enclosure can become an area in which to remain. The installation in The Laboratory of the Future displays the project according to this point of view, through models, fragments of the ‘boundaries’ at various scales, and visual anchoring points. A part of the installation displays the collaborative process among architects, with workshops on-site and longdistance communication, but also with the future users of the campus, an essential discussion to understand the relationship between space design and the impact on mental stimuli. Dangerous Liaisons

Broader Boundaries 141

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Ente di Decolonizzazione – Borgo Rizza 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

DAAR — Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal

DAAR’s contribution to The Laboratory of the Future explores the possibilities of critical reappropriation, reuse, and subversion of fascist colonial architecture and its modernist legacy. The work is an attempt to profane the rural settlement of Borgo Rizza (Syracuse, Sicily), built in 1940 by the Ente di Colonizzazione del Latifondo Siciliano (ECLS, Entity of Colonisation of Sicilian Latifundia). Its function was to reclaim, modernise, and repopulate Sicily, which the fascist regime considered backward, underdeveloped, and ‘empty’. A similar architectural blueprint was adopted by fascist colonial urban planning in Libya, Somalia, Eritrea, and Ethiopia around the same time. The installation is a scaled reproduction of the village’s main building façade, which the artists deconstructed into fifteen multipurpose modules that since May 2022 have been engaging conversations with different sites (Mostra d’Oltremare in Naples, Hansaviertel district in Berlin, and La Loge museum in Brussels). In parallel to the installation, the research project has worked as the foundation of the Difficult Heritage Summer School in Borgo Rizza with the support of the local municipality of Carlentini, the nearby town. Ente di Decolonizzazione – Borgo Rizza is presented as a travelling installation that fosters acts of decolonisation of modernist–colonial– fascist architecture, providing an opportunity to initiate a series of actions and interventions that attributes to the building other functions than those for which it was designed. Dangerous Liaisons

Ente di Decolonizzazione — Borgo Rizza 143

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Forensic Architecture Mega-structure’s photogrammetry 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

David Wengrow and Eyal Weizman with Forensic Architecture and The Nebelivka Project A revolution is taking place in our understanding of cities, arising from the laboratory of the past. Using an array of new techniques, archaeologists are discovering traces of urban landscapes that were entirely lost to human memory. Such evidence is not ‘unearthed’ from the ground. It is interior to the soil, inseparable from it. The Nebelivka Hypothesis explores a case in point, between the southern Bug and Dnieper rivers of central Ukraine. Less than a metre below agricultural fields, a geophysical survey reveals the previously unknown legacy of 6,000-year-old settlements, similar in scale to the early cities of Mesopotamia. But these early Ukrainian cities are centre-less. Or, rather, they are organised as concentric rings of domestic buildings, around a mysterious open centre. No trace is found of temples, palaces, administration, rich burials, nor any other signs of centralised control or social stratification. What is more, studies of the ancient environment around these huge sites reveal a surprisingly light ecological footprint. It has even been argued that their foundation triggered the formation of chornozem, hyperfertile soils, for which this region is famous. If so, then the ‘black soils’ of the Ukrainian forest steppe may turn out to be anthrosols, humanproduced soils, and we are confronted with a system of urban life that enhances the vitality of its own environment. If these ancient Ukrainian sites are cities, then our concept of ‘the city’ as rooted in a history of extraction, predation and hierarchy must also change. This is what we call The Nebelivka Hypothesis. Dangerous Liaisons

The Nebelivka Hypothesis 145

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Hide & Seek – Process, Sketch 2018

Biennale Architettura 2023

Dream The Combine

afterimages builds from critical texts by bell hooks, Dionne Brand, David Scott, Tao DuFour, and others to consider a ‘figure seen twice’, a metaphoric construction regarding witnessing explored through drawing, namely the two-point perspective. Two-point perspective is used to render three-dimensional geometry in a twodimensional pictorial plane. Unlike the typical characterisation within a surface, afterimages is an occupiable two-point perspective drawn in space. A central element is held in suspension by cords extending to two sets of vanishing points located along two horizon lines. This creates an open, lattice-like threshold visitors can approach and pass through. Our formal strategies grow from contemplation of the image, its afterimage, and memory as re-inscription, especially given our time living through events in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2020. The afterimage is a retinal burn, a desensitisation of optical cones that prevents the uptake of new information while vision is still being processed by the brain. It is a lag, a delay that causes us to see things twice. The work displayed in Venice also has a twinned installation at the American Academy in Rome and, later in 2023, in Minneapolis. As souvenir concepts, afterimages carry the past. We seek ways to empathetically contend with these afterlives: of rupture, recurring witness, and wilful resistance in the face of trauma. We are always travelling with what’s inside. Dangerous Liaisons

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Descent 2022

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Broch 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Dualchas Architects

In the Hebrides and on the mainland of Scotland, we live and work in a landscape that is sometimes harsh, sometimes peaceful, but always inspiring. We make buildings on the edges of lochs, in quiet glens, amongst woods, and on rock. These buildings have a direct connection to beaches, the sea, and mountains. As architects, we take our inspiration from the landscape, language, and history of our isles. These have characteristics that are unique to our location. There appears to be a new confidence in the music, art, food, and language of the Hebrides and we work to ensure that architecture can take its place within this cultural renaissance. In this exhibition, Dualchas tells a story of people, place, and culture, through our collaboration with a film director, sound artist, and writer. It describes the environment we work in, its climate, geography, and topography, using language, music, and field recordings. The broader story of decolonisation can be understood through personal experience, through families who have a deep connection to this place and a desire to return to work and live here and to create an architecture that is appropriate to both its time and place. The story of the Raasay fiddle provides a metaphor for the work of cultural understanding, repair, and renewal in which we are immersed. Dangerous Liaisons

Dualchas 149

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Portrait of Manuela Ima 2021

Biennale Architettura 2023

Estudio A0

Gold prospecting using LiDAR in the twentyfirst century has brought to the surface, in its excavations of clouds and forests, not only vast mineral deposits but also evidence of megaregional cities. The digital whispers of these cities forcefully speak of the civilisations built by the people of the Amazon River basin and its tributaries for over five millennia. The revelation of these cities is the greatest irony of the neocolonial wave of extraction in the geography that came to be known as “El Dorado” (the ‘Golden Land’ or ‘Land of Gold’) during the Spanish conquest of the Americas. The land of the ‘savage’, of the ‘cannibal’, of the ‘Amazons’, portrayed by the European conquest through Greek mythical beings and medieval legendary monsters; the pristine forest of the ‘noble savages’ of Rousseau’s Enlightenment; is now being portrayed by remote sensing as the land of interwoven constellations of agroecological urbanisms that call for a new name, for an ontological reckoning. The civilisations of oral tradition (and yet-to-be-unveiled written traditions?) – hierarchical yet egalitarian, open yet enclosed, interconnected yet autonomous, rural yet urban, disperse yet dense – are wanting of recognition, not as exotic urbanisms to be marginally included in history textbooks, but as brilliant, working examples of urban ecology that may lead our way into a reconciliation of the city, its foods systems, and its hinterlands. Dangerous Liaisons

Surfacing — The Civilised Agroecological Forests of Amazonia 151

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Flores & Prats Architects

It is not only people who contain the memory of a place: buildings too are loaded with memories of the uses and lives that occupy them. The built fabric reflects social behaviour. It speaks of a way of using the ground, the sky, and of a way of inhabiting. As an architect, to read the memories held in buildings and people is to think about a future that depends on that past. When a building is closed and abandoned, it remains alive in the memories of those near it. The abandoned building carries the civic and moral values embedded through use and over time. The building contains the stories of the people who experienced the place over the years. These have created an invisible constellation of social relationships that expand the influence of this construction to a universe around it, including to those that may form future associations with the building’s materiality and story. To open the discussion around these thoughts we have brought process material to Venice: unfinished drawings and models, documents that incorporate doubts and reflections, lying on tables to encourage exchange. These documents will be the beginning of a conversation, objects between people and subjects such as The Unfinished Condition Of The Ruin, The Right To Inherit, Drawing With Time, and The Value Of Use. Dangerous Liaisons

Emotional Heritage 153

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Dominoes 2011

Biennale Architettura 2023

Gbolade Design Studio

On 22 June 1948, the HMT Empire Windrush docked in Tilbury, bringing workers from the West Indies to help fill post-war UK labour shortages. Dubbed the “Windrush generation”, the community faced intolerance and was denied access to public services and accommodation. The Brixton riot in London in the 1980s was a series of clashes between young, Black urban Britons, children of the Windrush generation, and the Metropolitan Police. Following the riots, a Grade II-listed building in Brixton, south London, was gifted to the local community. The Lloyd Leon Community Centre is home to the Brixton Immortals Dominoes Club and the Brixton Soup Kitchen, two much-loved and much-used local institutions. Our installation for The Laboratory of the Future focuses on the building and the social and cultural ecosystems of its users that renew and empower the West Indian community in Brixton, London, and far beyond. This installation is a celebration of the rich and diverse history of the British West Indian community. It explores the way the centre serves some of the most vulnerable in society, from the elderly who have a place to reminisce and stave off loneliness to those who need to get back on their feet with food and work in this tight-knit community. Entitled Regenerative Power, the installation speaks to the enduring power of community, kinship, and kindness. Dangerous Liaisons

Regenerative Power 155

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FADA 2013/2021

Biennale Architettura 2023

Gloria Cabral and Sammy Baloji with Cécile Fromont Toxic landscape, social scars, and the history of global capitalism bridge Brumadinho in Brazil and Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These two parts of the world are central to, respectively, Gloria Cabral’s architectural practice based on the reuse of demolition material and Sammy Baloji’s visual art interrogating central Africa’s colonial heritage. Centuries-old connections, born of the slave trade’s forced migrations and shaped by the generative creativity of people whose resilience mapped the Black Atlantic, also tie the two enclaves of extraction to each other, and to Europe. In this collaborative project, Cabral and Baloji create a transmedial structure in which construction debris and bricks made of mining waste from Congo’s former metropolis – Brussels, Belgium – form ornamental patterns echoing the architectural textiles of the historical Kongo kingdom, as well as their Brazilian Indigenous cognates. Flashes of translucent coloured Venetian glass punctuate the work. A major artistic and industrial tradition local to the Biennale, glass has animated the Atlantic world as a means of exchange, an item of adornment, and a ubiquitous medium of cross-cultural design experimentation since the era of the slave trade. Theorised in conversation with art historian Cécile Fromont from a common interest in the Tenture des Indes of the Villa Medici in Rome, the project weaves a tapestry of bricks. An alchemical experiment with matter and form, it transforms debris, mining waste, African and Indigenous motifs, and Black Atlantic histories into an inclusive and regenerative showcase. The wall and its motifs highlight the value of debris and the potential of patterns to form architectural, historical, and social structures for a reimagined future. Dangerous Liaisons

Debris of History, Matters of Memory 157

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Mars Interruptus (Speculative Autopsy: Dismembering the Archive Regime 1) 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

GRANDEZA STUDIO

The Pilbara is an immense, arid, and thinly populated territorial crust in the north of Western Australia. Since the first colonial incursions, just 160 years ago, the progressive ‘discovery’ of its rich mineral deposits has transformed the region into a spatiotemporal battlefield of expulsions, explosions, and exploitation, papered over by the colonial ‘development’ myth. In fact, despite its label as “the powerhouse of the nation”, the Pilbara still suffers from significant infrastructural underdevelopment and high rates of racialised social exclusion. Today, the long-established iron ore, gas, and petrol mining operations collide with the incursion of additional stakeholders in search of its recently ‘discovered’ reserves of lithium and other rare earth minerals. The abundance of these coveted metals, the extreme exposure to solar radiation and wind, and privileged access to the Indian Ocean position the Pilbara at the core of the planetary energetic transition – a twenty-first-century green-gold rush. Pilbara Interregnum, our contribution to The Laboratory of the Future, takes the opportunity offered by the current energetic paradigm shift to put in crisis the extractivist, colonial, and capitalist mythologies that are turning this region, and the rest of the planet, into sacrificed areas. Departing from seven unresolved territorial disputes, the project acknowledges the Pilbara as a centre-stage territory where the most radical (geo)political and epistemological battles of our time are already taking place. A constellation of seven political allegories re-stage the Pilbara by moving it away from a resources-extraction battlefield into an epistemological war of political imagination. Dangerous Liaisons

Pilbara Interregnum: Seven Political Allegories 159

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Archival Collage 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Huda Tayob

Index of Edges draws on the vast global worlds of encounters along the East African coasts to question architectural knowledge and archival resources, offering an alternative orientation. An index is not a map. Rather than delineating boundaries, it gathers people, repositions histories, and draws out the significant. In Index of Edges, a contribution to The Laboratory of the Future, sites and stories of deep and near futures are drawn into adjacency. It follows indexical points along the coast, from the first-century Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and eighteenth-century British Admiralty charts by Alexander Dalrymple, to contemporary coastal data and continued ways of living with watery intimacies, and recognises the ebb and flow of edge conditions, despite violence and catastrophe. The index traces the accumulation of embodied detritus of layered pasts through an excess of specificities which collates stories of site and temporality, archival and present. This is work towards a relational, situated, and material axis where precarity and possibility meet at the shore; where global empires coincide with fishing villages; and where the coast continues to be a site of danger, precarity, joy, and sustenance. Dangerous Liaisons

Index of Edges 161

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Process collage of Threads installation 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

kate otten architects

The golden thread of Johannesburg’s history started some two billion years ago when a massive meteorite crashed into the earth approximately one hundred kilometres south of the city. Gold deposits were buried in seams deep below the surface, coming to rest in an arc-shaped ridge. The discovery of gold in 1886, and the gold rush that followed, led to the establishment of Johannesburg. Unlike a linear, patriarchal recording, this story is presented in The Laboratory of the Future as a simultaneous, intuitive reading of landscape narrated by women through craft and making. In our installation, suspended from a loom are: a woven mohair cloak to cover the body for warmth; a sociological mapping of the surface landscape and topography where green spaces correspond to privileged, wealthy areas and treeless areas to poor neighbourhoods, with mining waste dividing the two. Gold mines and water courses complete this reading and a beaded necklace adorns the body, symbolic of the gold extracted from the earth. Materials used for the installation are natural, decomposable, and specific to South Africa, from the choice of grass and dyes used to the mohair wool, a growing industry in the rural Karoo region. The makers are women’s collectives, crafts, age-old traditions. The play of light and shadow, the use of colour and pattern, and the hand-making and collaborative process all represent our approach to architecture that is particular to a place and nurtures the human spirit. Dangerous Liaisons

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Portrait of Dina Nurdybai 2020

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Portrait of Baqytali Nur 2020

Biennale Architettura 2023

Killing Architects

Architectural and spatial analysis tools have been critical in a series of recent groundbreaking investigative journalism projects, enabling investigations to be carried out that would not have been previously possible. Such projects have recently attracted much attention within the architectural profession, but the working methods, challenges, and opportunities for collaboration between architects and journalists are far less well understood or pursued. The two professions work in markedly different ways – visual vs textual – and have very different ideas about how rigorous knowledge can be produced. In journalism, the gold standard is an eyewitness who saw the incident unfold, while architecture might give more weight to visual and material evidence. Our contribution in The Laboratory of the Future explores these issues using our recent investigation into the network of detention camps built by the Chinese government in Xinjiang for the mass detention of Muslims. It was almost impossible for journalists to travel and work effectively in Xinjiang and the lack of access meant we turned to visual and spatial methods such as satellite imagery, 3D modelling, and analyses of the Chinese prison building regulations. In turn, this led us to questions about whether the information could meet journalistic standards, a question we resolved through corroboration of satellite imagery through other means and through communicating clearly to readers about our level of certainty that each site was a detention camp. Dangerous Liaisons

Investigating Xinjiang’s Network of Detention Camps 165

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Welcome in Nomadland 2022

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A swing 2022 →

Biennale Architettura 2023

Le laboratoire d’architecture

Winter 2023, in the desert between Tunisia and Algeria. A sedentarised nomad describes: “Our grandparents were still nomads; our parents earned their life by cultivating dates in artificial oases. Now, we work in tourism. We are the last ones to have experienced the paths of the desert. For our children, this knowledge is already lost.” At the same time, in an official ‘halting’ site for nomads in Switzerland. There is an incessant noise of cars on the highway, the smell of exhaust fumes, asphalt on the ground, and everywhere rubbish dumped from the highway. There is a fence all around. At the entrance, the official sign calls this place a ‘camp’. Underneath an awning, there are some chairs gathered around a table set with a flowerpot and a cup of coffee. Regardless of circumstance, there is a furious desire for hospitality. Based on an action research project we are currently leading on nomadic architecture in Africa and Europe, the aim of our contribution to The Laboratory of the Future is first to denounce the forced indignity of nomadic living conditions and to state the possibilities of an architecture of resistance and hospitality. The installation fosters both a poetical and political experience. The drawings show the surveys of the real living spaces of nomads superposed to their dreamed projects. The narratives relate experiences of living in the desert and in these official ‘camps’, unliveable yet inhabited. The mediums resonate together to form a nonfigurative fable of the nomadic world which questions our own way of inhabiting. Dangerous Liaisons

Welcome in Nomadland 167

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The Great Endeavor 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Liam Young

As project collaborator and environmental social scientist, Holly Jean Buck writes: “First World nations have colonized the atmosphere with their greenhouse gas emissions.” To reach current climate targets, we cannot rely solely on slashing future emissions. We must also develop the capacity to remove existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground at gigatonne scales. The ‘great endeavor’ to capture all this carbon will involve the construction of the largest engineering project in human history, and the development of a new infrastructure equivalent in size to that of the entire global fossil fuel industry. This is our generation’s moon landing, a mobilisation of workers and resources on a planetary scale that would only be possible through international cooperation to an extent never achieved. The Great Endeavor approaches this challenge with radical optimism, collaborating with a network of scientists and technologists to create a short film that captures the design, construction, visualisation, and drama of what it might look like to build this infrastructural imaginary, transforming airborne carbon into a liquified gas to be pumped deep beneath the ocean floor or mineralised into the desert rock. Featuring workwear created in collaboration with Hollywood costume designer Ane Crabtree and set to the score of a new planetary workers’ song composed by vocalist Lyra Pramuk, the film captures millions of people on the construction site, in coordinated action to decolonise the atmosphere in our last great act of planetary transformation. Dangerous Liaisons

The Great Endeavor 169

Remembering The Future

Mould1

London/ Berlin/ Braunschweig

It is, too often, more expedient to forget than it is to remember. Forgetting provides a false sense of freedom, in which futures are constructed unbound from the weight of the past. Architecture, as discipline and practice, is guilty of such amnesia. Its selfimposed boundaries often ignore what lies beyond it in an attempt to better control its ‘inside’, forgetting that architecture is also relational, dependent. Only certain memories are allowed to enter: approved forms, norms, tastes, individual heroes, exemplary techniques, limited geographies, constrained definitions, dominant systems, excessive extraction, autonomy. But here, in the promise of this Biennale, different memories emerge to overcome this collective ‘forgetting’. 170

Biennale Architettura 2023

Forgetful architecture is a form of protection, secure in its own self-referential bubble while ignoring the externalities that produce the spatial environment. Never has this been clearer than in the face of climate breakdown, which dramatically widens the gulf between what architecture wants itself to be and what architecture really is. Architects want to be saviours, often bringing technocratic solutions in the spirit of linear progress that escapes the disaster. Architecture, through its faith, overclaims what is possible to achieve, forgets its failures and therefore often repeats its hubris, its mistakes, its isolation. The volatility of climate breakdown disrupts the comfort of linear progress and challenges any idea that a solution is there, waiting. It challenges the short-termism and fetishisation of the new that is architecture’s default mode, because planetary boundaries do not suddenly disappear; they are here to stay in whatever compromised state. Architecture is left vulnerable, because climate breakdown disrupts and makes vain the agency of an individual discipline. Architecture does not exist in isolation. It is part of a complex system of interdependencies of human and non-human agents; relationships that make its Dangerous Liaisons

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very existence possible. The soothing question of what architecture can do for climate needs to be reversed into the uncomfortable one of what climate breakdown does to architecture. Climate exposes us all: we are forced to confront it and its constitution. To deal solely with the symptoms of the breakdown is simply another form of denial because it avoids root causes and allows the crises to continue unchallenged. Like archaeologists, we need to dig backwards, uncovering, filtering, exposing… and only then move forwards. In this scenario, memory is both disturbance and restitution. How can we possibly talk of equitable futures unless we remember the inequities and oppressions of the past? To face these memories and the conditions that gave rise to them is the first necessary step. Climate breakdown asks us to work forwards and backwards, imagining and projecting ourselves into the future under threat, in order to comprehend the violence that surrounds us. Only then can we learn how best to intervene. “Perhaps the universe is a memory of our mistakes,” writes Jeanette Winterson in The Stone Gods.2 However, remembering is much more than an uncomfortable prompt. It is also a means of bringing to the surface practices and relations that have been overlooked by the mainstream, architectural and otherwise. The future is not a script to be written from scratch; it can be found in the gaps in the 172

Biennale Architettura 2023

present, where new and fragile formations are already emerging that need support and understanding. The future is where these nascent possibilities can be rearranged and brought together to develop new relations, founded on a critique of the status quo in order to move intentionally away from it. The future already exists in practices dismissed as errant – in a billion fugitive, creative expressions. Because the centre has failed us so tragically, hope must emerge from elsewhere, in the spaces that have been forgotten, in memories that are yet to be erased. In this way we will remember the future.

1. 2.

MOULD is a research collective: Anthony Powis (London), Christina Serifi (Berlin), Tatjana Schneider (Braunschweig), Jeremy Till (London) and Becca Voeckler (London). J. Winterson, The Stone Gods (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2007), 87.

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Bamboo Workshop No. 2 2012

Biennale Architettura 2023

Low Design Office

Over two decades, Low Design Office – based in Austin, Texas and Tema, Ghana – has explored autochthonous material ecologies of micro-architecture. These range from canopy, tabletop, and umbrella-serviced microenterprises to home businesses housed in sheds (colloquially called ‘kiosks’) and arboreal, roadside and cottage industries that constitute, in aggregate, a massive, distributed armature of regenerative infrastructure for socioeconomic empowerment. Integrating design and engineering, the work of Low Design Office advances a model of autoconstruction that recasts kiosk culture as an emergent infrastructure for African ‘rurban’ transformation. Launched with French design consultancy Panurban in 2012, the Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP) initiative combines lab research and iterative ‘popular prototyping’ via community workshops with grassroots makers in West Africa to codesign flexible archi-technology for crafting space. AMP spacecraft is an open design and manufacturing standard that utilises design for reassembly principles and modular prefabricated components to reformat the kiosk typology as synergetic matrix for material coordination across space-time. Coproduced in and around Accra’s Agbogbloshie scrapyard, recycling, and maker hub, AMP amplifies circular processes of (re)making with others as a mode of collective habitation. The opensource design kit builds equity by replacing paradigms of innovation (which exploit the planned obsolescence of artefacts for profit over planet) with reparative praxis of renovation for spatial justice across physical and digital realities. Components of this ongoing project are presented in The Laboratory of the Future. Dangerous Liaisons

Enviromolecular 175

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Mphethi’s Sketches 2020

Biennale Architettura 2023

MMA Design Studio

Researchers point out that vast landscapes devoid of human settlement, seen by tourists as representing the ‘real Africa’ in a pristine, ‘natural’ state, are nothing of the kind. In 2019, using new LiDAR scanning technology, Professor Karim Sadr of the Department of Archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand was able to confirm the existence of a major Tswana settlement dating back to the fifteenth century in what is now the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve. This same site is currently part of a disputed post-apartheid land restitution claim by the family of Mphethi Morojele, Bakwena ba Mare A Phogole. This claim, which is based on historical research, oral evidence, and the presence of graves as testimony, has been immensely strengthened using technology. Origins, our installation for The Laboratory of the Future, is inspired by this layered historical landscape and by an interest in architecture that explores our relationship to an animist world. It integrates various forms of representation to re-establish a link between research and the imagination to posit a cyclical and African sense of time where “the future as a distant memory”, as Lesley Lokko describes it, comes to life. Architecture’s relationship to time is a dangerous liaison of its own. To survive the future, we need to retrace our steps back to a more ancient future, a future that reintegrates us within a living world of ‘other’ beings, animate and inanimate. Dangerous Liaisons

Origins 177

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The Waterhouse at South Bund 2015

Biennale Architettura 2023

Neri&Hu Design and Research Office

As we imagine for ourselves what the future holds, we collectively occupy the liminal space of experimentation both in theoretical constructs and in design practice. In today’s postcolonial world, critical theorist Homi K. Bhabha speaks about boundaries in culture as a place of liminality or “third space” where translations and negotiations occur. Liminal space and the notion of the threshold represent a space of ambiguity that engenders new possibilities and change. These spaces become the stage for transitory and frontier events that possess agencies for disrupting and challenging the status quo. In The Laboratory of the Future, to cast liminal space as a zone between design practice and theoretical exploration, Neri&Hu presents three adaptive reuse projects to highlight the studio’s research. As a collection, the projects share similar architectural strategies using material contrast, tectonic differentiation, formal assemblage, and surgical grafting. However, each project comes with its own set of issues related to how one engages in remnants of past occupancy. The selected works speak to an archaeological approach to peeling back the layers and working with deletions as much as additions. Building from fragments and relics of postindustrial, rural, and urban heritage, each project highlights the role of representation in the dialectics between past and present, old and new, smooth and textured, refined and raw. Liminality as a construct allows one to traverse both physical as well as allusive temporal thresholds, creating a visceral perception of the intersections of past, present, and future. Dangerous Liaisons

Liminality 179

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Mr Abdul Kader Tofie confronting the police while the mosque is being demolished 1958

Biennale Architettura 2023

Office 24-7 and Lemon Pebble Architects

This is an installation about the relationship between material erasure and historical forgetting. The act of performing ‘salah’ – Islamic prayers – on the ground of a historic, racist, forced removal is an act of poetic protest. This act of resistance and reclamation forms the catalyst for this installation. The Malay community of South Africa comprises descendants of enslaved and free Muslims. In 1871, during the diamond rush, Malay transport riders arrived in Kimberley and established Malay Camp. A thriving urban hub and diverse community of people of colour developed. In 1939, diamond company De Beers gifted the land to the local municipality on condition of “slum clearance”. A process of forced removal and the formation of racially segregated locations followed. By 1960, all of Malay Camp had been erased and overwritten by an apartheid civic precinct. Today, the erased site of a mosque is still used for open prayer. This is a story spanning the roots of colonial capitalism, land rights, environmental extraction, and exploitative labour practices. The proposed form is a ghostly ruin, broken and made of fragments. The installation is about making present erased and interrupted histories. In this story the ‘musallah’ (a space of prayer) is the architecture. It faces Mecca, it functions without boundaries, it is the worshipper praying on the grass, nomadic, diasporic. It is about a network of community; smooth space in opposition to the walls, erfs, and demarcations – the straitened space of unjust laws. Dangerous Liaisons

Drawing Memory into Being 181

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Prossima Apertura – Piazza Comunità Europea, Aprilia 2021 Citadella, TRANSURBAN Residency, Bielefeld 2022

Casa di BelMondo, Belmonte Calabro (CS) 2019 — Ongoing

Biennale Architettura 2023

orizzontale

Sexy Assemblage displays a heterogeneous approach to designing public spaces, where playfulness, actions, and communities together generate the time and space for experimenting with new forms of collective aggregation. As architects, we ask: how can we bring together skills, people, places, materials, stories, and desires that are quite different and distant? We suggest various tools, both formal and informal, that contribute to the creation of the assemblage, shaping multiple ‘open systems’ instead of defining isolated formal solutions. Starting from a dialogue between different orizzontale projects, Sexy Assemblage explores those tools when applied in different contexts, scales, and spaces. For our installation in The Laboratory of the Future, a visual landscape presents a general approach to public space, collecting ideas, images, and texts. At the same time, the space itself becomes a form of collective aggregation, physically building a place of encounter both formal and informal for Biennale Architettura 2023. In this sense, the assemblage aims to create a common ground upon which encounters and collective confrontation take place, the space in which experiences are shared and brought together, and the space in which conflicts and collisions are tackled and solved (or not). In Sexy Assemblage, the collective construction of public space becomes a model for inhabiting and building the city. By testing unusual uses, assembling objects, and collecting experiences that emerged during the process, the space becomes the laboratory for future communities. Dangerous Liaisons

Sexy Assemblage — The Danger and Seduction in Juxtaposing Differences that May Clash 183

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Slide of William Balé’s photographic archive part of An Architectural Botany 2018

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Collective mapping with the elders at Marãiwatsédé, part of Trees, Vines, Palms and Other Architectural Monuments 2017 — 2021

Biennale Architettura 2023

Paulo Tavares/ autonoma

Our installation composes a ‘forest pavilion’ where two interrelated projects are set in dialogue. An Architectural Botany revisits the photo archive produced by ethnobotanist Professor William Balée during his pathbreaking research with the Ka’apor of eastern Amazonia in the 1980s. This showed that vast areas of the rainforest are the product of Indigenous engagements with the landscape; that is, they are socially designed. What does it mean to say that an environment that represented the quintessential ‘Nature’ in Western colonial–modern thought is in fact a cultural, designed artefact? The second project, Trees, Vines, Palms and Other Architectural Monuments, presents an archaeology of ancient Xavante settlements forcibly displaced by the Brazilian military dictatorship in the 1960s. Through the forensic identification of botanic remains, the project asks if forest compositions are equivalent to architectural ruins. Can trees, vines, and palms be interpreted as historic monuments? Together, the projects establish a dialogue between theory and practice, knowledge and ground, visual cultures and design advocacy, weaving a conceptual field in which the forest appears as a radical, new form of architecture. Beyond listing monuments to be dismantled, we need to build new memorial landscapes to care for, land sites that can enable other histories to be told, all the while repairing communities and restoring the environment. Grounded and global, architecture-as-advocacy simultaneously responds to situated land conflicts and the earth-politics of climate change. “The word for world,” as American author Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, “is forest.” Dangerous Liaisons

An Architectural Botany, 2018 Trees, Vines, Palms and Other Architectural Monuments, 2017―2021 185

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Before and After Images showing how the Ganesh Festival Pandal is built and dismantled each year in Mumbai, India 2012

Biennale Architettura 2023

Rahul Mehrotra with Ranjit Hoskote

Architecture has not translated the opportunities that the multiple transitions we are experiencing today offer to generate forms of congenial, liveable futures. The ‘practice of architecture’ has been obsessed with permanence through imagining absolute solutions. To make the shift to transitionary design thinking would mean recognising the interconnectedness of social, economic, political, and natural systems to address problems at all levels of the spatiotemporal scale in ways that could make life on our planet sustainable. Most importantly, this implies we rethink the ‘architecture’ of practice to simultaneously work with multiple modes of engagement as well as transgressions and synergies between disparate disciplinary cultures and knowledge accumulation and production. It means walking the dangerously razor-thin line between polarised conditions to challenge and manifest their redundancies as imagined binaries. It requires unsettling the relevance of the static, permanent manifestation of architecture as the singular spectacle or organising instrument of human settlements. In the education of future practitioners, our emphasis must be on nurturing, inspiring, motivating, and mentoring young architects to calibrate and give agency to the otherwise growing schism between their spheres of concern and influence. The ambition of the exhibit is to highlight the importance of simultaneously designing, practising, thinking, and exploring through various modes and methods. It is designed as a threshold to highlight the multidisciplinary, multimodal, and multi-scalar work of Rahul Mehrotra. The exhibit emphasises temporality and hybridisation through four categories: Advocacy, Practice, Research, and Teaching. To emphasise temporality and waste reduction, material is reused from Mehrotra’s previous Biennale Architettura installations. Dangerous Liaisons

Loops of Practice, Thresholds of Habitability 187

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Chattahoochee ‘River Ramble’ with the Agape Youth & Family Center 2019

Biennale Architettura 2023

SCAPE Landscape Architecture

The Chattahoochee Riverlands project weaves neighbourhoods, schools, woodlands, and shoals together into a contiguous public space and reparative ecological infrastructure. This is the focus of our contribution to The Laboratory of the Future. Building from over four decades of community planning, remediation, and grassroots environmental justice advocacy, this generational effort to reconnect Atlanta with its major river, the Chattahoochee, is just beginning to take form. Overlaid across 125 miles of diverse territory, spanning downtown, suburban fringe, agricultural fields, and intact forests, the Chattahoochee Riverlands stitches accessible bikeways and greenways, microparks and rocky overlooks into the existing urban–rural fabric, connecting over one million residents to each other and to an immersive riverine landscape. Already inspiring regional policy and moving, site by site, towards implementation, the Riverlands vision emerged from an extensive engagement process of over two hundred public events, including open houses, focus groups, stakeholder workshops, driving tours, braille trails, and ‘river rambles’. The lines drawn here on acetate overlays, from just one of these workshops, scratch the surface of stories told, investments made, and histories unearthed. Over time, the Chattahoochee has evolved from a riverine landscape central to Indigenous life for the Creek and Cherokee tribes, to a driver of industry and extraction, to a physical barrier and instrument of redlining, to a catalyst for environmental action. Moving forward, the Chattahoochee Riverlands prefigures both a form of next-century climate infrastructure and a process that centres on a collaborative method of workshopping and co-creation. Dangerous Liaisons

Workshopping the Chattahoochee 189

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Ground Conditions: Ogoni, Oil on Water series 1 2018 Midwest Flatland From the Sky series: 18 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Stephanie Hankey, Michael Uwemedimo and Jordan Weber

A rammed earth floor that reuses the soil of Delcy Morelos’s Earthly Paradise (2022) is built as ‘new ground’ in the Corderie. Above this ground is a stretched canopy of algorithmic and aerial renderings of the sites of our soil journeys, from satellite imagery, data flows, sensor readings, cargo metrics and seismic charts. In the space between canopy and ground, sonic layers of microbial soil activity, seismic soundings, agricultural sensor signals, and human voices recorded in communities describe acoustic archaeology. Through the course of our installation in The Laboratory of the Future, every landscape from which our earth has travelled becomes a laboratory to stimulate both soil and community – from microbial fuel cells which digest hydrocarbons to community concerts staged on replanted spill sites or rewilded croplands. These are local experiments in the production of a different kind of landscape, exploring not so much who land belongs to as how we belong to the land in these sites of struggle and celebration. Dangerous Liaisons

Synthetic Landscapes I 191

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Lost at Sea 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Studio Barnes

Can architecture be the keeper of stories? What happens when architecture speaks its truth? To The Laboratory of the Future, I submit Griot, which speculates on the legacies that are hidden in our foundational architectural canon. A Griot, historically, is a West African storyteller. In this installation, built objects supply narratives of architecture, identity, colonisation, and the cultural influences of the African diaspora. Using Dangerous Liaisons as the point of departure, the Griot oscillates between text and word. Much of the research and writings that document this missing architectural history is found outside of the discipline. Rather than architecture, it is archaeology and anthropology that contain a plethora of knowledge on procedures, production, and people. The disciplinary combinations of architecture, archaeology, anthropology, and identity reflect a new, hybrid architecture that moves fluidly between borders and boundaries, a new architecture of The Laboratory of the Future. Dangerous Liaisons

Griot 193

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Yellow Brick Road 2018

Biennale Architettura 2023

Studio of Serge Attukwei Clottey

For The Laboratory of the Future, Clottey has constructed an iteration of his Afrogallonism project, installed along the upper support structure of the Gaggiandre. The work hangs organically, its shape defined by its own weight, suspended above the water, the reflection catching along the surface below. Clottey works across installation, performance, photography, painting, and sculpture, exploring personal and political narratives rooted in histories of trade and migration. Based in Accra, Ghana, Clottey refers to his work that uses primarily plastic, yellow, Kufuor1-era gallon containers as ‘Afrogallonism’, a concept that confronts global material culture through the cutting, drilling, stitching, and melting of these found materials. The gallons that Clottey utilises within this work are not inherently African. They are constructed from plastic, imported, then discarded. Clottey frequently reissues these materials within a contemporary art space, where they migrate through his practice, alchemising their value and meaning through the context of his artistic process. With this project, Clottey utilises existing Venetian architecture to create a site-specific installation – one that investigates the relationship between ‘Afrogallonism’ and this important cultural site. Dangerous Liaisons

1. John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor is a Ghanaian politician who served as the President of Ghana from 7 January 2001 to 7 January 2009. He was also Chairperson of the African Union from 2007 to 2008.

Time and Chance 195

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Anthotype Study 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Suzanne Dhaliwal

In response to the complex and multiple crises facing the global climate and community, Suzanne Dhaliwal invites us to reconsider our relationship to boundaries. In these sun images, the semipermeable membrane begins as a point of inspiration to consider how we relate to differences, barriers, and resource distribution from a holistic and life-orientated principle. How can the design principles of a semipermeable membrane offer possibilities for activating an ethos and principles of design which rethink the distinction of inside and outside, of public and private boundaries, in light of these overarching commitments to life and equity? Here the semipermeable membranes offer a guiding principle for a proposal for how the mechanical demarcation of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ and thresholds can be designed and yet orientated towards life principles. The semipermeable membrane can be designed to facilitate life processes such as osmosis, desalination, homeostasis, the protection of organs, and the facilitated distribution of key biochemical agents such as hormones. Working with natural dyes and sunbleached anthotypes, the series offers a resting point to reconsider how we might explore the semipermeable membrane as a compass for the laboratory of the future to orientate design in the coming years. Dangerous Liaisons

Sunkissed: Reimagining Redistribution 197

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The Work-Shop Production Flows 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Sweet Water Foundation

The term ‘chaord’ is formed from the blend of ‘chaos’ and ‘order’. It is a diunital framework that embraces the logic of ‘both/and’ and negates the dichotomous mindset of ‘either/ or’ that dominates form and function in the built environment. The professions of architecture and planning pride themselves on the verisimilitude of establishing order. The thirst for control leaves limited space for dynamic feedback; hence cities are designed as monolithic, although they are naturally dialogic. Static, picture-perfect moments of controlled spaces and master plans of prescriptive notions of life are antithetical to both nature and most humans who cannot afford to be ‘clients’. This dichotomous mindset blinds the world to the unbounded possibilities of ‘chaord’. chaord is an assemblage of designed objects and mixed media re-presentations of Sweet Water Foundation’s spatial praxis featuring Meeting House, a laboratory and workshop designed as a multi-scalar framework. Key elements of the façade are formed from nested modular seating objects designed as a lesson plan in urban ecology celebrating reclaimed wood. Each element functions as its own unique fractal, allowing for a series of dynamic patterns of self-assembly and self-organisation when moved and relocated. Units can be reassembled to support a range of programmatic formations, such as classroom, workshop, and outdoor auditorium seating for 250+ people. Inside the Arsenale, chaord is represented via a multimedia, didactic collage which displays a series of photographs, materials, and diagrams contextualising Sweet Water Foundation’s practice of Regenerative Neighbourhood Development at the Commonwealth on the South Side of Chicago. Dangerous Liaisons

chaord 199

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The Funambulist in the Algerian Hirak 2019

Biennale Architettura 2023

The Funambulist

The Funambulist is an editorial project initiated by Léopold Lambert in 2010, dedicated to the politics of space and bodies. Through an online platform, a podcast, and, most importantly, a bimestrial print and online magazine, it attempts to analyse political struggles of the world through space and the built environment. Articles, interviews, artworks, and design projects form an ongoing archive for anticolonial, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, queer, trans, and feminist struggles, providing a platform where activists/academics/practitioners can meet and build solidarity across geographical boundaries and scales. As the Curator has noted, increasingly, “print, curatorship and public discourse are legitimate forms of architectural production”. In The Laboratory of the Future, for the first time, the totality of The Funambulist’s print publications since inception are assembled, walking the metaphorical tightrope between ‘thoughts’ and ‘things’. From the early collaboration with punctum books, which has given birth to eleven volumes of The Funambulist Pamphlets and two volumes of The Funambulist Papers, visitors are invited to walk the chronology of the forty-six first editions of the magazine. Dangerous Liaisons

The Funambulist 201

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Yangambi 2020 — 2022

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Panorama Atmosphérique 1935

Biennale Architettura 2023

Twenty Nine Studio

Sammy Baloji’s contribution to The Laboratory of the Future is deployed in three chapters. Each addresses the dematerialisation of the landscape and the delocalisation of precolonial social systems through colonial action. The three chapters interlock in an open dialogue of historical and contemporary documents activated by the artistic gesture. The first chapter consists of a projection of a film made in and around the Yangambi agricultural centre, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The film combines archival footage with images from the artist, made as part of his recent field research. Visually, contemplative images of the vegetal landscape, the result of Belgian colonial agricultural experimentation, are interspersed with views of obsolete colonial buildings occupied by Congolese agents and workers. The second chapter consists of archival documents and travel notes from Indonesia collected by agronomists and architects of the Belgian government. The purpose of these observation trips was to apply the architectural and agricultural techniques of the Belgian state in its colony, the Belgian Congo. The third chapter focuses on the Belgian architect Henry Lacoste and his project for the Belgian Pavilion at the 1935 World Fair. This project, which was never realised, was entitled Panorama Atmosphérique. Lacoste proposed the geo-hydrographic and climatic reconstitution of an exploration trip to the Belgian Congo, with the ambition of reflecting the power and progress of the colonial enterprise in the Congo. Sammy Baloji worked on the reconstitution of a copy of the Atmospheric Panorama model, based on copper materials, with critical and poetic interpretation. Dangerous Liaisons

Aequare: the Future that Never Was 203

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Vocal Cognitive Territory 2022

Filming in the South of Colombia 2021

Biennale Architettura 2023

Ursula Biemann

In the face of the momentous urgency of maintaining the Earth’s biodiversity and the knowledge that has co-evolved with it, artist Ursula Biemann has been working with the Inga people of southwest Colombia since 2018 to co-create an Indigenous university in the Andean Amazon. Devenir Universidad (Becoming a University) engages in this collaborative process, in which different knowledge systems are brought into dialogue with the goal of reversing the cultural loss and epistemic damage caused by colonial and extractive regimes. The project involves research, knowledge production, and educational programmes, exploring multiple ways of knowing, thinking about, and engaging with their territory. Inspired by a biocultural paradigm that drives discourse from an extractive to a more generative and imaginative relationship with the territory, Devenir Universidad supports several dimensions in the materialisation of this new institution of higher education and research – the Indigenous Biocultural University. Commissioned by the Museum of Art of the National University of Colombia, Devenir Universidad is an art project, an online publication, a living organism, multispecies research in the Amazonian rainforest, and a collaborative network of different human and other-than-human persons thinking and acting together with the territory. As part of Devenir Universidad, the video work Vocal Cognitive Territory (2022) brings to Venice this conversation about the persistence and sovereignty of Indigenous knowledge of the rainforest. In recordings made by members of the community, key figures from the Inga people tell their territorial history and propose distinct kinds of learning for their future generations. Dangerous Liaisons

Devenir Universidad 205

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The Plantation 2017

Biennale Architettura 2023

White Arkitekter

The Laboratory of the Future comes at a time when any imagined future looks bleak. Architecture plays a complicit role in environmental degradation, social inequality, and energy imbalance. Dangerous Liaisons hints at the risks involved in our misinterpretation of complex entanglements, the reductive view of nature and numerical approaches to landscape management. Can a balance be found between the forest as a resource and the urgent need for fragile ecologies to be preserved and rebuilt? Our installation unpacks a recent timber project from Skellefteå, Sweden, exploring building technology, material supply chains, and their impact on the forests from which it was built. Sara Kulturhus, completed in 2021, is a symbol for sustainable timber architecture and is a perfect case study for dissection. Using carbon as an agreed measure and currency, the workshop allows us to unpick the politics of ‘zero’ and point towards positive new forms of practice. We reach beyond the building to include the landscapes of timber extraction, and through connecting hard data with a real place, look to reveal what is often intangible. Films present the reality of the industrial forest, the efficiency of manufacture, and the quotidian use of the public building at true scale. Wildlife, people, and weather add layers to further connect the very north of Europe with the audience at Biennale Architettura 2023. Multiple voices are heard, from ecology, technology, and carbon discourse, which illustrate the complexities and contradictions within current approaches to counter climate and biodiversity emergencies. Dangerous Liaisons

One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Trees 207

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Exhibition Studies 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Wolff Architects

The diversity of themes in the work of our office is explored through the metaphor of a geological section. Key projects are represented with a consideration of the sedimentation of work and ideas that inform the major preoccupations of the office. As much as two tectonic plates can pull apart, this installation explores the conversion of geological formations. Under huge force, horizontal layers are tilted, mangled, and pushed upwards. This transformation of the terrain is most dramatically revealed when water flows through a section of the mountain to expose the drama of a new landscape. Like a series of soil profiles, the installation comprises vertical bands; at the top are significant current drawings, films, or photos, and below these are the layers which are the precursors of this work. At the base of each vertical section are the collective subconscious and themes of the various people who collaborate as or with Wolff. The vertical bands are made as a series of scrolls. The installation scrolls overlay screened content and photographs on cyanotype printed textile. These blueprints have a well-known reference to historic ways of reproducing architectural drawings, but as sun prints they are reproductions that require only solar energy to be made. These prints are an expression of abundance at a time of South Africa’s current energy supply scarcity. Dangerous Liaisons

Tectonic Shifts 209

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Niangou Boat Terminal 2014

Biennale Architettura 2023

ZAO/standardarchitecture

Communities throughout history have practised communal living and resource sharing as a way of life. From the Indigenous to the modern urban community, societies incubated new social systems, facilitated cultural exchanges and developed co-living ideas in shared spaces. Yet, co-living will be a dangerous situation while it remains passive. With the world’s rapid division indulging seclusion and conflict, we are drifting apart, physically and anthropologically. Is it possible to turn passive co-living active, both politically and architecturally? The installation, conceived as a coliving workshop, invites visitors to reflect on our work under a suspended mock-up of the Hangzhou Museum, ponder in its courtyard as the philosophers did in ancient Chinese gardens, and dwell on our thinking of the vital relationships between interior and exterior, architecture and landscape, memory and identity. We trace back and look ahead, examine reminiscence to envision new aspects of coliving and induce discussions on sustainable co-living. Three series of projects demonstrate consecutively our contemporary interpretation of co-living. Tibet explores the idea of incorporating a co-living landscape into a cultural context. Hutong Metabolism develops this with co-living spaces and programmes that foster organic communal growth as a critical renewal in an existing urban fabric. Our latest project series, the Rizhao Community Art Centre, represents the active co-living of programmes, and co-living types of space: a contemporary Chinese garden in the air, a great semi-outdoor theatre in the middle, and an art gallery underneath. Dangerous Liaisons

Co-Living Courtyard 共生院 211

To Work on Words and Actions Milan

Luca Molinari

There is a clear relationship between decolonisation and decarbonisation, and it cuts across all forms of social, economic, and environmental inequality under which most of the world’s population lives. The destiny of our planet influences the direction that architecture will have to take for decades to come. Architects have been tasked with designing the metaphorical and physical house of coexistence between living forms that will have to accompany any attempts at radical change in our ecological footprint with which we build, produce, and consume by 2050. We still inhabit places as if they were a perennial and inextinguishable resource. This is the result of a symbolic and social stratification, which is the basis of modern Western civilisation and which continues to be one of the founding paradigms of globalised hyper-capitalist thought. 212

Biennale Architettura 2023

If we do not have the ability to radically affect the apparatus of words and actions that define the figure of the citizen–consumer, we will not be able to implement a real and effective transformation of our environment. The expansive, global thrust that has considered the Earth as a widespread and available system of exploitation for the growth of our civilisation and that has characterised our history in the last five hundred years, today must imagine a substantial paradigm shift that includes the key words that represent our time. For this reason, the principles of decolonisation cannot only be applied in political and economic terms that are based on the principles of independence and self-determination of every single planetary community but must also be clearly aimed at a radical reinterpretation and decolonisation of the words we use. During the 1990s, publications dedicated to the construction of neologisms capable of representing new urban and social phenomena multiplied. It was, again, a neo-avant-garde movement that seized a pivotal moment in which to invent terms and contents suitable for a new civilisation of (intelligent) machines. Dangerous Liaisons

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We must define new social and spatial contracts that define alternative urban and territorial models. In these models the coexistence of the living, the awareness of the activated natural resources and their circularity, processes of reuse and regeneration of existing building heritage, attention to the fragile body of an increasingly densified and vulnerable population, and the metamorphic relationship between the real body and the digital body are central factors in the decarbonisation process, which must not only be a technical action, but above all a symbolic and cultural one. Words are cultural products and, as such, should be rethought and freed from inherited meanings, bringing them afresh and relevant to our times. Words symbolically and operationally represent the world we are trying to change, and we cannot rely on paradigms and theories that require such profound modification. Words and images are the foundation of our actions and of the story with which we collectively share projects and their horizons of meaning. This capillary action must be accompanied by a widespread global and individual process of decarbonisation that affects both international policies and our individual actions. Since cities, 214

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Taxi Station at the Accra Mall Junction, Accra AFI Workshop 6, Accra Festus Jackson-Davis 2022 Page 216 — 217

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Taxi Station at the Accra Mall Junction, Accra AFI Workshop 6, Accra Festus Jackson-Davis 2022 Page 218 — 219

where two-thirds of the world’s population will be concentrated by 2040, are one of the main polluting sources both for transportation and the built environment, it is clear that the world of architecture faces a challenge and a responsibility, crucial policies for the fate of our civilisation(s). We are at the beginning of a different era that is questioning existing tools and visions to make room for the possibility of applying non-impact alternative energies and fuels, regenerated materials, and noninvasive ways of moving that will open up interesting scenarios for our ways of imagining reality and living together. This condition could lead us to a time in which we are no longer obliged to think in terms of decolonisation and decarbonisation, but only of free and conscious self-determination of communities. All these factors will have a decisive impact on our way of designing individual and communal spaces in the coming years and will be decisive for the future of the planet, bringing the political and social role of making architecture back to the centre and working on the landscape as an inseparable and conscious unit. Dangerous Liaisons

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Gender & Geography

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Mnemonic

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special; adjective

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“not ordinary or usual; having a particular purpose; not usually available.” — Oxford English Dictionary

Biennale Architettura 2023

Arising out of shared interests and approaches to architecture, this collection of projects is considered ‘special’ in the sense that participants spend more collaborative and developmental time with the Curator, who outlines a format, theme, or set of issues as a catalyst for development. Encompassing film, performance, text, installations, art, drawings, and photography, the Curator’s Special Projects are a snapshot of spatial practices across different geographies, climates, and contexts. Curator’s Special Projects

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Oracles and Omens Accra/ London/ Paris

Bianca A. Manu

Emerging into a post-Covid world, full of global crises that have been festering for decades, a new phenomenon has taken hold. For the first time since the millennium, despondence, despair, and a desire for repair are now the new normal. It is universally acknowledged, particularly among young people, that there is no firm ground to stand on, only dangerously shifting sands. The closer one gets to the equator, the more apparent this becomes. 226

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At the nexus of this shift from optimism to despair is Africa. Yet unlike many places in the Global North, the political, cultural, and social instability felt by millions has provoked a different response. Decades of consistently underperforming governments across the African continent have birthed creative solutions that are both self-reliant and centred on community. A new narrative is emerging in Africa that is not carved from, or of, an anthropological or ethnographic gaze of the continent. It is situated between and beyond these perspectives. The idea of contemporary Africa being opposed to Western traditional architectural knowledge lacks the nuance of acknowledging how Africa has long adapted and become fluent in transformation and addressing intense climates, unscrupulous governance, and an impressive and exponentially growing youth population. It is a time for convergence and transfer. In many ways, however, this newfound dynamism is not new. In reality, it is a continuation of earlier attempts galvanised during Africa’s independence years. The 1956 Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris, followed by the second edition in Rome in 1959, sparked important conversations on colonialism, slavery, and Négritude. These intense discussions led to the realisation of Festac ’77, also known as the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, a major Curator’s Special Projects

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international festival held in Lagos in 1977. The month-long event celebrated African culture through its 16,000 participants representing fifty-six African nations and countries of the African diaspora. Fifty years later, first- and second-generation Africans and diaspora are returning, driven partly by nostalgia for Pan-African philosophies, photos, folktales, and family, and partly by the desire to fashion new forms of creative infrastructure with artists who have always lived and worked on the continent. A new, inter-generational, trans-local shift manifests through artist-led spaces. The lack of formal, on-theground infrastructure addresses geopolitical and social instability and challenges wider international oppressions. The Ghanaian artist Elisabeth Sutherland initiated Terra Alta in 2018.1A modular structure created from shipping containers sitting on landscaped ground, it is the first purpose-made black box theatre in Ghana, which doubles as a community space and a garden for foraging and feeding. Also in Ghana, the artist Ibrahim Mahama launched the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) in 2020 in Tamale, northern Ghana, which responds to the lack of contemporary cultural stimuli in his community by creating a greenhouse to revive endangered local seeds, herbs, and plants.2 In Nigeria, filmmaker Zina Saro-Wiwa opened the Boys’ Quarters Project Space in 2014, prioritising 228

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local Niger Delta artists. In Lagos, artist WuraNatasha Ogunji built The Treehouse, a residency suspended above views of the lagoon, which opened in 2018. Also in Lagos, artist Jumoke Sanwo opened the Revolving Art Incubator (RAI) in 2016. In Senegal, Kenu – launched by creator Alibeta in 2020 – celebrates the action available to artists to produce social change within their communities. Meanwhile, leveraging the play between perception and impact, African creatives such as painter Amoako Boafu show how to use their practice to build responsive infrastructure.3 The future is in Africa: it serves as an oracle and an omen for an opportunity.

Elisabeth Sutherland is the granddaughter of Efua Sutherland, a prominent playwright and cultural activist.

Okwui Enwezor’s curation of the Biennale Arte 2015, All the World’s Futures, was instrumental in profiling Mahama’s work to international acclaim. It was a turning point that led to subsequent commissions for Mahama, which eventually funded the 210 acres dedicated to Red Clay / SCCA Tamale; it is an exhibition and research hub, cultural repository and artists’ residency.

N. Freeman, “The Swift, Cruel, Incredible Rise of Amoako Boafo: How Feverish Selling and Infighting Built the Buzziest Artist of 2020”, Artnet, available at https://news.artnet.com/art-world/amoako-boafo-1910883 (accessed 13 April 2021).

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“We have, myopically, taken for granted our grounded existence on earth. We have assumed that the earth is entirely at our service and disposal. Hence, many crucial resources have been exhausted. Why did the earth become to be considered in such a narrow way?” — Achille Mbembe

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On the road to Somanya, Eastern Region, Ghana Festus Jackson-Davis 2022 Page 230 — 231

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BothAnd Group Margarida Waco 234

Gloria Pavita Biennale Architettura 2023

Food, Agriculture & Climate Change

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Green Futures Rotterdam

Marina Otero Verzier

Western energy dreams are too often realised at the expense of the lives of Indigenous peoples, local communities, and their ecosystems. Under the pretext of progress, these groups are portrayed as backward, lesser beings, or even non-existent; their bodies and territories equated to resources to be extracted, sacrificed to the logics of profit and ‘development’. Post-fossil fuel green futures are no exception. They still depend on extractivist industries that open wounds in mountains and communities, on their ground and the depths beneath them, breaking everything that exists down into pieces for its exploitation to keep the promise of infinite growth alive – electric cars, smart cities, and now the Metaverse. All this ‘development’ is to the detriment of communities who carry the burden for us all. Covas do Barroso is one of the areas affected by a desire for more energy and, in particular, more lithium-ion batteries. Located in the north of 236

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Portugal, a site of biodiversity and centuries-long cultural traditions, Covas is the latest sacrificial landscape: here, lithium has been found. Since 2016, the Portuguese government and the European Commission have instigated extraction projects in this region, advertised as one of the largest lithium reserves in Europe. The EU Green Deal in 2020, the post-Covid recovery plans in 2021, and the geopolitical instability and energy shortages of 2022 have only intensified and vindicated these efforts. Whereas lithium mines have a long-term impact on the quality of air, water, and soil, as well as the lives of beings depending on them, far beyond the pit, the EU presents these projects as a necessary step towards decarbonisation and the uncoupling from the fossil fuel industry. These projects have, in turn, triggered the construction of large wind and solar farms in the region and high-voltage power lines to export this ‘clean’ energy. Since 2018, the inhabitants of Covas – supported by a range of societal actors and communities affected by lithium extraction in Chile, Serbia, and Spain – have sustained their opposition to plans such as the open pit mega-mine, Mina do Barroso. But, some ask, if not in Covas, where?; accepting destruction as the inevitable cost of progress even when facing a climate catastrophe. Curator’s Special Projects — Food, Agriculture & Climate Change

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As such, they auction the future while carrying out actions that foreclose the possibility of a future. Lithium mines, wind farms, and solar panels are part of the decarbonisation efforts essential to tackling the worst impacts of climate change. However, this green transition is in vain if not undertaken alongside a reconsideration of the ethics of a society founded on exploitation, extractivism, and consumerism. Covas is, in this context, part of the Global South, its prospects and conflicts against the appropriation by force of land, bodies, desires, rights, and social relations. Its battles around lithium extraction align with those in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chile, Bolivia, Spain, Serbia, and other territories where cravings for energy and profit trigger the instrumentalisation of the planet, and which exemplify what philosopher Enrique Dussel calls the developmental fallacy or the imposition of modernity as a model for universal governance.1 In Chile, lithium mining leaves Atacameño Indigenous communities without water. In the Nordic countries, the expansion of wind farms is endangering the cultural practice of traditional reindeer herding, essential to Sámi identity. Despite being the custodians of ecosystems and suffering the long-term effects of extraction, such communities are excluded from decision-making processes, the redistribution 238

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of benefits, and social and environmental rights. In what many have described as ‘green colonialism’, Indigenous communities are endangered in the name of sustainability. However, this form of violence is turned into a force for survival for these communities through collective infrastructures and embodied practices such as the carnival. As their degradation and dispossession are presented as the lesser evil, communities such as Covas invite devils into the public domain. Embodying the beasts and brute force of the mountain in customs, masks, and rituals, the carnival invades all that is ‘civilised’. If mining results in social breakdown, the political performativity of carnival breaks social order to create counterworlds coalescing the individual and the collective, the ancestral realm and future generations, the human and more-than-human. Whereas the Cartesian logic driving the mining industry subjugates and exploits the mountain and its inhabitants, these forms of relationality and “politics across divergence” bring the world’s categorisation, compartmentalisation, and exploitation – the compulsive desires of capitalism – to a temporary halt.2 1.

See E. D. Dussel, “Transmodernity and Interculturality: An Interpretation from the Perspective of Philosophy of Liberation”, Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World 1(3): 28–58.

M. De la Cadena and B. Blaser (eds.), A World of Many Worlds (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018), 4.

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Clare Island, Ireland 1960

Biennale Architettura 2023

BothAnd Group

This installation is an investigation conducted by BothAnd Group into Indigenous land management practices, situated in landscapes in Ireland and Nigeria. The reciprocal coupling of these two landscapes across time and geography seeks to advance a renewed understanding of local ecologies, informed by Indigenous ways of knowing and management of lands. As Britain’s first colony – and therefore, capitalism’s first frontier – the Irish landscape offers an instructive example. In the early stages of Britain’s colonial project, it acted as a dress rehearsal for the transformation of colonised landscapes across the planet. Through the medium of drawing, we look closely at the Indigenous ‘rundale’ land management practice of Ireland’s past landscapes – prior to, and in the process of, colonisation. As a way of being on and working with the land, ‘rundale’ took place in challenging ecological conditions at the edges of fertile land, resisting dispossession from colonists who lacked knowledge to make it ‘productive’. Achille Mbembe describes the African continent as “the last frontier of capitalism”. In Nigeria, we look at Indigenous land management practices today. In the installation, video projections capture the practices of transhumance and companion species taking place across Nigeria’s landscape. Here, we reflect on the role played by wealthy countries, including Ireland, that advance capitalism into this last frontier, and local conditions which resist these Indigenous farming practices. In the installation, you will hear conversations which pose, address, and open further avenues for research and discussion on the emergence of alternative agricultural futures. Curator’s Special Projects — Food, Agriculture & Climate Change

The Landscape Rehearsals 241

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kushikilia na kupika (to hold and to cook) | held and traced on a wooden spoon with with cassava flour ku shikilia (to listen)

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translations of kumbukumbu noun

translations of kushikilia & kupika noun kushikilia to hold to listen kupika to cook 2020 ↓↓

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kumbukumbu (memory) | performed & filmed kumbuka (remember)

kumbukumbu memory kumbukumbu mention

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On memory’s ability to collapse borders. 2020

Biennale Architettura 2023

Gloria Pavita

[Udongo ni Bulongo] [ni bulongo ya nani?] [Soil is soil] [Kiswahili bora; Lubumbashi Kiswahili] This project is a spatial and experiential exploration of narratives that centre practices of care, repair, reclamation, and repatriation through soil. Soil is a body that holds and hosts the extractive, exploitative, and violent practices of the colonial and apartheid regimes, from the context of Philippi in Cape Town, South Africa, to that of Camp Mutombo in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Though we were scattered across the most unbearable and least arable of soils, we have started to soar. This project manifests in scenes that occur across the contexts of Philippi and Lubumbashi. To distinguish these scenes, characteristics of soil and from soil are used as literal/figurative devices to connect to the narratives expressed in each scene to pay homage to the themes of care, repair, reclamation, and repatriation – as sand with the touch of silt, as the loamy soil in my grandmother’s garden in Camp Mutombo, and as “dust that clings to a city where inequality is stark”. Memory and the scale of the body serve the role of setting up and situating these narratives I invoke. Though our soils continue to be stripped, we will sow and seed. Curator’s Special Projects — Food, Agriculture & Climate Change

[na Bulongo] 243

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5.5706° S, 12.1976° E, Cabinda AO 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Margarida Waco

5.5706° S, 12.1976° E Sedimentary Myths chronicles a love letter to Cabinda. Nestled at the mouth of the Congo Basin and engulfed by the Atlantic, our soils and waters – two disobedient bodies keeping records of centuries of extractive violence – echo the broken stutters of a disputed territory. A territory home to the peoples and ancestry of Bakongo, to the wonders of Maiombe, and to the black gold – dug and stripped from our underground reservoirs; ascending, circulating, and dissolving in thin air. Tracing the contours and continuum of a planetary system – thriving, mutating, and sickening upon our soils and waters – Sedimentary Myths yearns toward surfacing intertwining (hi)stories aggregated and written into our repositories in a single gesture, allowing us to project onto a future where we conjoin our voices to chant “Dipanda/ Independência”. Curator’s Special Projects — Food, Agriculture & Climate Change

5.5706° S, 12.1976° E Sedimentary Myths 245

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Caroline Wanjiku Kihato, Clare Loveday and Mareli Stolp in collaboration with Sedinam Awo Tsegah Ines Weizman 246

Gugulethu Sibonelelo Mthembu J. Yolande Daniels Biennale Architettura 2023

Gender & Geography

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Snack vendor

Biennale Architettura 2023

Caroline Wanjiku Kihato, Clare Loveday and Mareli Stolp in collaboration with Sedinam Awo Tsegah

Nestled between performance, film, composition, and exhibition, You Will Find Your People Here is a collaborative, interdisciplinary work by pianist Mareli Stolp, sociologist Caroline Wanjiku Kihato, and composer Clare Loveday. The 30-minute film presents Loveday and Stolp’s creative response to migrant women’s testimonies collected in Kihato’s book, Migrant Women of Johannesburg: Everyday Life in an In-Between City. Written for a vocalising pianist, the work combines piano, spoken word, and vocal utterances to produce an immersive sound-world that interprets the words of migrant women who travelled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and Malawi to Johannesburg. The film is situated in a recreated home space symbolising the women’s pasts, presents, and futures. But the construction of ‘home’ does not happen in a vacuum. It sits at the intersection of the public and private realms, which shape women’s experiences of being both located and dislocated, visible and invisible in the city. Far from being the private sanctuary where nuclear families take refuge from the world ‘out there’, these intimate spaces symbolise the tensions of safety and violence, pride and shame, love and loss. The diagrams by Sedinam Awo Tsegah adorning the walls unsettle how we understand urbanity, social worlds, and family. They tell stories of a heterotopic city that is rooted here and there and holds the contradictions of migration; at once offering hope and aspiration, deferred dreams and broken promises. Migrant women’s journeys allow us to reimagine the city. Curator’s Special Projects — Gender & Geography

You Will Find Your People Here 249

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Film Set: Preamble 2019

Biennale Architettura 2023

Gugulethu Sibonelelo Mthembu

The tale of Aicha Qandisha has existed since the seventh century. She is said to have been a shape-shifting female spirit that takes the form of multiple beings. Unlike other spirits in Arabic and African folklore, Aicha Qandisha appears mostly in men’s dreams and is said to make a man who is possessed by her impotent or seduced into infidelity. Scholars have described how the position of Qandisha in folklore absolves men of their ‘ills’ and places the blame on the female spirit form. Africa’s eras of colonisation and some of its current politics still carry these manifestations of fears and biases toward the power and representation of women. The word ‫( ﺳﺤﺮ‬sihr) in Arabic is the word for ‘glamour’ and the word for ‘magic’. In English, the etymology of the word glamour is from the Welsh ‘grameyre’, which is also the word for magic, or illusion. Illusion and veiling are at the core of the word glamour, implying that there are tactics of deceit, concealment, power, and mystery at the heart of what it is to be glamorous. The Port of ‫ ﺳﺤﺮ‬is situated between these two constructs. At one level, it draws on the world of mythology and folklore. On another, it draws on feminine forms or forms of expression related to and expressing the feminine. Situated across different sites significant to the redressing of histories and legacies of female oppression and representation, this work takes the form of new story for Aicha Qandisha, one in which she is repatriated across the sites: a concubine slave ship, the court of law, the King’s palace, and now at La Biennale di Venezia. Curator’s Special Projects — Gender & Geography

Embodiments: Port of Shir — Final Act 251

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Remnants of a painted tricolour on the theatre stage of Bat Galim Casino in Haifa, shortly before the building’s demolition. 1994

Biennale Architettura 2023

Ines Weizman

A story that unfolded in the shadow of the Second World War is that of African American and Black French performer Joséphine Baker, who at times travelled alongside, in advance of, or behind Allied soldiers, alternately conducting acts of espionage and entertainment. Her perilous trajectory across the shifting borders of the war zones of North Africa and the Middle East is known only in broad terms. Evidence that could detail the series of places where she performed between 1941 and 1943 is almost completely lost. This installation presents a circular theatrical setting created using two layers of curtains. It will follow a few of the faint traces, speculations, rumours, and documents that indicate Baker’s presence in military camps, clubs, cabarets, casinos, theatres, and ‘gin joints’ across the region. The architecture of these places at the time when Baker performed in them was part of the emergent language of modernism, sometimes local and sometimes colonial, that appeared along the Mediterranean basin from Casablanca, Oran, Tunis, Benghazi, Tripoli, and Cairo via Jaffa and Haifa to Damascus and Beirut. Reconstructing the story of a few of the locations where Baker performed aims to untangle a web of crossborder relations that have since become hardened by national boundaries, and of trajectories now severed. Curator’s Special Projects — Gender & Geography

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…” 253

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Plate 11. Earth Encircled by the Celestial Circles 1660

Biennale Architettura 2023

J. Yolande Daniels

Imagine a network comprised of points and lines extracted from events and movements in settlements and cities outlining the African diaspora. Within it, envision a constellation unearthing the lives of ‘Black’ women from the fifteenth century to today. From the multiple displacements of race and gender, enter The BLACK City Astrolabe, a space-time field comprised of a 3D map and a 24-hour cycle of narratives that reorder the forces of subjugation, devaluation, and displacement through the spaces and events of African diasporic women. The diaspora map traces the flows of descendants of Africa (whether voluntary or forced) atop the visible tension between the mathematical regularity of meridians of longitude and the biases of international date lines. An anchor to the Black City Editions, the timeline represents a chronological ordering of time and space. It maps the legal and extralegal structures that have affected the settlements of African descendants within a linear graphic system of horizontal movements and vertical events revealing simultaneous timescapes and patterns over time. In this moment we are running out of time. The meridians and timeline decades are indexed to an infinite conical projection metered in decades. It structures both the diaspora map and timeline, and serves as a threshold to project future structures and events. The BLACK City Astrolabe is a vehicle to proactively contemplate things that have happened, that are happening, and that will happen. Yesterday, a ‘Black’ woman went to the future, and here she is. Curator’s Special Projects — Gender & Geography

The BLACK City Astrolabe: A Constellation of African Diasporic Women 255

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Craig McClenaghan Architecture

Adjaye Associates with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art Looty

Mabel O. Wilson, J. Meejin Yoon and Eric Höweler in collaboration with Josh Begley and Gene Han 256

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Mnemonic

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Nasreen Mohammadi Untitled Date unknown

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Tyeb Mehta Untitled (Woman on rikshaw) 1994

Biennale Architettura 2023

Adjaye Associates with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art

A museum is not only a site for mnemonic contemplation but is also a place where the dual nature of partition (‘partage’ in French) – an action that oscillates between sharing and separation – comes into stark relief, complicating the differentiation between memory and anticipation, suspending time between the past and the future. The museum is thus the site of assembly as well as dispersion, classification as well as division, a place where new narratives and temporalities are fashioned. Resonating with this ambivalent nature of partition and learning from the challenges of postcolonial nationbuilding, KNMA takes inspiration from the works of Tyeb Mehta, Nasreen Mohamedi, and Zarina from the museum’s collection. The traumatic memory and echoes of Partition (of India and Pakistan in 1947) haunted these artists directly or indirectly, bleeding into the way they conceived their artistic vision. Experimenting with broken planes, and fragmented forms frozen in action, they cut diagonally through pictorial grounds and images, using lines as both division and carrier, an architectural interpretation of space, embracing the condition of the in-between. In dialogue with the works of these artists, an architectural model of the proposed building for KNMA by Adjaye Associates is exhibited. Film brings together all four elements – image, words, architecture, and the line as essential gesture – in a continuous loop. The film by Amit Dutta becomes the moving line and a visual expression of the past, present and projected future of the KNMA as an archetypal cultural institution in a postcolonial setting. Curator’s Special Projects — Mnemonic

Partition — Partage 259

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Timescapes 2021 ↓↓

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Intangible resonances 2019

Biennale Architettura 2023

Craig McClenaghan Architecture

The installation for this experimental mapping project explores paper as a material of memory, in which landscape and artefact are interchangeable and recorded as fragments, imprints, and residues across multiple scales of place and time. Much like the evidence on natural surfaces, the presence of water (required in the paper-making process) evaporates to leave no visible trace except the paper itself, which through the process of drying becomes vulnerable to the manipulations of mark-making. As the landscape is subjected to the extractive forces of the global paper-making industry, so the handmade paper produced for this installation is subjected to forces of bending, folding, tearing… even burning – employed as visceral drawing tactics, which the paper itself ‘remembers’. Suggestive of pages of a book, stratigraphic sections through a landscape, or even the skeleton of a body, this installation, an atlas, is suspended in time and space, in which paper is the landscape, the artefact, and the laboratory. Much like the water on which papermaking is so reliant, the landscapes which frame the installation will continue to exist in fragments, touching the ground only in shadow. Ungrounded, the landscape ‘hangs in the balance’, remaining unsettled and vulnerable. It is perhaps from this apparent fragility that robust conversations around alternate methods for reading, thinking, and making could emerge; where relationships to landscape, climate, and each other could be reframed and reimagined. Curator’s Special Projects — Mnemonic

Letters from the Landscape 261

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Digital Heist 2021 ↓↓

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Digital Heist 2021

Biennale Architettura 2023

Looty

This installation features the world’s first digital repatriation of stolen art, comprised of digital remnants of looted objects from prestigious institutions located primarily in the Global North. Using LiDAR technology, Looty digitally records these artefacts, renders them in 3D, and tokenises them on the blockchain as nonfungible tokens (NFTs). This procedure, ‘digital restitution’, enables Looty to avoid bureaucratic procedures and enter the digital sphere, making it simpler for anyone to acquire and study these cultural items. For today’s younger generation of African students, artists, architects, and creatives, access to our ancestral cultural production is limited. Artefacts, paintings, treasures, and more are locked away in museums in London, New York, Paris, Berlin. Unable to travel to or visit these institutions, it is becoming more and more difficult to connect with our rightful heritage. Current debates rage endlessly around whether artefacts should be physically returned; we at Looty have taken matters into our own hands. For us, the Metaverse presents an interesting addition to the conversation about repatriation and theft. Looty establishes a new digital platform that not only records history but also adds value. The installation encourages visitors to reflect on the role that technology plays in cultural preservation and on the importance of safeguarding cultural heritage for future generations. Curator’s Special Projects — Mnemonic

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Composite photo of UVA ledger recording “3 negro hands” employed at Christmas and the spreadsheet recording the known and unknown names 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

unknown, unknown constructs an architectural space of light and sound to remember the unnamed members of the enslaved community at the University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S. unknown, unknown draws from archival research informing our design of UVA’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers that opened in 2020. University historians uncovered references to enslaved persons in archival ledgers, wills, and letters and recorded this information in spreadsheets. It lists, for example: year: 1825, first name: black woman, last name: unknown, historical detail: found in a letter…commenting on the death of “one of Mr. X’s black women from Typhoid fever’”; year: 1836, first name: unknown, last name: unknown, historical detail: a woman. Name “unknown” characterized the majority of the enslaved community who built, worked, and lived at UVA from 1817 to 1865. Their archival absence and erasure reveals the vast scope racial violence that rendered Black men, women, and children as less than human to become property owned and sold. In an immersive installation, unknown, unknown remembers the approximately 4000 unknown and known community members. In contrast to the western monument form that typically renders figures, names, and history in stone or bronze, unknown, unknown creates a commemorative space through a cloud of sound and light. Its panels of suspended fabric recalls the domestic labor of unnamed Black women and the spaces where they lived at UVA. Onto these flowing surfaces play videos of the changing character of the memorial and fragments of archival material referenced while designing the memorial. Sounds and voices abstracted from the ledgers and spreadsheets, which document the known and unknown names, provide a soundtrack throughout the space. unknown, unknown builds an ephemeral sonic and visual memorial for this community. Curator’s Special Projects — Mnemonic

Mabel O. Wilson, J. Meejin Yoon and Eric Höweler in collaboration with Josh Begley and Gene Han

unknown, unknown: A Space of Memory 265

Architecture Practice is also a Space of Exploration Addis Ababa

Rahel Shawl

The “laboratory of the future” is an apt description of a continent with a fast-growing population, rapid urbanisation, and exploding trade and industry that drives the economy and, in turn, the construction sector. In Ethiopia alone, the construction industry is projected to grow at an annual average rate of more than 8% to 2026. It is an exciting time for African architects and design professionals. But with the excitement and opportunities comes enormous responsibility and often overwhelming challenges. In addition to design, African architects must also negotiate waning professional relevance, low fees, complex procurement processes, substandard construction processes, and dubious ethics in ever-shifting political and economic climates. At the forefront of these challenges lie gaps in skilled personnel in the architecture and construction industries, largely a result of limitations in higher and tertiary education that produce poorly equipped 266

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graduates. In booming economies, these young architects and engineers are thrust into the chaos of practice without any anchor, guidance, or mentorship. At RAAS Architects, we believe strongly in putting people and community at the forefront of our work as built environment practitioners. Over the past twenty years, a deeper involvement with and connection to young professionals has allowed me to see first-hand how talent thrives when given focused support and guidance. From the beginning, it was clear that RAAS would be a practice that supports and inspires young professionals by teaching and sharing knowledge in design thinking, both at studio level as well as on construction sites. The word ‘abRen’ in Amharic is loosely translated as ‘together’. In our practice, internships, mentorships, and cross-border fellowships focus on empowering young architects, generating self-confidence and a heightened sense of professionalism, and filling in the gaps after graduation. In the practice studio setting, we focus on elevating local knowledge through studying Indigenous building cultures, architectural heritages, and our built environment, which we then encourage them to fuse with contemporary designs and concepts. Our young professionals also learn how to work on the ground together with our communities, supporting them by teaching construction skills on site. Curator’s Special Projects

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In tandem, we advocate for gender equity in design practices. Through a collaborative approach and exchange, young women are encouraged to express their voices in the safe space of the practice. Redefining the role of women in the built environment while empowering them to be an integral asset of the team, we try to cultivate resilience and self-confidence as they venture into the world of architecture and design practice. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word ‘laboratory’ as “a place providing opportunity for experimentation, observation, and/or practice”. We support a practice that also includes a space for exploration, allows for collective growth while striving for beauty and excellence in architectural design and construction. AbRen is a canvas for expression, local knowledge creation, architectural experimentation, and youth and gender empowerment. This exploratory space strives to accurately capture and represent design culture while simultaneously representing the generosity of community that is inherent to so much of African daily life. 268

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Curator’s Special Projects

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Amos Gitaï Rhael ‘LionHeart’ Cape 270

James Morris Biennale Architettura 2023

Special Participations

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House 2023

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Amos Gitaï

This multimedia installation represents different ethnicities, languages, musical traditions, and generations, brought together to reveal complex memories of the past and the possibility of envisioning a peaceful future coexistence. The installations tell the story of a house in West Jerusalem, spanning a quarter of a century, sharing the stories of its successive occupants. The exhibit includes fragments of biographies adding to a larger mosaic of a territory and a conflict as they are embodied in the destinies of this human microcosm. The stories woven into this exhibit through projection come from a trilogy by Amos Gitaï that has been documented over twenty-five years (House, 1980; A House in Jerusalem, 1997; News from Home, News from House, 2005). New research is premiered, including photographs of the house in 2023 showing how it has evolved. Through this installation, Amos Gitaï returns to the site of the house, allowing the exhibit to not just tell the history of House but also to become the site of an artistic dialogue between past and present experiences that imagine a new future for the region. Special Participations

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House, Fortal, Niger 2000

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Mosque, Yebi, Mali 1999

Biennale Architettura 2023

James Morris

This series of photographs, made between 1999 and 2000, explores the culture of adobebuilt architecture from the Sahel region of West Africa, and specifically Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. The word ‘Sahel’ in Arabic means coast or shore. The sea lapping this shore is the Sahara Desert. The ‘port’ cities of Segou, Mopti, Djenné, Gao, Agadez, and Timbuktu were at times trading and political centres of great wealth and power; Ancient Ghana, the Mali and Bamana Empires, the Songhay, Fulani and Tukulor Dynasties. Sahelian architecture is fascinating for its visually striking and highly distinctive forms. Builders across the region have taken the same basic raw materials – earth, water, straw, and timber – and with creativity and knowledge evolved styles that are unsurpassed in originality, variety, and contrast. Many buildings are vibrant works of art with their own distinct aesthetic; bold, monolithic structures that play with the natural light and available materials to emphasise shadow, texture, silhouette, and form, as well as function. Though part of long traditions and ancient cultures, these are at the same time contemporary structures, serving a current purpose. If they lost their relevance and were neglected, they would collapse. The maintaining and resurfacing of buildings is part of the rhythm of life; there is an ongoing, active participation in their continued existence. Special Participations

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Sentient Brutalism 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Rhael ‘LionHeart’ Cape

Carnival, as described by Mikhail Bakhtin, is where “life is subject only to its own laws, that is, the laws of its own freedom”. Those With Walls for Windows (2023) is a meditation and exploration into the “laws of freedom”. Through poetry, an art form with its own relationship to freedom and control, the work investigates the space of diaspora, a place where forgetting, remembering, and reimagining act as architectural devices in the urban planning of the diasporic psyche. For LionHeart, Carnival is a space of recovery and emancipation; a place of cultural and psychological real estate; a space to dwell, rest, repair, grow, and evolve. Those With Walls for Windows is an aural–visual–textual–oral tapestry that uses performance, rhythm and erasure as structuring devices, a ‘call to arms’ for sonic way finders who seek Carnival’s joyous, redemptive liberation. “In South Africa – where fierce battles over language, custom, ritual, and memory are still being fought – a unique opportunity exists for architects, and architecture, to play a different role, using different tactics and tools to stitch together conflicting accounts, possibly even to resolve them.” — Lesley Lokko (excerpt from African Space Magicians) Special Participations

This installation is a poetic call to action: A referendum for remembrance: A requiem for the carnivalesque: A place where empathy and understanding spark the lighthouse for liberation to return to us.

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DUST Johannesburg

Mpho Matsipa

1. Johannesburg is a city of rupture, of cracks; of a vast fabric, fragmented, ripped, torn apart; an eviscerated idea of modernity. The ending might be violent – or not. Or maybe the end is already behind us. One of the artists with whom I engage, and through whose work I have thought of the city, is Senzeni Marasela.1, 2 Her alter-ego, Theodora, wore the same red cotton dress and ‘itshali’ (blanket) every day for six years. She walked the streets of Johannesburg, Venice, and New York, and she refused to disclose the inventory of subtle humiliations she faced in her laborious ‘flânerie’ through the world’s art galleries, shopping malls, restaurants, taxi ranks, weddings, family gatherings, and exhibitions. Beyond offering a glib biography of Theodora (the artist’s mother), her silences are unremitting. In another artwork, Falling Slopes, Marasela draws on archival maps and traces the contours of Johannesburg’s decommissioned mine dumps, which served to delineate the disembowelled social horizon of the city. Using thick red thread that she painstakingly sewed through Theodora’s ‘itshali’ – so that layer upon layer of thick heavy red thread poured sumptuously out of 278

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the obverse side of the blanket – the work is weighted (down), while also evoking a ‘xibelani’ (dance). Red is the colour of dust. Red is the colour of blood. Red is the colour of initiation. Red is the colour of false prophecies. Red is the colour of land. Red is the colour of landlessness, soil-lessness. Red is the colour of empire. Red is the colour of Sarah Baartman and Theodora and Senzeni and Johannesburg and loss and memory and time (lost/yet to come/already here).3 2. This city has never been beautiful. 3. It is difficult to think about contemporary African cities without understanding how African entanglements with Euro-modernity have transformed large swathes of the Earth into racialised zones of extraction.4 This “being, and becoming Black of the world” is constituted by numerous forms of exclusion and violence that haunt the contemporary city, which push people and spaces outside the normative modernist temporal schedules and boundaries that structure social life.5 4. This de-linking of people–space–time is both a Black temporality and a counter-cartography. It is Special Participations

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fugitive, promiscuous, and liminal; a form of temporal transgression, of “being out of time” (and place) that creates a shift in spatial and temporal coordinates that repeatedly disrupt linear time. It demands both an interrogation of the legacies of coloniality and a recalibration of what constitutes the canon in architecture and other disciplines, if we are to become human. It also holds open the possibility for a reorganisation or manipulation of time and the enactment of diverse knowledges, spatialities, and futures in the present. 5. In thinking about Black futures, and the future of time, I turn to Toni Morrison, who identifies disruption and apocalyptic yearnings as a lament for a return to the dust ideologies of progress and continuity in the “modern West” – a site from which imaginaries for the future are perhaps at their most impoverished – and a “folding away of time’s own future” rather than bridging the space between a harrowing past and a redemptive future.6 6. A singular concept of ‘the city’, ‘architecture’, and time itself, has been thoroughly colonised by the Western-Industrial-City as an object of desire.7 Colonial cities elsewhere suggest that there should 280

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be a space, a pause, between ‘modern’ and ‘city’, and like Marasela’s work, that there is always an obverse, latent, liminal counter-cartography that has been entombed in modernist grammars. This ‘unrepresentability’ points to a lag in which those pressed into the margins make meaning, time, and space.8 It is an opening to a future that is inflected with race, that emerges from a milieu that is gendered, colonised, displaced, dispossessed; and the grounds from which to think/write/make/imagine within (and beyond) this indeterminacy. 7. The future is already here.

I am indebted to many conversations with Senzeni Marasela in my seminar rooms, and over numerous discussions over the past ten years for her insights into the fragility of Black women’s lives, which has reframed my understanding of embodiment and Johannesburg as a site of violent extraction.

S. Marasela, “Falling”, (2021).

S. Khan, “Under the influence of … ‘Covering Sarah’: exorcising the trauma of colonialism and racism”, The Conversation, 9 March, 2017. Available at: https://theconversation.com/under-the-influence-of-coveringsarah-exorcising-the-trauma-of-colonialism-and-racism-71284 (accessed 15 February 2023). See also Elvira Dyangani Ose, “And What Are You Looking At? Formulas for Making the Invisible Visible”, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art 22 (2008): 94–103. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/422779.

A. Mbembe, On the Postcolony (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); W. Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (New York: Verso Books, 2018).

N. C. Manganyi, Being Black in the World (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 1973, 2019). See also A. Mbembe, “The Becoming Black of the World” in Critique of Black Reason (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017); and N. S. Ndebele, “‘Being-Black-In-The-World’ and the Future Of ‘Blackness’” in N. G. Jablonski and G. Maré (eds.), The Effects of Race (Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, 2018), 89–105.

T. Morrison, “The Future of Time: Literature and Diminished Expectations”, The 25th Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, Washington DC, 25 March, 1996. Available at: https://neh.dspacedirect.org/bitstream/ handle/11215/3774/LIB39_002-public.pdf (accessed 15 February 2023). See also T. Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations (New York: Vintage, 2020), 124–125.

F. Miraftab, “Insurgent Planning: Situating Radical Planning in the Global South”, Planning theory 8(1), 2009: 32–50.

K. McKittrick, Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006).

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Security station, Ridge Towers Stairwell, Accra, AFI Workshop 6, Accra Alice Clancy 2022 Page 282 — 283

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Billboards and hustings, Old Fadama, Agbobloshie, Accra, AFI Workshop 6, Accra Alice Clancy 2022 Page 284 — 285

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Guests from the Future

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Ainslee Alem Robson Arinjoy Sen Banga Colectivo

Anusha Alamgir Aziza Chaouni Projects Blac Space

Black Females in Architecture Cartografia Negra Courage Dzidula Kpodo with Postbox Ghana Dele Adeyemo Elementerre with Nzinga Biegueng Mboup and Chérif Tall Faber Futures Folasade Okunribido Ibiye Camp Juergen Strohmayer and Glenn DeRoché Lauren-Loïs Duah Miriam Hillawi Abraham Moe+ Art Architecture New South Rashid Ali Architects Riff Studio Tanoa Sasraku Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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“We must dare to invent the future.” — Thomas Sankara 290

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Excerpt from the Curator’s Letter of Consideration

issued 23 September, 2022

The Guest from the Future is a 1966 novel by the Hungarian writer György Dalos. In it, he recounts what publishers have described as “the most extraordinary encounter in this history of 20th-century literature”, a meeting between the 56-year-old Russian poet, Anna Akhmatova, and the 36-year-old British philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, in Leningrad in 1945. The two sat down at nine o’clock in the evening and talked for twelve hours straight. Neither gave a detailed account of their conversation, but after Berlin left, Akhmatova wrote a stanza in her epic Poem Without a Hero, in which she described him as “a man not yet appeared… strayed from the future.” 292

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Thirty-four years later, in 1979, in a speech on the state of art in South Africa at the height of apartheid, the South African writer Nadine Gordimer noted: “Any optimism is realistic only if we, black and white, can justify our presence talking here by regarding ourselves as ‘apprentices to freedom’. Only in that capacity may we perhaps look out for, coming over the Hex River Mountains or the Drakensberg, that ‘guest from the future’, the artist as the prophet of the resolution of divided cultures.” We have scanned the African continent and its diaspora in search of architects and spatial practitioners whom we see as Guests from the Future. These are emerging and established individuals who represent the architect of the future: futurefacing, boundary-breaking, fearless and imaginative individuals who are able to navigate between worlds – north/south; Black/White; gendered/non-binary – and across conventional disciplinary silos because their context(s) demand it. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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One Can Give Nothing Dublin

Emmett Scanlon

“One can give nothing whatever without giving oneself – that is to say, risking oneself. If one cannot risk oneself, then one is simply incapable of giving.”1 — James Baldwin Risk underpins our globalised modern times. Most people live in a perpetual state of anxiety, driven largely by economic insecurity and social inequality; the ever-present threats of terrorism and war; the impending collapse of the Earth’s climate and, most recently, a pandemic. Yet risk exists beyond such threats. The ‘risk society’ is altogether more insidious and subtle, embedded in the structures and politics of late capitalism and in a steady widespread retreat from the collective, public sphere.2 While individuals grow anxious, state-led support structures and mechanisms of care and compassion slip away or face 294

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collapse, compounding individual anxiety. Coping with daily life has become a case of fighting for survival, seeking isolated domestic retreat before collective public participation. Architecture does not exist remotely or outside the risk society. It is entirely in it. Yet although a selfdescribed ‘social profession’, architecture appears to have used the means at its disposal to withdraw, moving steadily away from social issues.3 It seeks an autonomy so concrete, so singular as to be free of “lay evaluation and protected from inexpert interference.”4 This has done little to assuage the anxiety architects feel, trained to act on behalf of a society of which they too are a part. Indeed, risks of the worst kind visit the architect in ways that are externally determined but personally and deeply felt. Compounded by regulation and systems, deadened by archaic, repeated beliefs and behaviours, most architects are deemed too young, too inexperienced, and too naive to propose, to participate, to progress. Imagination is thwarted, futures denied; by many accounts, the risks are too great to imagine the world being otherwise. Some time ago, I offered feedback on an exhibition proposal via Zoom. I outlined the notion of the workshop as a way of framing an exhibition of architecture. In this context, the workshop was not a place of production, an on-show collection of the components of labour or construction, as if a team downed tools just as the audience arrived. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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In this context, I ventured, the workshop was a place of freedom.5 For the architect to whom I spoke, accustomed to more traditional ways of exhibiting work, the idea of doing it differently was a moment of resistance and risk. It was a chance to imagine the as yet unseen. “What if you made something, entirely familiar to you, but that you had never met before?” I asked. “So, you want me to use my imagination?” came the reply. Architects need creative room to take risks. Making buildings is too complex and difficult; the stakes are too high, and the discourse rehearsed. In a culture that champions isolated private consumption over radical social relevance, such risks must be taken in public. In architecture, exhibitions are needed to support and defend the public risk and use of the private imagination. For the exhibits placed in an exhibition-as-workshop, they are no longer limited to static ambassadors of built achievement. They are much more. They can be the “catalytic scaffolding for perceptual flights into and beyond the usual constraints of our own imaginations.”6 Rather than promising reductive, didactic solutions to global or local issues of the day, a workshop is an opportunity to generate multiple flexible interpretations of the social, spatial, and material worlds, through each exhibit encountered. If the exhibition-as-workshop is a place where the familiar is imaginatively made unfamiliar, this 296

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can encourage “a revision of our expected prior predictions about the world and ourselves.”7 In the exhibition-as-workshop, the relationship between exhibitor, exhibit, and visitor is not passive or predetermined; instead, it is reciprocal, a form of glorious unpredictable exchange, each transformed by the encounter, each risking themselves, to give of themselves, one to the other.

1. 2.

3. 4.

5. 6.

J. Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (London: Penguin Books, 1963), 85. B. C. Rosenberg, “Property and home-makeover television: Risk, thrift, and taste”, Continuum, 22(4): 505–513. The term ‘risk society’ is one cited by the author from U. Beck, Risk society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage, 1992); A. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990); and A. Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991). For example, see the argument made by M. Crawford, “Can Architects Be Socially Responsible?” in D. Ghirardo (ed.), Out of Site: A Social Criticism of Architecture (Seattle: Bay Press, 1991). M. Sarfatti Larson, “In the Matter of Experts and Professionals, or How Impossible it is to Leave Nothing Unsaid”, in R. Torstendahl et al. (eds.), The Formation of Professions (London: Sage, 1990), 31. This notion of the workshop as a place of freedom is taken from Brooker T. Washington, cited in R. Sennett, The Craftsman (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008) M. Anderson, “Engaging With an Artwork Leaves You and The Artwork Transformed”, Psyche, 29 March, 2022. Available at https://psyche.co/ideas/engaging-with-an-artwork-leaves-you-andthe-art-transformed (accessed 13 February 2023). Anderson.

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Ruth-Anne Naa Aku-Sika Richardson, Research Lead, Guests from the Future, Accra Festus Jackson-Davis 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” — Barack Hussein Obama 300

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Melkam pours bunna 2020

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ye enate gursha (translation: gursha from my mother) 2020

Biennale Architettura 2023

Ainslee Alem Robson

What does it mean for ‘home’ to be constructed immaterially via fragments of culture and oral history distorted by the filters of time and migration? Can a diasporic identity tied to nostalgia that is at times real and at times fabricated out of necessity ever be ‘real’? Memory can be a site of resistance as well as reclamation, its canvas a space of potential, a tool for counter-imagining the present and reconstructing reality to liberate oneself from the burden of otherness. Ferenj is an experimental form of emancipatory thinking, reclaiming my Ethiopian–American mixed-race identity, and redefining boundaries between fragmented memories and the digital imaginary. In The Laboratory of the Future, I continue to explore the concepts of home and identity in diaspora, drawing on scenes from original VR work, family archives, and new scenes honouring the beauty of the landscapes of inner-city Cleveland where I was born and raised. Using crowdsourced videos, and processing them with photogrammetry, results in irregular fragments with missing pieces. The technology’s inability to portray reflective surfaces reflects my own experience of simultaneous hypervisibility and invisibility stemming from my multilayered identity. Ferenj’s fragments form a curated collection of reconstructed memories portrayed as digital artefacts spanning impossible geographies. Ferenj is projected onto an interpretation of a ‘rekkebot’ used in Ethiopian coffee ceremonies. The rekkebot’s material is a handwoven ‘neTela’ fabric. Its sheer quality renders visible the journey of light from surface to interior, furthering the contrast between tangibility and intangibility. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Porda Iteration 1 Front and Side View 2023

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Porda Iteration 2 Outer Layer Overlayed 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Anusha Alamgir

There is no detailed scriptural guide on veiling. The rules governing robing and disrobing have developed organically in different Islamic communities. The veil is a highly personalised uniform, where instructions and details are passed between women in the family: grandmothers teach mothers; mothers teach their children. The veil is, of course, far more than fabric. It carries architectural notions of privacy, division, and containment, projecting these onto a woman’s body. My exhibit explores the hijab as a space of control, carrying with us climate, privacy, and habitat. Through performance, I explore the complex narratives of gender and control woven into this gendered garment. The film Porda (the Bangla word for ‘veil’) is an instructional tutorial proposing new typologies of veiling that the audience can occupy, creating a specific ‘Umwelt’ not only for the body it contains, but also out onto the public. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Bengali Song, Detail 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Arinjoy Sen

This work, a triptych of interwoven threads, drawings, and narratives, has been made in collaboration with marginalised artisans represented by the SHE Kantha collective in Bengal, India. The project Bengali Song imagines planetary survival by prioritising respect between diverse ecologies and peoples. The frontiers of such knowledge forms are the laboratories of this future: experiential, technical, and creative. Architecture is a product of these frontier laboratories, informed by many forms of knowledge. Marina Tabassum Architects’ Khudi Bari (‘little house’) project demonstrates such an optimistic possibility. The panel on the left depicts the project as a resilient typology within the context of Bangladesh’s vulnerable coastal floodplains. The Khudi Bari typology elevates the living plane while allowing for quick assembly and disassembly, enabling the user to mitigate the flooding of their household and move to higher ground with ease. The panel on the right shows the deployment of the typology at Cox’s Bazar refugee camp, providing an economical and efficient living space that also satisfies the temporary structural requirements in the camp. Finally, the centre panel celebrates the narrative of production, building, enacting, and strengthening communal and ecological relationships of deep and mutual respect. Bengali Song positions the architect as giving voice to marginalised peoples, reified by conceptually and physically crafting their own narrative. Inspired by the many hands involved in the making of Khudi Bari, this work involves digital drawings interpreted through artisanal practices, such as traditional ‘kantha’ embroidery by female artisans from SHE Kantha, giving rise to an interwoven body of work. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Entrance plaza of Zevaco’s Sidi Harazem 2019

Biennale Architettura 2023

Aziza Chaouni Projects

The architectural practice of Aziza Chaouni Projects has evolved around the conservation and adaptive reuse of three publicly owned modernist buildings from West Africa’s postindependence era: The Sidi Harazem Thermal Bath Station (Morocco, 1960–1965), La Maison du Peuple (Burkina Faso, 1965), and Centre International du Commerce Extérieur du Sénégal (1974). The complexity of each site necessitated a methodology based in listening and exchange, and a commitment to collaborative design with owners, operators, and communities. Modern West Africa: Recorded reveals each site through stakeholder testimonies, understanding the past and present in order to speculate on the future. Conserving modernist public complexes in Africa demands innovative operational frameworks to ensure that their multifaceted heritage, public value, and access are protected. Through public appropriation, each site reveals an inherent resilience and the critical roles that large public facilities provide in Africa – as sites of collective memory and nostalgia towards the early post-independence era’s optimism. New conservation methodologies, deeply rooted in context and community, must also address historic, social, operational, political, legislative, and economic challenges. Modernist architecture poses additional technical hurdles including monumentality and rehabilitating exposed concrete. International conservation movements have decentred African modernism, with no works appearing on the UNESCO World Heritage List, leaving them unprotected and underfunded. Recognising these histories is key at a moment when Africa faces change. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Frame, hat and boots #1-3 Year made: 2020

Biennale Architettura 2023

Banga Colectivo

The word ‘banga’ in contemporary urban Angolan slang means ‘one’s own style’, a self-regard of high esteem, often reflected in clothing and ways of dressing. For the members of our collective, ‘banga’ is an important part of our identity – a means of protest against the dominant colonial narrative that viewed Africans as ‘uncultured’ and ‘uncivilised’. Historically, the Soba was a king, a traditional regional authority, who ruled over a sobado. The sobado was organised in a way that respected the needs of the Soba and his entire community. Today, the word ‘soba’ has come to mean something else, typically the ‘bridge’ figure between the contemporary democratic government and local, often rural, communities. In The Laboratory of the Future, we aim to revitalise the figure of the Soba, finding ways to understand how figures with specific historical roles can transform and adapt to new realities. We approach projects in a transdisciplinary manner, often infusing our approach with an Afrofuturist perspective. This cultural and philosophical aesthetic explores the intersection of the African diaspora through technoculture and speculation. Our concerns with urban issues, culture, and the arts is widely known, and most of our artistic and architectural projects follow a cross-, trans-, and interdisciplinary model. For us, the Soba is not merely a historical figure or a contemporary ‘go between’: the Soba is a messenger. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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African Bondage 2021

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Extinct 2021

Biennale Architettura 2023

Blac Space

Tales of the Vulnerability of African Women in Transit Spaces looks at transit and transitional spaces as both ‘real’ places of movement and as metaphorical spaces of journeys, transitions, and changes that describe where we come from and where we are going. Using Surrealist imagery, my drawings explore the ways African women traverse the city, from their homes to their places of work; navigating taxi ranks, walkways, and sidewalks every single day, moving quickly to avoid the gaze of men who regard them merely as artefacts in space. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Black Professionals in the Built Environment Summer Party 2022

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RIBA CV and Skills Workshop 2019

Biennale Architettura 2023

Black Females in Architecture

There are almost eight billion people in the world today, of whom over half live in urban areas. Women make up 49.58% of the world’s population and groups labelled ‘minorities’ are actually the global majority. So-called ‘minority’ women are massively underrepresented in most professional fields and industries, and architecture is no exception. The authors of our built environments are largely unreflective of the populations they serve. Black Females in Architecture (BFA) is a social enterprise supporting a membership of more than 450 Black women in built environment professions worldwide. We advocate for diversity and race and gender equity across all sectors of the built environment, including architecture, urbanism, landscape, engineering, design, and construction. We are activists, mentors, students, mothers, daughters, sisters, and more. We seek a better built environment for all that goes beyond Western ideals and norms. Our film in this exhibition is a celebration of the ongoing contributions of Black women in the built environment fields, showing the world how we contribute to shaping the future of our cities. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

A Voice for the 450 Plus 315

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Cartografia Negra Volta Negra plus Lambe-lambe 2019

Biennale Architettura 2023

Cartografia Negra

Our projects are born out of the desire to tell stories: our stories, the stories of Black Brazilians who have been erased from the official narratives of Brazilian cities, described only through the lens of slavery. Through our work, we bring the stories of the Africans, diasporic peoples, and Afro-Brazilians who built São Paulo. The window has been opened just a crack. Peer inside. See for yourselves. Read the real story of Brazil. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

Root City 317

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Got my City on my Back 2021

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The Beautyful Ones Always Were 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Courage Dzidula Kpodo with Postbox Ghana

Independence in 1957 brought a new and fervent desire to Ghana, celebrating the end of British colonial rule, to establish itself as a single nation, with a united people. Architecture became a powerful medium to express this newfound sense of identity. Leveraging the project of modernity, new infrastructure was commissioned. Unique ways of building, displaying, and using space can be observed to this day in places like markets, where infrastructure is constantly reinterpreted to meet local aspirations. My encounter with the research group Postbox Ghana involves extensive research into archival material from Ghana’s past, focusing largely on ways of exploring collective memory enshrined in photographs. Thanks to the efforts of often unknown photographers who were active in the 1950s and 1960s, we were able to engage with ideas around agency, identity, and memory. We became participants in ongoing acts of expression in two spaces: Makola market in Accra and a repurposed, unfinished concrete silo in Tamale. The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born (1968), the debut novel by Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwei Armah, portrays the struggle of an unnamed man to reconcile himself with the harsh realities of post-independence. Like the novel’s protagonist, we are also the ‘beautyful’ ones, adding layers of expression and meaning to spaces activated in the past by other ‘beautyful’ ones. The layering, decomposition, and erasure over time complicated the narratives between past and present topics, optimism and decay. Our hope is that this mode of investigation by active participation may point to richer and more complex ways of space-making around identities today. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

The Beautyful Ones Always Were 319

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Wey Dey Move: imagining new worlds through dance and masquerade 2022 The sand divers of Lagos Lagoon with mechanical dredgers in the background.

→→ People socialising in the newly created environments even as the sand dredging ensues. →→→ Young fishermen positioning themselves on the lagoon with their harvest of mangrove in order to plant their fish traps known as the Aka.

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Dele Adeyemo

In 1960, on the verge of Nigeria’s independence, playwright Wole Soyinka wrote A Dance of the Forests – a foreboding warning of the future on the grounds of the human propensity to repeat the sins of the past. At this critical juncture in West Africa’s history, as the effects of population explosion, urban expansion, and ecosystem devastations are exacerbated by the global climate crisis, this project, A Dance of the Mangroves, asks how we might escape a destiny of repeating past mistakes by learning from the lifeworlds of the mangroves surrounding the megacity of Lagos, Nigeria. Across the world’s tropical regions, mangrove forests play a major role in carbon sequestration, storing up to ten times more carbon dioxide than terrestrial forests. In Nigeria, mangroves provide a critical defence against flooding whilst nursing the fish populations upon which many communities depend. Yet after the annexation of Lagos by the British in 1861, a pattern of urban development characterised by the forced dispossession of Indigenous settlements, expropriations of land, and the dredging and sand filling of natural swamp and mangrove habitats was set in motion that continues to the present day. As liminal environments that are neither fully land nor water, mangrove ecosystems nourish the ecological, social, and spiritual lifeworlds that remain invisible to the developer’s gaze. Taking inspiration from the traditional Yoruba spiritual practice of divination that enables the navigation of uncertain futures, A Dance of the Mangroves provides a portal through the divination board (‘ọpọ́n Ifá’) into the lifeworlds of the mangroves of Lagos Lagoon. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Bunt Ban 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Elementerre with Nzinga Biegueng Mboup and Chérif Tall

Trained at CRAterre in Grenoble, France, the Senegalese engineer Doudou Deme returned to Senegal and founded the company Elementerre in 2010. Its mission is to develop and democratise sustainable architecture by marketing ecological building materials in a context where concrete, metal, and glass are the materials most commonly adopted for construction. Elementerre has provided compressed earth bricks for the construction of projects such as the IFC head offices in Dakar designed by Adjaye Associates and the Goethe-Institut Dakar designed by Kéré Architecture, as well as projects by local architects, including the Hotel Le Djoloff in Dakar. In collaboration with Worofila, the practice has built several private residences in raw earth and an experimental pavilion presented at the 2022 Biennale d’architecture et de paysage in Paris. In Bunt Ban, film director Chérif Tall and producer Nzinga Biegueng Mboup give us an intimate insight into Deme’s context, projects, and vision to render biomaterials accessible in order to achieve a low-carbon and more humane built environment. Some of Elementerre’s projects are presented in the film and discussed with some of Deme’s collaborators, showing how they have served as grounds for knowledge production and transmission and a critical engagement in raw earth technology. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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BIO STORIES: Artefact Archive 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Faber Futures

Museum of Symbiosis is a science fiction story about a society that has harnessed biotechnology and reorganised itself to enable human flourishing in symbiosis with the living world. Here, we present an immersive audio experience of this powerful story. A speculative site model grounds the narrative, taking the audience on a journey through the institution to explore the roots of this transformative change through real-world artefacts donated by people shaping the field today. Designer Maurizio Montalti’s replica of a seventeenthcentury microscope makes visible the life we are entangled with, whilst also representing colonial scientific methods which alienate people from nature. Farmer Chido Govera’s mushroom reveals the erasure of Indigenous knowledge systems and what becomes possible when their originators reclaim them. Museum of Symbiosis emanates from BIO STORIES, a design-led stakeholder engagement project published in 2022 by Faber Futures in collaboration with the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Synthetic Biology. With synthetic biology now firmly on the global agenda as a key economic driver, this deep listening project engaged thirty knowledgediverse stakeholders to explore how this technology also transforms our relationships with the living world. Each stakeholder presented an artefact, animating their dialogues with qualitative insights demonstrating what is at stake as we design. While these narratives serve to inform the Forum’s strategic work on synthetic biology, Museum of Symbiosis evokes sights, sounds, and feelings that help us inhabit a symbiotic existence that can still be made possible. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Ààfin Awọn Eniyan Skating in the main àgbàlá 2020

Biennale Architettura 2023

Folasade Okunribido

Memories of a Sixth Wife is a fictional historical account of Yoruba townships seen through the eyes of Rotimi, a wife of the Alaafin of Oyo. Blue Hour reinvents the twilight period as a time of mourning and celebration for Yoruba townships; it precedes Okunribido’s offer to dream of, devise, and construct the future. Her work positions itself on the cusp of African history, exploring its affluence through prose and architecture. Ààfin Awọn Eniyan is a home for Alté Renegades – a group of 150 young people who challenge societal expectations. Defined by immersion in blue, the project forms a political and cultural refuge informed by twelfth-century Yoruba ‘afin’ (palaces), offering a series of spaces for solitude and collectivity. The 10,800 m2 building is an array of reinforced clay plates that overshadow the Kudeti river, filling the largest void in the dense centre of Ibadan, Nigeria. Each plate facilitates the phenomenon of light interference, giving the building an oscillating presence on the site; its blueness creates an aura in the form of structural colour. These qualities in the architecture emulate its inhabitants, reflecting and supporting the unstable perception of countercultural communities like the Alté. The proportion of the plates and evocative blue create an architecture of atmosphere. On the exterior, the blue is elusive, with the largest handmade clay elements left rough, matching the terrain. At the centre, the ‘àgbàlá’ offer a contrasting material engagement through smaller, polished, and glazed clay plates, which bathe the inhabitants in a sapphire glow. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Data: The New Black Gold 2019

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Campbell Street, Freetown Data: The New Black Gold 3D Model 2019

Biennale Architettura 2023

Ibiye Camp

A megaphone resting on a mobile booth on Campbell Street in central Freetown, Sierra Leone, blasts out: “Top up! Top up! Africell, Orange, Sierra Tel. Top up!” The mobile booth is a point of data exchange operating in the city, and it is run by multiple vendors. The architectural form of the mobile booth exceeds the boundaries of the pavement and its surrounding stalls. It obeys no rules and is alive and organic. A digital file of the mobile booth is saved and contained in a still state. It is observed, preserved, duplicated, spun, and placed into a random environment. The digital matter is occupied and controlled by the master, who maps and sets the preferences of its position and surroundings, as if it were a digital slave. Rebellious Copies is a query into decolonising data by using practices of an active revolt or uprising of the digital form. Experiments of escape from confinement imagine the ecology of digital matter and the digital life, beyond master design and control. The material evolution of the digital file exposes a tension in digital matter’s life span by reducing its resolution to a decomposed state. Casts and 3D prints of the digital file will be formed to revolt, spread, flow, and escape from confinement and return to earthly segments. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Surf Ghana Collective 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Juergen Strohmayer and Glenn DeRoché

Plugin Busua juxtaposes architectural fragments with contextual film footage and sound to translate the spatial effects of an existing community surf lodge for this exhibition. The installation examines the interplay between architectural tectonics and community inhabitation; the urban and ecological scenarios that unfold, catalysed through architectural forms. The built community hub by architects Juergen Strohmayer and Glenn DeRoché in Busua, Ghana, integrates functional, climatic, urban, and community-driven parameters on a small footprint through the adaptive reuse of an existing building and the introduction of a new architectural ‘plugin’ that is characterised by innovative materiality and a playful arrangement of primary forms. In the exhibition, large-scale fragments of the built form are hung to create an immersive spatial installation that communicates the tectonics of the architectural realisation. A screen is suspended between the monolithic fragments, showing moments of activity, quotidian scenarios, and community inhabitation of the structure. Forms in the installation are recognised in the 15-minute video showing scenes from the site in Busua. Through the visual layering of physical fragments and film, and the use of site-specific sound, the work translocates the effects of the architectural adaptive reuse project into the exhibition – providing visitors with an abstract yet descriptive experience specific to the place. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Test Printing in the Textile Studio, (London, England) 2022

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Kantamanto Market Visit, (Accra, Ghana) 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Lauren-Loïs Duah

In the Ghanaian language Twi (or Akan), ‘Obroni wa-wu’ refers to second-hand clothing, but its literal translation is “someone must have died to let go of all these items”. The clothing industry is a powerful portal into the worlds of labour, migration, and supply chain economies which have ‘cross-continental’ consequences. Unravelling the complex weave of clothing’s supply chain exposes so many loose threads that the story immediately begins to fray. It is often said that there is no such thing as ethical consumption. My project, a tapestry, tries to unravel the seams of the clothing supply chain industry, showing how Western consumers have become alienated from the sites of production that facilitate their voracious consumption. In the project, the processes of mapping the supply chain using architectural drawing techniques, traditional forms of oral storytelling, and record-keeping through sound maps of conversations in the sites explored form an alternative visual masterplan. This piece explores the way fast fashion is underpinned by racial capitalism, and the effect of the Global North’s ‘dirty laundry’ in creating these vast cross-continental ‘clothescapes’ in cities such as Accra, Ghana. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Roha: The Heretic’s Saga 2019

Biennale Architettura 2023

Miriam Hillawi Abraham

The Abyssinian Cyber Vernaculus is a series of visual narratives that unfold over the rockhewn churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia. It began as a strategy to navigate and reconcile the nefarious hegemonies of my architectural heritage, those of colonial Hegelian origins as well as those born out of local imperialism. As this body of work evolved, it emerged into an expansive universe with its own histories and guardians, serving as a folly to the physical site. In the same way that the churches, carved from living rock, appear immutable, in reality they face deterioration and change despite the efforts of bureaucratic conservationists and ecclesiastical orders. The Abyssinian Cyber Vernaculus is a mode of architectural transmutation that slips past the physical barriers of deterioration and decay into the imaginary. For The Laboratory of the Future, I mine this self-contained non-world to produce an installation that looks across the strata of time and terra from the perspective of a detached ‘guest from the future’. The installation is a microcosm of the Abyssinian Cyber Vernaculus, where an animated film follows a rotating gaze that gradually burrows deeper into the centre of a physical model of the virtual terrain, a Godlike view that mines for its secrets, unsettling earth and waking long-forgotten ghosts. By planting false evidence in the context, it is able to redirect Lalibela’s history and open up multiple channels of futurism as the existing architecture bears witness to these stories, able to resist ruination and extend its life into the digital. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

Through Time and Terra: Mining the Abyssinian Cyber Vernaculus. A Non-Extractive Archaeology of the Future 335

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Collage 2: Sketchbook 2019 Collage 4: Falomo Under Bridge 2018

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Collage 3: Sketchbook 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Moe+ Art Architecture

‘We’ are curious about the possibilities of a nonlinear investigation of contemporary contextual identity on the African continent, and more specifically in West African states. ‘We’ feel as though we are the future even though we are repeatedly consigned to the past. ‘We’ identify the potential in things uninterrupted. A series of moments and spaces from the future of our past. ‘We’ search for the space and time that creates the moment for the object to arise. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Mediterranean 2017

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Remade in Bangladesh 2014

Biennale Architettura 2023

New South

The ‘Queendom’ to which I belong is a continuous interior space stretching across three cities and two continents and spanning the Mediterranean. This is my family’s territory: an intricate, intimate infrastructure of care that is reigned over by its women – my mother, my two grandmothers, and my seven aunts. The Queendom’s houses – my family home in Vitry in the southern suburbs of Paris; my paternal grandmother’s complex in Algiers, consisting of her house and that of each of her seven children; and my maternal grandmother’s house in Batna, where she and each of her sons’ families occupy a floor – are its logistical hubs, collecting the family’s members in one place for celebration, mourning, and holidays. These moments reinstate the domestic basis of my family’s identity and functioning. Time and space become elastic and obscured as comfortable hours drift by in carpeted salons. The barred and shuttered windows give few indications of the time of day, though climate and recent histories of exterior threat shape our domestic imaginary. The queens come and go in permanent flux. The schedule is conveyed through rumours which may later transpire to be false. Each present is cared for, nourished, transported, entertained, clothed, and sent away with dates, envelopes of money, pots of honey, leftover food wrapped in tinfoil, ancestral jewellery, adjusted wedding outfits, medicine, plane tickets, gossip, and family secrets according to and in excess of each one’s immediate need and for distribution to those dispersed throughout the Queendom who could not be present. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Hargeisa Courtyard Pavilion 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Rashid Ali Architects

We pursue opportunities to teach, research, and build in Africa, particularly in East Africa, where we are based in the city of Hargeisa in Somaliland. Working in this context has enabled us to reimagine how we make architecture that responds to the needs of the communities we live in and work with. This has introduced a form of advocacy into our approach, where our research and dialogue with stakeholders has enabled us to develop projects that we implement directly. It involves mobilising funding with communities and public institutions and engaging directly in the physical production of projects. Through our research and building, we are eager to address the climate crisis by reintroducing traditional construction techniques and materials, sometimes forgotten. Collaboration with local makers, institutions, and communities is integral to this new form of practice. In a modest way, Hargeisa Courtyard Pavilion demonstrates the role design can play, and in particular the importance of public spaces in city spaces of the Global South that have experienced underinvestment. Our broad approach is a process of stitching the city with strategically located pocket spaces of pavilions, walkways, alleys, courtyards, and small squares that respond to the scarcity of land and resources. As well as offering basic human necessities such as shade and seating, Hargeisa Courtyard Pavilion is a place of encounters, sociability, learning, and conviviality. It is hoped that it will be a symbol for future production of public spaces in the city. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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A Window (Detail) from the Future (Case Study House) 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Riff Studio

A riff on The Case Study House Program by Arts & Architecture magazine after the Second World War, Riff Studio’s Case Study House: Chicago responds to the economic model for repair outlined in Isabel Strauss’s RFP (request for proposals) for Architecture of Reparations. Case Study House: Chicago incorporates diverse instances of protective domestic programming (developed by Rekha AugusteNelson), which can also be understood as a series of effects and mechanisms that attempt to address, assuage, and acknowledge the anxiety of “living while Black” in the United States. The persecution of African Americans and Black peoples extends far beyond the legal end of slavery. Architecture of Reparations attempts to address this history by imagining a site-specific future for acknowledgement, redress and closure. Case Study House: Chicago is a design for this future. A Window (Detail) from the Future (Case Study House) both integrates and alludes to protective domestic programming with techniques from crystal glass manufacturing and ‘ayeneh kari’ mirror mosaics (developed by Farnoosh Rafaie), to refract light and distort form. Obscuring residents like a kaleidoscope, the window acts as ornament to obfuscate figures on the inside so that they cannot be pinpointed or targeted easily from the street. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Terratype Soak, Sligachan River 2021

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Sligachan River, Isle of Skye 2021 Bideford Black Graphite 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Tanoa Sasraku

Terratypes are unique, sculptural hybrids of painting, drawing, collage, printmaking, and textiles. Sasraku forages for million-year-old earth pigments at various poles of the British Isles – Dartmoor, the Jurassic Coast, and the Scottish Highlands – hand-rubbing these into sheets of blank newsprint. These are sewn, soaked, and ripped, revealing past layers of pigment and pattern; the intersection of geological time and personal memory. The process itself, involving laborious pattern cutting, recalls her Ghanaian heritage and, in particular, her relationship to her late father, whilst the fringing bordering each Terratype expresses the unique textile application of the Fante Asafo flags of coastal Ghana, fabricated by Sasraku’s paternal ancestors. Geometric forms printed onto the Terratypes’ surfaces reference electrical circuitry and the flow of a deep, earth-rooted energy, whilst the tartan stitch patterns are influenced by Sasraku’s relationship with her Scottish partner. The result is mysterious, ceremonial-like objects weathered with centuries of materiality, presenting a new way of engaging the landscape. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

Yellow Gate (Terratype), 2021 345

Future, Past, Present ― Im/Perfect? Cape Town

Iain Low

In identifying the location of culture and language as critical dimensions for the expression of human freedom, the work of Kenyan novelist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o counters the overwriting tendency of colonial modernity and the erasure of all that pre-exists. ‘Decolonising the mind’ and ‘moving the centre’ are the recurring tropes in Ngũgĩ’s struggle for restitution. This elevation of Indigenous practice and local narrative holds direct implications for our thinking and making around issues of space and its reconstructive role in speculating from within our contemporary condition of crisis. As the physical manifestation of a set of power relations, space represents a primary legacy of the colonial project. Space was the handmaiden of colonial modernity. As a project of segregation, its radical reconfiguration of Indigenous African space served primarily to ‘genocide’ local cultural practices. Critical differences contained within local knowledge sets were systematically erased and replaced by a pseudo-universalism characterised by so-called ‘norms and standards’. 346

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Towards a Contemporary Vernacular? The value in traditional architecture resides in its potential to upset and destabilise the colonial modern. Held within the specificity of a particular space–time, a socius between diverse individuals can inevitably emerge.1 Each socius reflects on the peculiarity of place-bound cultural practice to produce local identities. Within this becoming process, one can discern evidence of spatial principles reflecting radical participation whereby culture is the ‘weapon’, space the ‘means’, and critical difference the ‘outcome’. These spatial principles are: ― ― ― ― ―

the horizon of interconnectivity between all things human and ‘natural’ the commitment to commoning as a means of enabling self-reliance the empty centre as the foundation for building community and coexistence incrementalism as a response to the fact of future uncertainty knowledge of the means of production resides with each occupant

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A new and critical analysis of African architecture reveals a dynamic process whereby locality is privileged over pseudo-universality, relationalities between people prefigure material form, and knowledge is a transferable commons open to innovation and modification. In the language of French philosopher Paul Ricœur and his student Paulin Hountondji, the project of architecture in Africa might be construed as that of “[h]ow to become modern without losing contact with origins?”2 In other words, thinking and making on the African continent demands that we engage our past in order to transcribe it into our future. An-other Modernity ― Future, Past, Present Im/Perfect Rem Koolhaas’s Harvard Project on the City represented a recognition of the failure of the modern project and, by extension, its inability to respond productively to the emerging crises that have come to characterise our planetary condition. The project’s work in Africa yields the most convincing revelation about a future. In ‘abandoning’ the Lagos project, Koolhaas shows integrity whilst delivering perhaps the most profound revelation on Africa: 348

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“We are resisting the notion that Lagos represents an African city en route to becoming modern […] Rather, we think that it is possible to argue that Lagos [Africa] represents a developed, extreme paradigmatic case study of a city at the forefront of globalising modernity.”3 What might we learn from these microcommons that constitutes a self-constructed and experientially knowable urbanism? This building of a new language confronts the complexity and contradictions arising from our contemporary crisis-ridden societies. Spatial reconfigurations emerge in direct response to our imagination’s response to conflict. New hybridised collective spaces will provide supporting armature to a people-driven urbanism. Curator’s Special Projects ― Guests from the Future

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Colonial power relegated Black people to the periphery of society, at best as third-class subjects and, at worst, as commodities – both useful and necessary to their project of capital accumulation. A primary consequence of this was the exclusion of Indigenous communities from their humanity, from being and becoming by partaking in the pleasures of everyday existence. Their relegation to the margins of a self-interested society produced a dysfunctional urbanism underpinned by radical racial segregation and the wholesale adoption of values of what we have now come to know as ‘Whiteness’. If the post-colony is to transcend its past, then it will require equally radical organisational intervention to effect and sustain a different future. Now is a time for sponsoring reinvigorated design agency in imagining and co-producing speculations on what a non-Western typo-morphology of the city ‘yet to come’ might be – in Africa. The Laboratory of the Future is the instrument for spatial transformation, capable of speaking back with confidence, at a continental scale. Space is the medium, locality (culture) the means, and critical (socioeconomic) diversity the outcome. Let us labour over alternative propositions that absorb from our pasts to offer contemporary resilience for an/other future. 350

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Future practitioners. Sergiy Tryapitsyn / Alamy Stock Photo 2022 Page 352 — 353

Socius is a unit in social relationships consisting of an individual. (In this instance, ‘individual’ refers to the unit of a city or neighbourhood and its citizens.) See Merriam-Webster.com, s.v. “socius”, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socius (accessed 16 Jan 2023). P. Ricœur, History and Truth, translated by C. A. Kelbley (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964 [1955]). R. Koolhaas et al., Mutations (Barcelona: Actar, 2000), 651–699.

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The Laboratory of the Future

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Carnival

Biennale Architettura 2023

“To be is to do.” ― Aristotle

“To do is to be.” ― Sartre

“Do be do be do.” ― Sinatra The Laboratory of the Future ― Carnival

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“The principle of laughter and the carnival spirit on which the grotesque is based destroys this limited seriousness and all pretence of an extratemporal meaning and unconditional value of necessity. It frees human consciousness, thought, and imagination for new potentialities. For this reason, great changes, even in the field of science, are always preceded by a certain carnival consciousness that prepares the way.” — Mikhail Bakhtin 358

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Excerpt from the Curator’s Letter of Consideration

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issued 5 January, 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Architects generally communicate their ideas and convictions through drawings, photographs, texts, and various forms of digital media. However, for the most part, architects’ drawings and texts are hermetic languages, understood by few outside the discipline. If architectural discourse aims to have greater and more direct impact beyond its own boundaries, new and more generous and accessible forms of communication are required. To support this ambition, my team and I have put together a programme of public events during The Laboratory of the Future called Carnival, which offers a space for communication throughout the six months of the exhibition. It offers a space in which words, views, perspectives and opinions are traded, heard, analysed and remembered. Politicians, policymakers, poets, filmmakers, documentary makers, writers, activists, community organisers and public intellectuals will share the stage with architects, academics and students. Curating a public event programme is increasingly a form of architectural practice that attempts to bridge the gulf between architects and the public. The Laboratory of the Future ― Carnival

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Events will be held in the 18th International Architecture Exhibition venues and at Teatro Piccolo Arsenale. These programme details were correct at the time of going to press

Carnival is additionally and generously supported by ROLEX, exclusive Partner and Official Timepiece of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition.

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Carnival Programme Force Majeure: a Conversation N.A.W. Learning from Venice African Space Magicians The Future of Research into African Architectural and Urban History Dual Nationals Governing, Designing and Educating Urban Futures Building African Futures: 11 Manifestos for Transformative Architecture and Urbanism Carnival Film Screenings Geography and Gender Women, Life, Freedom! The Future to Come Inconvenient Truths It’s a Wrap! Biennale Architettura 2023

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Egun Gun dancer, Vodun Festival, Dassa-Zoumé, Benin Patrick Frilet / Hemis Alamy Stock Photo 2021 Page 364 — 365

Carnival Participants Force Majeure: a Conversation — Christian Benimana Sir David Adjaye OBE Felecia Davis Issa Diabaté Mariam Issoufou Kamara Walter Hood N.A.W. Learning from Venice — Cindy Walters Davide Bugarin Ellis Woodman Ferial Massoud Helen Weldegaber Tesfamariam Leela Keshav Maya Patel Matthew Maganga Mir Jetha Nne Owuasu Oluwatobiloba Ajayi Thomas Aquilina Tom Wilkinson African Space Magicians — Aziza Chaouni Black Females in Architecture Nzinga Biegueng Mboup Papa Omotayo The Future of Research into African Architectural and Urban History — Adefola Toye Huda Tayob Ikem Stanley Okoye Murray Fraser Kuukuwa Manful Mark Olweny Nnamdi Elleh Ola Uduku Oluwaseyi Akerele Victoria Okoye Warebi Brisibe Dual Nationals — Albert Williamson-Taylor Hanif Kara OBE Marta Galiñanes-García Natasha Bellamy Patrick Ata Vera Bukachi The Laboratory of the Future ― Carnival

Governing, Designing and Educating Urban Futures — Alcinda Honwana Claudia Lopez Dan Hill Mariana Mazzucato Rahul Mehrotra Richard Sennett Ricky Burdett Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr Building African Futures: 11 Manifestos for Transformative Architecture and Urbanism — Emmanuel Ofori-Sarpong Fiona Nyadero Julia Gallagher Kuukuwa Manful Olufèmi Hinson Yovo Carnival Film Screenings — Ainslee Alem Robson Amos Gitaï Annemarie Jacir Diébédo Francis Kéré Ewa Effiom Ila Bêka Kibwe Tavares Liam Young Louise Lemoine Luis Urbano Mike Tite Noemí Blager Penelope Haralambidou Sammy Baloji Geography and Gender — Caroline Wanjiku Kihato Clare Loveday Elena Ostanel Giovanna Marconi Gugulethu Sibonelelo Mthembu Mareli Stolp Women, Life, Freedom! — Women, Life, Freedom Ehsan Khoshbakht

The Future to Come — Cartografia Negra J. Yolande Daniels Margarida Waco Natsai Audrey Chieza Riff Studio Inconvenient Truths — Adrian Lahoud Baerbel Mueller Francesca Hughes Harriet Harriss Jayden Ali Mabel O. Wilson Mark Raymond Matilde Cassani Maxwell Mutanda Milton Curry Neal Shasore Sara Zewde Tomà Berlanda It’s a Wrap! — Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust (Anurupa Roy) with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art Dele Adeyemo with Ozegbe Sunday Obiajulu and Hermes Chibueze Iyele Rhael ‘LionHeart’ Cape 363

Design Excellence as a Negotiated Practice Cape Town

Edgar Pieterse

Prospects for African cities are bleak. Much of the continent is urbanising during a historic period (2023– 2040) of profound disruption, dislocation and systemic uncertainty. Formal employment is disappearing and morphing at an unprecedented scale due to digitalisation, and the decarbonisation imperatives requiring the reconfiguration of value chains. In this context, capital flows become even more volatile and speculative, undermining the bargaining power of African states and companies that already struggle to flex their muscles. These dynamics matter greatly because African cities are the base stations for the regional integrated economy project that is meant to accelerate growth, trade, competitiveness, cultural confidence, research, development, and most importantly, jobs and wealth. If African cities don’t work well, the human potential and economic trajectories of the continent are choked off. 366

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Most African cities do not work particularly well, either for the elites or the urban majorities who eke out a living amidst patchy infrastructural connections, poor urban management capabilities, and unsustainable patterns of investment that produce unviable land-use patterns and built environments. It is a tough political economy to navigate, a bruising bureaucratic maze of arbitrary petty power plays and double dealing. These pathologies are not accidental or an expression of purely malevolent politics, but rather a normalised pattern of neocolonial institutionalism reproduced by the global system of economic, trade, fiscal, monetary and political governance. The national policy dysfunctions that stem from neocolonial institutionalism establish urban realities that are marked by socioeconomic stunting. African youth – arguably our greatest assets – are the victims The Laboratory of the Future ― Carnival

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of a spatial order that reinforces spatial inequality. If we are honest with ourselves, most African youth have a limited chance of social mobility, which is the existential dynamo of urban culture and vitality. What is the role of design in engaging with these structural dynamics? In response to the provocation of The Laboratory of the Future, I want to suggest that design has a unique role and potential to bring together diverse urban actors to wrestle with how best to intervene in this bleak landscape, not just to ameliorate but to transform urban realities. This demands clear-eyed engagement with a paradox: large-scale transformative change in urban systems cannot be achieved through grand designs and blueprints, but rather through tens of thousands of micro actions that arise from context and intimacy, suggesting modular practices for makeshift conditions. Given the inherited confidence of design disciplines to be able to function on a plane of holism, integration, the system, and so on, it is hard to accept that grand designs might be complicit with neocolonial forms of (mis)management. But they often are. Humility is called for, but it does not have to mean relinquishing faith in the power of design as 368

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philosophical thought, conversation, problem-solving, creative invention and hope. The temporal spans of design responses are multiple, as well as the spatial scales that it can speak to. In more practical terms I want to suggest that designers who have a healthy obsession with African cities and streets may want to reformat their practice around the pursuit of ‘grounded excellence’. Given the everyday dynamics of self-built neighbourhoods and markets, and the larger bioregional systemic forces that shape urban territories, excellence is most likely to be found through the pursuit of an ensemble of performance criteria negotiated between designers and residents. In any ‘final’ design approach there will undoubtedly be trade-offs and compromises between the criteria, but working across them is the point of pursuing excellence. Without suggesting that my arbitrary typology is comprehensive, I would include the following principles: ―

Cultural resonance: engage with cultural norms, values, attachments and aspirations as diverse practices; combined with a sensitivity to history and memory; as well as an attentiveness to ambiguous psychological landscapes.

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Economic vitality: optimise forms and patterns of livelihood practices rooted in an understanding of interdependencies between formal, informal and illicit circuits; as well as opportunities to enhance circular economic links and the enterprises that could support them. Ecological embedding: enhance biodiversity, air quality, ecosystem service health and cultural enjoyment that stems from access to nature; as well as the new economic opportunities that arise from circularity, energy security and access to nutritional food. Safety: ensure that children and women are empowered to navigate and overcome the patriarchal norms and associated practices that underpin gender-based violence and routine discrimination. Beauty: insist on aesthetic recognition and expansion as a necessary dimension of any design solution or tactic, but rooted in the cultural disposition of the relevant community as opposed to the values of the designer. Ideally, some negotiated fusion of the two outlooks will arise from meaningful processes of co-production. Biennale Architettura 2023

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Costumed couple during Carnival in Venice J. L. B. van der Wolf / Alamy Stock Photo 2013 Page 372 — 373 Carnival parade at the Sambodrome, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Didi / Alamy Stock Photo 2010 Page 374 — 375

Of course, all design analysis and proposition must explicitly navigate the generative tension between functional performance and aesthetic expansion. By sticking closely to these performance criteria, the foundational tension described here can be navigated with intent and elegance. Since a design understanding and response at any scale must consider the lived (conflicting) practices of the people and collectives who reproduce that space, figuring out what makes design sense, by definition, must be co-produced through careful listening, engagement, experimentation and accountability. This disposition is foundational to design excellence as intimated before. What might it take to disrupt and rebuild architectural knowledge through curriculum and the studio to allow the designers of tomorrow to treat this rubric of excellence as common sense? The Laboratory of the Future ― Carnival

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All That is Solid Documentary

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Biennale College Architettura 2023 Workshop, Venice Alice Clancy 2023 Page 384 — 385 Page 390 — 393

“The paradox of education is precisely this ― that as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which he or she is being educated.” — James Baldwin The Laboratory of the Future ― Biennale College Architettura ― All That is Solid Documentary

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All That is Solid

For the first time in its history, La Biennale di Venezia will host the Biennale College Architettura, a month-long educational experience in Venice from 25 June to 22 July 2023. Fifty graduate students and graduates (under 30), early-career academics and emerging practitioners (under 35) will work with fifteen innovative and boundary-breaking tutors to propose a new curriculum in architectural education that deals critically and creatively with the twin themes of The Laboratory of the Future: decolonisation and decarbonisation. As part of the exhibition’s commitment to leaving a lasting legacy that will live beyond its closing in November 2023, a documentary has been commissioned to capture and explore this unique pedagogic experiment. Filmed by the acclaimed Spanish architect, Ángel Borrego Cubero, All That is Solid1 will follow the fifty participants, fifteen tutors and invited critics as they attempt to dream a new curriculum into existence. 380

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This is taken from: M. Bermann, All that is Solid Melts into Air (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982).

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Biennale College Architettura Participants ―

Abdulrahman Samhouri Abdul-Rauf Issahaque Amir Halabi Anam Tariq Anna Okhrimenko Antea Divić Anton Kuzmin

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Malvin Wibowo Marco Serra Maria Venegas Raba Mauricio Calvo Arancibia Muhamad El-Fouly Nicole Moyo Nobuhle Ngulube Olufolajimi Akinboboye

Bonnie Bopela

Omniya Sheikha

Catalina de Jesus García Chávez

Oratile Mothoagae Phadi Mabe

Catharina Meier

Rana Saadallah

Devesh Uniyal

Sandra Githinji

Dominiq Oti

Selorm Abla Afeke

Gauri Bahuguna

Sophie Agne

Genevieve Quinn

Stefania Bellato

Harry Hogan

Sumayyah Raji

Ian Davide Bugarin

Surita Manoa

Jessica Nakalawa Ntale

Tonderai Koschke

Joan Pearl Nalianya

Veronica Frederico

Jacqueline Kalange Katesi

Yannick Joosten

Kawthar Rashid Jeewa

Yara Alheswani

Khaalid Dangor

Yasmin Bushra

Laila Ouzzine

Yosuke Nakamoto

Lelentle Ramphele

Nana Zaalishvili

Luba Nomhlekazi Nkiwane

Zakiyyah Haffejee Biennale Architettura 2023

“Live out of your imagination, not [just] your history.”

— Steve Covey

Biennale College Architettura Tutors —

Alice Clancy Guillermo Fernandez-Abascal Jacopo Galli

Biennale College Architettura Critics

Lorenzo Romito Manijeh Verghese Marina Otero Nana Biamah-Ofosu

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Ana Betancour

Ngillan Faal

Emmett Scanlon

Philippa Tumubweinee

Jhono Bennett

Rahesh Ram

Laurence Lord

Samia Henni

Lesley Lokko

Samir Pandya

Maxwell Mutanda

Sarah de Villiers

Nifemi Marcus-Bello

Thireshen Govender

Thandi Loewenson

Urtzi Grau

Ye.mí Aládérun

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Memory Against Forgetting — bell hooks New York

Shawn L. Rickenbacker

Visiting the International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia, it’s hard not to appreciate the power and presence of cultural production that spans centuries. Steeped in both memory and stone, locals and visitors meander through streets and over canals that are the embodiment of Venetian culture, its history, ceremonies, struggles, and successes indelibly and seamlessly woven into the city’s physical fabric. This rich material culture is simultaneously an archive of the past and a roadmap for the future, an everyday reminder of the road travelled and the road to come. Not all cultures have such easy material access to their history. As the late African American writer and cultural activist bell hooks so eloquently put it, for Black people “our struggle is also a struggle of memory against forgetting”.1 In the world’s global marketplace, cities are a booming commodity. And the US represents the world’s largest commercial real estate market, fuelled by its cities. Successful multinationals and high net 386

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worth individuals own shares in the form of real estate development and property portfolios. Over the last two decades, despite recessions and the pandemicfuelled global economic downturn of the past two years, the value of urban real estate in global US cities continues to rise, and as an investment has recently outperformed most – if not all – stock markets since 2021.2 To continue to attract, accommodate and sustain the increase in wealth, the urban landscape is changing rapidly. In most large cities, formerly undesirable districts inhabited largely by communities of colour, or the urban poor, have become the site of spatial and cultural transformation, changes brought about through economic speculation, architectural intervention, and production. This is known widely as gentrification. The changes are generally celebrated as urban progress and often recognised as an array of architectural and design accomplishments. They are, however, duplicitous. On the one hand, they represent advancement (for some) and, on the other, a violent form of geographical and cultural erasure. Spatial erasure is more than the removal of building material. It destroys spatial orders and community relationships, often accumulated over long periods of time. It frays the bonds of social and cultural cohesion, established through residents’ behaviours that constitute cultural markers within their respective landscapes. As American geographer The Laboratory of the Future ― Biennale College Architettura ― All That is Solid Documentary

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Carl O. Sauer wrote: “A cultural landscape is fashioned from a natural landscape by a culture group. Culture is the agent; the natural area is the medium. The cultural landscape the result.”3 Cities’ varied landscapes are not only physical, they are also cultural – with memory and presence playing critical roles in communicating or transferring a place’s values. And place in turn is instrumental, helping us to form and preserve concepts of one’s own personal identity based on those values. What happens when place becomes solely transactional, a commodity? What happens to communities who are dispossessed in the process – not just of place, but of associated memory and markers? A void is left in the concept of spatial memory, or as social psychiatrist Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, describes: a “root shock” severing of connection to memory.4 In other words, memory and place are historically contingent upon one another; without one you have less of the other. Forced removals of people – pre-existing cultural agents – whether caused by rising property values and transactions or voluntary relocations, unmask the deeper relationship between race and spatial economics. In the last few decades, global US cities such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Chicago, and Philadelphia have undergone demographic shifts not seen since the Great Migration (1910–1970) in the decline of minority 388

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populations.5 ‘Root shock’ is depleting and destroying the roots of cultural landscapes in cities across America and elsewhere. Architecture can no longer disavow its role in the removal and erasure of communities and cultures embedded in place. Some facets of the profession have shown a willingness to pursue and express new forms of knowledge and relationships, in the move towards crafting a fairer and more just built environment. These include the cultural and social value of space and its equitable preservation. As we strive to further define equitable design, we also need to display a willingness to address what the built environment we have nurtured professionally to date has created: cities of vast inequity; a disregard for the politics of presence and importance of place and memory. Is it a bleak future for us all – where memory does not reside?

3. 4. 5.

b. hooks, “Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness”, Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 36, 15–23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44111660 (accessed 7 March 2023). The National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT), “FTSE Nareit US Real Estate Index Series Daily Returns”, 6 March 2023. Available at https://www.reit.com/sites/ default/files/returns/DomesticReturns.pdf (accessed 7 March 2023). See also NAREIT, “Historical Outperformance by Equity REITs Extends to Almost Every Property Type”. Available at https://www.reit.com/news/blog/market-commentary/historical-outperformance-by-equityreits-extends-to-almost-every-property-type (accessed 7 March 2023). C. O. Sauer, “The Morphology of Landscape”, in Land and Life: A Selection from the Writings of Carl Ortwin Sauer, edited by J. Leighly, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), 343. M. T. Fullilove, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We Can Do About It (New York: New Village Press, 2016). A. W. Bartik and E. Mast, “Black Suburbanization: Causes and Consequences of a Transformation of American Cities”, Upjohn Institute Working Paper 21-355. https://doi. org/10.17848/wp21-355.

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Archive of the Future

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“Is this the only future left to aspire to – one in which every human being becomes a market actor; every field of activity is seen as a market; every entity (whether public or private, whether person, business, state or corporation) is governed as a firm; people themselves are cast as human capital and are subjected to market metrics (ratings, rankings) and their value is determined speculatively in a futures market?” — Achille Mbembe 398

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Oxford, UK. 9 June, 2020. Hundreds of demonstrators gather below the Cecil Rhodes statue in Oxford calling for the effigy to be removed Lee Thomas / Alamy Stock Photo 2020 Page 400 — 401

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Affinity and Beyond

Emmett Scanlon Alice Clancy Laurence Lord Sarah de Villiers Fred Swart

“I had not known that affinity once meant (and so might mean again) a gathering of like or like-minded people. Until the middle of the seventeenth century, the word could name not just the relationship but the relations: affinity meant family. And from this development of the term, it was possible also to speak of a group, a gang, a camp as a kind of affinity. I love this unforeseen inflection: affinity as retinue or entourage, as diverse but determined clique or claque.”1 ― Brian Dillon 402

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Perhaps one of the most demanding things about a Biennale is first establishing and then maintaining a culture to enable it to evolve. It is a daily, difficult task: a question of affinity. Advancing at this scale and that pace is an uncertain game of catch and release, a translation of those fleeting, loose connections between idea, iteration, and intent. Across many workshops, Zooms, emails, and texts, participants were encouraged to admit into their work and lives the uncertainty of change. They were invited to embrace the risk of making anything at all that might advance new ways of seeing the world and our place in it. They were assured that now was a chance to trust that with each doing less, we could together do more. We confess that, while we assured them, we were also assuring ourselves. Archive of the Future

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As a team, our work emerged in ‘strict accordance’ with a short deadline. Finally, we reached the “point when you go with what you’ve got. Or you don’t go.”2 We got there with imagination, testing, discussion and contest; but any selection of work objects shared in one room cannot confirm certain outcomes or definitive conclusions. Although each object is pinned down, pinpointed, fastened, and displayed, the objects are not static. They are restless memories of the future.3 The ideas they embody already seek other company and varied, distant contexts. These objects in the room cannot be classified as prototypes, ambassadors for things complete, elsewhere present in the Biennale or to be encountered on billboards in the city of Venice. They are fragments of an ongoing process. Not endings, nor beginnings: they are somewhere in between. As a team, we will soon disband. But the echoes of this work will be heard by each of us, always. Nothing is how we imagined it might be when we began. As the doors open and the curtains close, perhaps all we know for sure is that a commitment to making a moment is a grand way to imagine a future. 404

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‘Yam’ phone, from the tiGO mobile phone company advertising campaign, 2014 AFI Workshop 6, Accra Alice Clancy 2023 Page 410 — 411 Building site, Accra AFI Workshop 6, Accra Alice Clancy 2023 Page 412 — 413

B. Dillon, Affinities (London: Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2023), 61.

J. Didion, interviewed by Linda Kuehl, The Paris Review 78 (Fall–Winter, 1978), available at https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3439/the-art-of-fiction-no-71-joan-didion.

N. Tennant, C. Lowe, “Memory of the Future”, performed by Pet Shop Boys, Parlophone, 2012.

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Architecture is Time Machine London

Jonathan Hill

Time is relative. Affected by speed and mass, time is faster at the equator than the far north, faster in the mountains than the plains, and faster at your head than your feet. Light weaves through space–time. The stars we observe in a night sky are in the past, not the present. Equally, we see the past sun, not the present sun. Architects do not necessarily design for today and may have a different time and place in mind. Some architects conceive for a present, some imagine for a mythical past, while others design for a future. Alternatively, an architect can envisage the past, present, and future in a single architecture. Innovations occur when ideas and forms migrate from one time and place to another by a translation process that is as inventive as the initial conception. A design can be specific to a time and place and a compound of other times and places. 406

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Design is understood as the first stage in a temporal sequence. But design, construction, maintenance, and ruination occur simultaneously while a building is in use, fluctuating according to specific spaces and components. Assembled from materials of diverse ages, from the newly formed to those which are centuries or millions of years old, and incorporating varied rates of transformation and decay, a building curates the past, informs the present, and imagines the future, transporting us to many times simultaneously. The stones of a building belong to the geological time they were wrought, the time they were quarried, the time they were integrated into a construction site, the ever-progressing time of subsequent environmental change, and the varied times they are experienced. We may seem to travel back in time, while materials and components have literally travelled forward to us. As much as any collection of papers or drawings, a building is an archive. A building is an evolving collection of ideas, materials, and lives, with the capacity to acknowledge the histories and timeframes of related disciplines, whether thousands of archaeological years or millions of geological ones. Gazing at a marble wall, we can appreciate the geological abyss of deep time. Our thoughts may be cast back to a prehuman era when ancient creatures inhabited the earth or forward to a post-human era when humans are extinct. Archive of the Future

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If we contemplate a sedimentary stone, we see time’s arrow and the possibility of ruin. If we gaze at an igneous or metamorphic stone, we see time’s cycle and the possibility of repair.1 Architecture is an art of forgetting as well as remembering.2 Each building is selective, focusing on some ideas and ignoring others. Original meanings are soon obscured or transformed unless they are continuously reaffirmed through everyday behaviour and maintenance, which are as necessary to perpetuating collective memory as any material object. Rather than just living in the moment, we filter the present through memories of the past and speculations on the future. As we move from place to place, we may seem to move backward or forward in time or oscillate between them. In many time travel tales, the protagonists wish to change time not just observe it. But since H.G. Wells coined the term in 1895, the time machine is notably unreliable, stimulating narrative tension. Architecture is also an erratic, rather than a reliable, time machine. It cannot change the past but may alter our understanding, while it can potentially change the future. A building does not just exist in time. It creates time, travelling forward as a message to the future. However, nothing is as old-fashioned as a past vision of the future. We all know the sense that time has reversed. An era that seemed to be in the past becomes the future. Decarbonisation 408

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and decolonisation are calls to the creative, critical imagination. In a productive dialogue, the aim is to offer a coherent position that is also questioning and incomplete, and thus a stimulus to others’ development, facilitating a generous community of individuals and groups. Twenty-first-century architects can appreciate the shock of the old as well as the shock of the new.3 To ask what is new involves other questions: why is it new, how is it new, and where is it new? According to William Gibson’s memorable statement, “The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed.”4 To understand what is new, we need to consider the present, the past, and maybe even the future; we need to think historically. Defining something as new is an inherently historical act because it requires an awareness of what is old. The Laboratory of the Future is also the Laboratory of the Past and the Laboratory of the Present.

S.J. Gould, Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time. (London: Penguin, 1990), 61–65. First published in 1987.

A. Forty, Introduction. In A. Forty and S. Küchler (eds.), The Art of Forgetting (Oxford and New York: Berg, 1990), 16.

D. Edgerton, The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900 (London: Profile, 2008), 212.

Gibson used this phrase many times in interviews. A full list of uses is listed at: https://quoteinvestigator. com/2012/01/24/future-has-arrived (accessed 24 March 2020).

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Acknowledgements

Brian Moran Bróna King .buro, Ghana Casa Verardo, Venice Cecilia Alemani Adam McAleavey

Centre Culturel Irlandais

Adjaye Associates

Charlotte Bird

Ahmed Subero

Chrystal Williams

AHMM, London

Chuck Clark

Albert Williamson-Taylor

Cian O’Brien

Aleksandra Kotarzewska

Claude Borna

Andreea Felciuc

Clíona Ní Riordáin

Andrew Sedgwick

Colum O’Riordan

Anne Sackey

Culture Ireland

Anthony Wortsem

Darren Walker

AP+E

David Anderson

ARUP London

David Kessler

Bartlett School of Architecture

Donatella Bianchi

Beatrice Galilee

Donna Reid

Belinda Quirke

Donna Subero

Ben Ransley

Eastside Farm, Edinburgh

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Edmund Abladjei Eibhlín Ní Chathasaigh Eleanor Beaumont Emmanuel Bortey Borketey Eoin O‘Neill

Issi Nanabeyin Simpson

Erica Wszolek

Jade Dillon

Ernest Donkor

James Albert Martin

Ewuraba Essel-Appiah

James Anderson

Fabia Stocken

James Beer

Fati Subero

James Rossa O’Hare

Festus Jackson-Davis

Jane Anderson

Fiona Hughes

Jeffrey Bolhuis

Formafantasma

Jemma Read

Fionnuala Sweeney

Jennifer Jennings

Francesca Hughes

Jhono Bennett

Francesca Perry

Jo Ostlere

Fred Swart

John Clancy

Frederick Kannemeyer

John-Paul Nunes

Gerard Hamill

Jonathan Hill

Grafton Architects

Juliet Mureriwa

Hanif Kara

Justin Garrett Moore

Hugh Campbell

Karin Krslovic

Irish Architectural Archive

Kathryn Meghen

Irish Architecture Foundation

Katrina Bruna

Acknowledgements

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Acknowledgements

Keith McAllister Kirsty de Kock Kofi Abankwa

Michèle Kessler

Kofi Essel-Appiah

Miguel Rodriguez-Casellas

Kwabena Akosa

Museum of Literature Ireland

Livia Hurley

Naa Adjeley Twum

Lois Innes

Naadira Patel

Louise Kirwan

Nana Asante

Louise O’Reilly

Nana Biamah-Ofosu

Luis Urbano

Nasrin Seraji

Lynn Scarff

Nathalie Weadick

Maisie Hennessey

National Museum of Ireland

Malaika Mallard

Nora Hickey M’Sichili

Mammotsa Makhene

Nzinga Biegueng-Mboup

Manon Mollard

Olasumbo Olaniyi

Mariana Mazzucato

Orla Moloney

Martyn Mensah

Orla Murphy

Mawuli Afatsiawo

Patrick Ata

Megan Lokko

Patrick Gentilezza

Melissa Mak

Philip Dodd

Michael McGarry

Philip McMahon

Michael Pike

Project Arts Centre

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Richard Sennett Ricky Burdett Rory McGowan Ros Diamond Ross Portway Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland

Sharon Barry

Ruben Atekpe

Simon Allford

Ruth Dzisa

Simon Lincoln

Ruth Kwakwa

Simon Lokko

Ruth Pelopida

Simon O’Connor

Ruth-Anne Naa Aku-Sika Richardson

Solstice Meath Arts Centre

Sandra O’Connell

Suhaira Chaarani

Sara Asafu-Adjaye Sarah de Villiers Sarah Harding Sarah Lappin School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, UCD School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast

Shelley McNamara

Steven Reid Tatjana Schneider The Bloomsbury Hotel, London ThisIsPopBaby Thomas Jefferies Urtzi Grau Valerie Behan Victor Sackey Yvonne Farrell

Sean Hardcastle

Wild Gecko, Accra

Sebastiano Giannesini

Zakiyyah Haffejee

Acknowledgements

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Participant Biographies and Credits

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Biographies and Credits

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Participants

Force Majeure —

Adjaye Associates Accra, Ghana; London, UK; New York, USA Sir David Adjaye OBE, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 1966; Lives and works in Accra, Ghana; London, UK and New York, USA —

79 Project Title: — Kwaeε Technical collaborators: — Format Engineers, Xylotek Team members: — Duncan Wilson, Yixia Xu 81 Project Title: — Adjaye Futures Lab Collaborators: — Liam Wier, Maquettica Team members: — Farida A-Latif, Luisa Alves, Solomon Ananpansah, Ayanna Blair-Ford, Nora Fadil, Audrey Tseng Fischer, Marissa Glauberman, Hajara Masoud, Shobha Narendran, Emmanuel Obeng, Tobie Quartey, Duncan Wilson 83 Project Title: — Lost Knowledge Systems Collaborators: — Peter Adjaye, Liam Weir Team members: — Farida A-Latif, Luisa Alves, Solomon Ananpansah, Ayanna Blair-Ford, Nora Fadil, Marissa Glauberman, Hajara Masoud, Shobha Narendran, Emmanuel Obeng, Tobie Quartey, Audrey Tseng Fischer, Duncan Wilson, Yixia Xu, Mu Zhang, Doron von Beider Contact: — Instagram: @adjayeassociates @adjaye_visual_sketchbook — Twitter: @adjayeassoc @dadjaye — LinkedIn: @adjayeassociates — YouTube: @adjaye_associates — www.adjaye.com Catalogue images: — Courtesy and © Adjaye Associates 420

85 atelier masōmī Niamey, Niger — Mariam Issoufou Kamara, St Etienne, France, 1979; Lives and works in Niamey, Niger and Washington DC, USA Project Title: — Process Technical collaborators: — Boyd and Ogier Team members: — Ramatou Kane, Neo Maditla, Aaron C Nkhoma Contact: — Instagram: @atmasomi @mariamkamr — Twitter: @ateliermasomi @mariamkamr — www.ateliermasomi.com Catalogue images: — Photo James Wang Courtesy and © atelier masōmī 87 Basis with GKZ New York, USA; Los Angeles, USA; London, UK — Zenna Tavares, London, UK, 1986 — Kibwe Tavares, London, UK, 1983 — Gaika Tavares, London, UK, 1982 — Eli Bingham, New York, USA,1993 — Emily Mackevicius, Massachusetts, USA, 1989 Live and work in Los Angeles, USA; New York, USA; London, UK Project Title: — Djali

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Team members: Lullyn Tavares (Djali, writing), Shaiyan Keshvari (Djali, perception design), Karen Schroeder (Djali, research operations), Ria Das (Djali, AI development), Archana Warrier (Djali, AI development), Doug John Miller (Djali, illustration), Janine Kwoh (Djali, design), Mourad Bennacer (Robots of Brixton, sound design), DJ Hiatus feat linton Kwesi Johnson (Robots of Brixton, music), David Hoffman (Robots of Brixton, still photography), Vesna Petresin Robert (Robots of Brixton, consultant), Lauraent Petresin Robert (Robots of Brixton, consultant), Nic Clear (Robots of Brixton, tutor) Contact: Instagram: @BasisOrg www.basis.ai Catalogue images: Courtesy and © Kibwe Tavares

89 Cave_bureau Nairobi, Kenya — Kabage Karanja, Nairobi, Kenya, 1979 — Stella Mutegi, Nairobi, Kenya, 1979 Live and work in Nairobi, Kenya and New York, USA Project Title: — Oral Archive (New Age Africana) Authorial collaborators: — Densu Moseti Team members: — Noelle Oyunga With the additional support of: — Pacific Africa Group Contact: — Instagram: @cave_bureau — www.cave.co.ke Catalogue images: — Courtesy and © Cave_bureau Biennale Architettura 2023

91 Hood Design Studio Oakland, USA — Walter Hood, Fort Bragg, USA, 1958; Lives and works in Oakland, CA, USA — Alma Du Solier, Monterrey, Mexico, 1972; Lives in San Francisco, USA and Mexico City, Mexico and works in Oakland, USA Project Title: — Native(s) Lifeways Authorial collaborators: — Lewis Watts (photographer), Julie Dash, Geechee LLC, Rachael Watanabe-Batton (Contradiction and Struggle) Technical collaborators: — Tipping Structural Engineers, ArchDesign Custom Fabrication, Annacaterina Piras, LW Circus-Onlus Team members: — Sarita Schreiber, Kelley Johnson, Olivia Hansberg, Chris Derry, Grace Mitchell Tada With the additional support of: — University of California, Berkeley, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Department, Farrand Fund Grant in Innovation; United States Artists 2021 USA Fellowship; Avvocato Giulia Floriani Hood Design Studio Contact: — Instagram: @Hooddesignstudio — www.hooddesignstudio.com Catalogue images: — Photo and © Kendall McCaugherty 93 Ibrahim Mahama Tamale, Ghana — Ibrahim Mahama, Tamale, Ghana, 1987; Lives and works in Tamale, Ghana Project Title: — Parliament of Ghosts Authorial collaborators: — SCCA Tamale, Red Clay Studios, Nkrumah Voli-ni, blaxTARLINES KUMASI, Maame Adwoa Prempeh Technical collaborators: — Mubarek Mohammed Mahama, Issah Mohammed Ibrahim, Abraham Kudjie, Benjamin Okantey, Francis Djiwornu, Zakaria Danaa Team members: — SCCA Tamale, Red Clay Studios, Nkrumah Voli-ni, blaxTARLINES KUMASI, Maame Adwoa Prempeh With the additional support of: — APALAZZOGALLERY, Brescia and White Cube, London With special thanks to: — Francesca Migliorati and Manuela Nebuloni Biographies and Credits

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Contact: Instagram: @ibrahimmahama3 @sccatamale @redclay_studio @nkrumahvolini YouTube: @sccatamale3396 www.sccatamale.org Catalogue images: Photo courtesy the artist, Redclay, White Cube and Apalazzo Gallery. © Redclay

95 Kéré Architecture Berlin, Germany and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso — Diébédo Francis Kéré, Gando, Burkina Faso, 1965; Lives and works in Berlin, Germany and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Project Title: — Counteract Authorial collaborators: — Fabiola Büchele Team members: — Andrea Maretto, Fabiola Büchele, Leonne Vögelin With the additional support of: — ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen Contact: — Instagram: @kerearchitecture — www.kerearchitecture.com Catalogue images: — Photo and © Iwan Baan. Courtesy Kéré Architecture 97 Koffi & Diabaté Architectes Abidjan, Ivory Coast — Guillaume Koffi, Gagnoa, Côte d'Ivoire, 1959 — Issa Diabaté, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, 1969 Live and work in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire Project Title: — Living Differently: Architecture, Scale and the New Core Technical collaborators: — Amidou Traore Urban Designer; Nicolas Bequart; Les Crayons; Agence Opixido Team members: — Anna Djigo, Marilyne Sinama, Ramatou Ly, Yemi Kacoutie Dervain, Jean-Marc Don Mello, Cindy Moukarzel, Rocco Corini Contact: — Instagram: @koffidiabate_architectes — YouTube: @koffidiabatearchitectes9564 — www.koffi-diabate.com Catalogue images: — Courtesy Koffi & Diabaté Architectes © Eric Koffi

99 MASS Design Group Boston, USA; Kigali, Rwanda — Christian Benimana, Rwanda, 1982; Lives and works in Kigali, Rwanda Project Title: — AFRITECT Team members: — Arlette Akingeneye, Thatcher Bean, Roger Biziyaremye, Amber Lacroix, Giovanni Bortolo i, Joel Muhozi, Gabriel Nyirijuru, Alan Ricks, Miguel Roldan, Amie, Shao, Nailla Simbi, Maggie Stern, Katie Swenson, Annie Wang Contact: — Twitter: @CBenimana Catalogue images: — Photo MASS Design Group Courtesy and © Christian Benimana 101 Olalekan Jeyifous Brooklyn, USA — Olalekan Jeyifous, Ibadan, Nigeria, 1977; Lives and works in Brooklyn, USA Project Title: — ACE/AAP Contact: — Instagram: @Kidcadaver — Twitter: @Ojeyifous — www.Jeyifo.us Catalogue images: — © Olalekan Jeyifous 103 SOFTLAB@PSU State College, USA — Felecia Davis, Michigan, USA, 1959; Lives and works in State College, USA Project Title: — Textural Threshold Hair Salon: Dreadlock Technical collaborators: — Lee Washesky (RA), Huijuan Xu, Shu Zhao Team members: — Ian Danner, Daniel Escobar, Aysan Jafarzadeh, Hiranshi Patel With the additional support of: — Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Pennsylvania State University College of Arts and Architecture, College of Arts and Architecture Research and Creative Activity Grant In Racial Justice, Anti-Discrimination, and Democratic Practices, The Stuckeman School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Graphic Design, The Department of Architecture at Pennsylvania State University and The Stuckeman Center for Design Computing Contact: — Instagram: @fadometer — Twitter: @fadatmit — www.feleciadavistudio.com — arts.psu.edu/faculty/felecia-davis/ — www.blackreconstructioncollective.org Catalogue images: — Courtesy and © Felecia Davis 421

105 Studio Sean Canty Boston, USA — Sean Canty, Philadelphia, USA, 1987; Lives and works in Boston, USA Project Title: — Edgar’s Sheds Technical collaborators: — Hanif Kara OBE (AKTII), Edoardo Tibuzzi (AKTII) Team members: — Sarah Dunham, Jan Kwan, Gabriel Soomar, Justin Jiang, Coco Tin Soundscape Designer: — Darien Carr With the additional support of: — Harvard Graduate School of Design Contact: — Instagram: @sean_canty_ @studioseancanty — www.seancanty.net Catalogue images: — Photo Edgar Canty. Courtesy Sean Canty Studio 107 Sumayya Vally and Moad Musbahi Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa, London, UK; Tripoli, Libya, New York, USA. — Sumayya Vally, Pretoria, Republic of South Africa, 1990; Lives and works in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa, London, UK; — Moad Musbahi lives and works Tripoli, Libya, New York, USA Project Title: — The African Post Office Authorial collaborators: — Sukanta Majumdar (Sound Designer), Adam Anabosi (Sound Research Support) Technical collaborators: — Grazia Sechi (Production Support), Alessandro Braggio (Fabricator) Team members — Tonia Murray, Counterspace Contact: — Instagram: @sumi_v @rubicon_m @_counterspace — www.counterspace-studio.com — www.morningindustries.org Catalogue images: — Courtesy and © Counterspace 109 Thandi Loewenson London, UK; Lusaka, Zambia; Harare, Zimbabwe — Thandi Loewenson, Harare, Zimbabwe, 1989; Lives in London, UK; works in London, UK; Lusaka, Zambia and Harare, Zimbabwe Project Title: — The Uhuru Catalogues Team members — Motong Yang With the additional support of: — British Council, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Royal College of Art 422

Dangerous Liaisons

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Contact: Instagram: @thandiloewenson Twitter: @thandiloewenson www.thandiloewenson.com Catalogue images: Courtesy and © Thandi Loewenson

111 Theaster Gates Studio Chicago, USA — Theaster Gates, Chicago, USA, 1973; Lives and works in Chicago, USA Project Title: — Black Artist Retreat: Reflections on 10 Years of Convening Technical collaborators: — Parallax Post, The Vinyl Factory, Chris Strong Team members: — Sabina Bokhari, Emma German, Tura Cousins Wilson With the additional support of: — Ford Foundation, Terra Foundation, Rebuild Foundation, The Lunder, Institute for American Art at Colby College Contact: — Instagram: @theastergates — www.theastergates.com Catalogue images: — Photo Chris Strong. Courtesy and © Theaster Gates Studio 113 urban american city (urbanAC) New York, USA — Toni L. Griffin, Chicago, USA, 1964; Lives and works in New York, USA Project Title: — Land Narratives — Fantastic Futures Authorial collaborators: — The Just City Lab Technical collaborators: — Sandra Steinbrecher, Vashon Jordan, Jr., Lee Bey Team members: — Danny Clarke, Rayshad Dorsey, Gabriel Soomar With the additional support of: — Theaster Gates & The Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab, SOM Foundation, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Emerald South Economic Development Collaborative Contact: — Instagram: @tonilgriffin @urbanAC — www.urbanAC.city — www.designforthejustcity.org Catalogue images: — Courtesy Rayshad Dorsey

135 AD—WO New York, USA — Emanuel Admassu, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1983 — Jen Wood, Melbourne, Australia, 1984 Live and work in New York, USA Project Title: — Ghebbi Authorial collaborators: — Tsion Haleselassie (photographer) Team members: — AD—WO: Gene Han, Yasmine El Alaoui El Abdallaoui, Katie Solien — The Urban Center: Maheder Gebremedhin, Director; Betelehem Demissie, Head of Research and Programs With the additional support of: — Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, Columbia University, New York Contact: — Instagram: @ad__wo — www.ad-wo.com Catalogue images: — © AD—WO 137 AMAA Collaborative Architecture Office for Research and Development Venice, Italy — Marcello Galiotto, Arzignano, Italy, 1986 — Alessandra Rampazzo, Mirano, Italy, 1986 Live and work in Venice and Arzignano, Italy Project Title: — It’s Kind of a Circular Story Authorial collaborators: — Nero/Alessandro Neretti, Ernesta Caviola, Davide Faedo, Eros Rossetto (blaaUniverse Studio), Lorenzo Mason Studio, Harry Thaler Technical collaborators: — De Castelli, Faces Engineering Team members: — Simone Agosta del Forte, Roberto Bonturi, Giulia Citro, Elena Ciucci, Francesca Fasiol, Lorenzo Lazzari, Angelo Renna, Martina Segafredo With the additional support of: — Fondazione SAFE, De Castelli, Il Grifo Costruzioni Edili, Modernab Gallery, Lithos Design, Marcigaglia Constructions SpA Contact: — Instagram: @amaa_office — www.amaa.studio Catalogue images: — Photo and © Simone Bossi Biennale Architettura 2023

139 Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation New York, USA; Madrid, Spain — Andrés Jaque, Madrid, Spain, 1971; Lives and works in New York, USA and Madrid, Spain Project Title: — Xholobeni Yards Authorial collaborators: — Steve Hoffe, Nohnle Mbthuma Forslund, Siyabonga Ndovela, Margie Pretorius, Sinegugu Zukulu, ACC (Amadiba Crisis Comittee) and SWC (Sustaining the Wild Coast) Team members: — José Luis Espejo (sound artist), Farah Alkhoury (research and field recordings), Roberto González (coordination and design), Vivian Rotie y Pablo Sáiz del Río (fabrication), Jorge Cañón (AV consultant), Ignacio Farpón (lighting consultant), Wojciech Gajek (seismic Records), Walter Ancarrow (text editing), John Bravebull, Joseph Hazan (studio recordings) With the additional support of: — Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University, Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) Contact: — Instagram: @andres_jaque — Twitter: @OFFPOLINN — www.offpolinn.com Catalogue images: — Courtesy and © Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation 141 BDR bureau and carton123 architecten Turin, Italy; Brussels, Belgium — Simona Della Rocca, Moncalieri, Italy, 1985; Lives and works in Turin, Italy — Alberto Bottero, Cuneo, Italy, 1984 Lives and works in Turin, Italy — Els Van Meerbeek, Leuven, Belgium, 1974; Lives and works in Brussels and Leuven, Belgium — Joost Raes, Leuven, Belgium, 1979; Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium Project Title: — Broader Boundaries Authorial collaborators: — Joost Emmerik (landscape design) Technical collaborators: — Sileghem & Partners (Structural Engineering), STir (Technical Installations), D2S international (Acoustical Engineering), KU Leuven Research[x]Design (Inclusive Design Expertise) Team members: — BDR: Alina Salahoru, Morena Gagliardi C123: Jordy Van Osselaer, Sara De Sterck, Pauline Vermeulen, Dorien Pelst With the Additional Support of: — FEBELCEM Biographies and Credits

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Contact: Instagram: @bdrbureau @carton123_architecten www.bdrbureau.com www.carton123.be Catalogue images: Courtesy and © BDR bureau & Carton123 architecten

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143 DAAR — Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal Stockholm; Bethlehem — Alessandro Petti — Sandi Hilal Project Title: — Ente di Decolonizzazione — Borgo Rizza Team members: — Husam Abusalem, Matteo Lucchetti, Sara Pellegrini Courtesy: — Collection Fondazione Donnaregina per le arti contemporanee – Madre, Napoli. Project realized with the support of Italian Council 2021 With the additional support of: — Museo delle Civiltà, Roma; Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm Contact: — Instagram: @entity_of_decolonization — Facebook: @decolonizingarchitectureartresidency — www.decolonizing.ps — www.daas.academy Catalogue images: — Photo, Courtesy and © Pietro Onofri 145 David Wengrow and Eyal Weizman with Forensic Architecture and The Nebelivka Project London, UK — Eyal Weizman, Haifa, Israel, 1970; Lives and works in London, UK and Berlin, Germany — David Wengrow, UK, 1972; Lives and works in London, UK Project Title: — The Nebelivka Hypothesis Authorial collaborators: — Forensic Architecture, The Nebelivka Project and The Center for Spatial Technologies Team members: — Forensic Architecture: Davide Piscitelli (Project Coordinator), Agata Nguyen Chuong (Research), Natalia Sliwinska (Video Editing), Mark Nieto (Sound Design), Sarah Nankivell (Project Support), Elizabeth Breiner (Project Support), Andra Pop-Jurj (Project Support), — Extended Team: Rosie Emery (3D Modelling), Matteo Zamagni (3D Animation), Riccardo Badano (Editor), Ewa Domaradzka (Narrator) — The Nebelivka Project: Bisserka Gaydarska, John Chapman, Marco Nebbia, Manuel Arroyo-Kalin, Duncan Hale

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The Center for Spatial Technologies: Maksym Rokmaniko, Andrew Onyshchenko, Daryna Vilkhova, Mykola Holovko, Natasha Pereverzina Extended Team: Sergey Revenko, Oleksiy Makulskiy. External collaborator: Kris Lockyear (University College London) With the additional support of: The Richard and Peggy Greenfield Foundation Contact: Instagram: @forensicarchitecture Twitter: @ForensicArchi @davidwengrow www.forensic-architecture.org Catalogue images: Courtesy and © Forensic Architecture

147 Dream The Combine Ithaca, Minneapolis, USA — Jennifer Newsom, Norwich, USA, 1979 — Tom Carruthers, Vancouver, Canada, 1978 Live in Rome, Italy and Ithaca, New York, USA; work in Rome, Italy and Ithaca, New York and Minneapolis, MN, USA Project Title: — afterimages Technical collaborators: — Clayton Binkley of Odd Lot (Engineering Consultation), Fulvio Falorsi of METEL SaS (Fabrication) Team members: — Kathy Kao, Matt Catrow, Zhouhan Li With the additional support of: — Cornell Architecture, Art, and Planning, American Academy in Rome, McKnight Fellowship for Visual Artists, funded by The McKnight Foundation and administered by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design Contact: — Instagram: @DreamTheCombine — www.dreamthecombine.com Catalogue images: — Photo Jennifer Newsom. © Dream The Combine 149 Dualchas Architects Isle of Skye, Glasgow, UK — Neil Stephen, Glasgow, UK, 1969 — Alasdair Stephen, Glasgow, UK, 1969 — Rory Flyn Inverness, UK, 1978 Live and work on Isle of Skye, Glasgow, UK Project Title: — Dualchas Authorial collaborators: — Cal Flyn (Writer), Hector MacInnes (Sound Artist), Peter Marsden (Film Director), Jordan Young (Photographer) Technical collaborators: — Peter McCaughey (Artistic Advisor) Team members: — Marcus O’Connell 423

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With the additional support of: Creative Scotland, Torabhaig Distillery HebHomes Contact: Instagram: @dualchas_architects www.dualchas.com Catalogue images: Photo, Courtesy and © Jordan Young

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— 151 Estudio A0 Quito, Ecuador — Ana María Durán Calisto, Quito, Ecuador, 1971; Lives and works in Quito, Ecuador and New Haven, CT, USA — Jaskran Kalirai, Derby, UK, 1974; Lives and works in Quito, Ecuador and Derbyshire, UK Project Title: — Surfacing — The Civilised Agroecological Forests of Amazonia Authorial Collaborator: — Manuela Omari Ima Technical collaborators: — Nicolás Vivas, Romelia Papue and Gabriel Moyer-Pérez Team members: — 1. Dien Dien (to feel the other) installation. Weaving artists: Manuela Ima, Cabe Nongui, Guiwe Ima, Game Ima, Quemea Ima, Omeñia Ima, Omenkiri Ima, Wetora Ima, Bebanca Ima, Patricia Irumenga, Ene Omene, Ruth Huamoni, Daboca Hernán, and Berbeca Ima Documentation of weaving process: Carolina Zambrano, Romelia Papue, and Rebecca Commissaris — 2. Wegota (in Wao Terero) or Yanchama (in Kichwa) and chambira embroidered drawings of ancient Amazonian agroecological urbanisms. Artists: Marcia Irumenga, Fabiola Ima, Elsa Irumenga, Uri Ima, Guima Omene, Estela Omene, Datane Omene, Teresa Gaba, Laurina Ima, Ruth Baihua, María Ima, Juanita Enqueri, Ana Omaca, Ene Omaca, Rosita Hernán, Sandra Tañi and Mencamo Irumenga, in collaboration with the students of the research seminar Agroecological Urban Constellations of pre-Columbian Amazonia (Yale School of Architecture): Ana Batlle Cabral, Nicole De Araujo, Youssef Denial, Juan Guareschi, Nabil Haque, Olly Hoy, Fuad Khazam, Sarah Kim, Haorong Lee, Verónica Nicholson, Smaranda Rusinaru, Cole Summersell, and Matthew Wilde — 3. Soundscape: Ricardo Mayancha, Manuwi C. Tokai, Fabiano Kueva, Brunno Douat, and Rebecca Commissaris, with Tiwino and Tepapare Waorani communes 424

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With the additional support of: Instituto de Fomento a la Creatividad y la Innovación (IFCI), Ministerio de Cultura y Patrimonio de la República del Ecuador, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Movilidad Humana de la República del Ecuador, Yale School of Architecture, Estudio A0 Contact: www.estudioa0.com Catalogue images: Photo, Courtesy and © Carolina Zambrano

153 Flores & Prats Architects Barcelona, Spain — Eva Prats, Barcelona, Spain, 1965 — Ricardo Flores, Buenos Aires, Argentina,1965 Live and work in Barcelona, Spain Project Title: — Emotional Heritage Authorial collaborators: — Curro Claret, Adrià Goula Photo, Duccio Malagamba Photography Team members: — Guillem Bosch, Jonny Pugh, Laia Montserrat, Florette Doisy, Davide Dentini, Elena Wagner Carpentry: Fusteria La Barana (Josep Margalef) With the additional support of: — Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), Cooperativa Jordi Capell, EGM Laboratoris Color, Institut Ramon Llull Contact: — Instagram: @floresyprats — Twitter: @FloresyPrats — Facebook: @FloresPrats — Vimeo: vimeo.com/floresprats — www.floresprats.com Catalogue images: — Photo Laia Montserrat © Flores & Prats 155 Gbolade Design Studio London, UK — Tara Gbolade, Kaduna, Nigeria, 1985; Lives and works in London, UK — Lanre Gbolade, Ota, Nigeria, 1985; Lives and works in London, UK Project Title: — Regenerative Power Authorial collaborators: — David Jobanputra (Domino: A Cultural Odyssey Video), Kimi Gill Photography (Photographs of The Brixton Domino Players) Technical collaborators: — Foresso (products from unavoidable waste re-use), The Cork Flooring Company (Cork Wall Linings), Inner Space (Moss Walls) Team members: — Sara de Araujo Barbado (Senior Architect), Nisha Jassal (Studio Administrator)

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With the additional support of: Lambeth Council, Lloyd Leon Community Centre: Brixton Immortals Dominoes Club & Brixton Soup Kitchen Contact: Instagram: @gbolade.design.studio Twitter: @GDS_Architects www.gboladedesignstudio.com Catalogue images: Photo, Courtesy and © Kimi Gill Photography

157 Gloria Cabral and Sammy Baloji with Cécile Fromont Guarda do Embau, Brazil; Brussels, Belgium; New Haven, USA — Gloria Cabral, São Paulo, Brazil, 1982; Lives and works in Paraguay and Brazil — Sammy Baloji, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1978; Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium and Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo — Cécile Fromont, Schœlcher, Martinique, 1980; Lives and works in New Haven, CT, USA Project Title: — Debris of History, Matters of Memory Technical collaborators: — Twenty Nine Studio & Production, Gianni Spaliviero, Ing. Julio Manuel Alvarez Team members: — Kamila do Rocio, Becs, Estelle Lecaille, Marek Szponik, Minne De Meyer Engelbeen With the additional support of: — Rolex, with the support of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative Contact: — Instagram: @gloriacabral_arq Catalogue images: — Photo and © Federico Cairoli 159 GRANDEZA STUDIO Madrid, Spain; Sydney, Australia — Amaia Sánchez-Velasco, Salamanca, Spain, 1985; Lives and works in Madrid, Spain — Jorge Valiente Oriol, Madrid, Spain, 1984; Lives and works in Madrid, Spain — Gonzalo Valiente Oriol, Madrid, Spain, 1982; Lives and works in Sydney, Australia Project Title: — Pilbara Interregnum: Seven Political Allegories Authorial collaborators: — Caitlin Condon, Laura Domínguez Valdivieso, James Feng, Jordi Guijarro Contreras, Miguel Rodríguez-Casellas Technical collaborators: — Juan Carlos Castro-Domínguez, Fab Lab Alicante (Universidad de Alicante), Juan Carlos Cembreros Llopis and Bruno Salas (cinematography on stage), Diego Lipnizky (sound design), Esteban Lloret-Linares (film editing support) Biennale Architettura 2023

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Team members: Caitlin Condon, Laura Domínguez Valdivieso, James Feng, Jordi Guijarro Contreras, Raquel Vázquez Romero, and the students of “Residencias Remotas” from Andrés Bello University in Chile: Bastián Durán Silva, Martin Herrera Aqueveque, Claudio González Salamanca, Mitzi Muñoz Urra, Almendra Fernanda Parra Castillo, Andre Ramdohr, Pablo José Reyes Pérez, Natalia Rojas Collao and María José Vergara Sepulveda. With the additional support of: Consorci de Museus de la Comunitat Valenciana through the program “Cultura Resident” at Centro; Cultural Las Cigarreras in Alicante, Spain; Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), Spain; School of Architecture at the Campus Creativo of Andrés Bello University through the program “Residencias Remotas”, Chile; Fab Lab Alicante, Universidad de Alicante; University of Technology Sydney, Australia; Excerpts from “Operation Hurricane” (Ronald Stark, 1953) courtesy of BFI National Archive, UK Contact: Instagram: @grandeza.studio www.grandeza.studio Catalogue images: Courtesy and © GRANDEZA STUDIO

161 Huda Tayob Cape Town, Republic of South Africa; Manchester, UK — Huda Tayob, Cape Town, Republic of South Africa, 1986; Lives and works in Manchester, UK and Cape Town, Republic of South Africa Project Title: — Index of Edges Authorial collaborators: — Aaniyah Martin with Joanne Peers, Traci Kwaai and Sarah Martin; Alia Mosallam with Mimi Al Ashry, Ibrahim al-Morsi and the Tanboura band of Port Said; Asmaa Jama; Caroline Ngorobi with Suleiman Bakari, Omar Said and Omar Ali; Dhaqan Collective (Fozia Ismail and Ayan Cilmi); Dominique Somda; Maria Gabriela Carrilho Aragão; Margarida Waco; Nada Atieg; Nibras Abdel Basit and Hasan Kamil (Andariya); Nothando Nolwazi Lunga; Shiraz Bayjoo; Toni Giselle Stuart Technical collaborators: — Danielsun Okeyo, Andri Burnett. Kennedy Chikerema, Muhammad Taariq Husain Abdullatif, Halima Ali With the additional support of: — British Council, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Goethe-Institut South Africa, North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University, National Trust Biographies and Credits

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Contact: Instagram: @hudatayob Twitter: @hudatayob Catalogue images: © Huda Tayob

163 kate otten architects Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa — Kate Otten, Durban, Republic of South Africa, 1964; Lives and works in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa Project Title: — Threads Team members: — Salma Wadee, Lele Ramphele, The Herd Design, Bambizulu, Frances van Hasselt, Katriena Kammies With the additional support of: — The Lucky Bean Trust Contact: — Instagram: @kateottenarchitects — www.kateottearchitects.com Catalogue images: — Copyright © kate otten architects

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— 165 Killing Architects Rotterdam, the Netherlands — Alison Killing, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 1979. Lives and works in Rotterdam, the Netherlands Project Title: — Investigating Xinjiang’s Network of Detention Camps Technical collaborators: — Megha Rajagopalan, Christo Buschek, Shumi Bose, Jan Rothuizen, Ekaterina Anchevskaya, Zachary Sigelko, Anna Moreno With the additional support of: — Creative Industries Fund NL Contact: — Instagram: @alisonkilling — Twitter: @alisonkilling — www.killingarchitects.com Catalogue images: — Photo and © Ekaterina Anchevskaya 167 Le laboratoire d’architecture Geneva, Switzerland and Tunis, Tunisia — Vanessa Lacaille, Paris, France, 1980 — Mounir Ayoub, Tunis, Tunisia, 1980 Live in Geneva, Switzerland and work in Geneva, Switzerland and Tunis, Tunisia Project Title: — Welcome in Nomadland Authorial collaborators: — Simon Durand, Hamed Kriouane, Team members: — Yann Gross (Video), Bachelor’s and Master’s degree students at the EPFL architectural school, Studio Lacaille & Ayoub 20222023: Meghan Archimi, Arudsagini

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Arutselvan, Zoé Bahy, Léo Bastianelli, Loïse Boulnoix, Rebecca Broye, Adrien Clairac, Rita D’Elia, Charles Darrousez, Laure Dekoninck, Léa Delessert, Dimitri Descloux, Gaëtan Détraz, Antoine Foehrenbacher, Nikita Giaccari, Marion Gisiger, Yousra Hajoubi, Sébastien Hasler, Charline Hugues, Youssef Kali, Ambre Lassus, Arthur Lüthy, Nathalie Marj, Nadège Mouine, Zineb Mustapha, Silvia Narducci, Linda Orakwe, Abigail Riand, Jana Schiefer, Mélanie Schroff, Dylan Schwaiger, Isabel Vilar Azcárate With the additional support of: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne EPFL; Fondation Assurer l’avenir des Gens du Voyage Suisses; Office fédéral de la culture OFC; République et canton de Genève; Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia Contact: Instagram: @le_laboratoire_d_architecture @simon.durand.architecte www.lelaboratoirearchitecture.com Catalogue images: Courtesy Le laboratoire d’architecture © Yann Gross Photo, Courtesy and © Le laboratoire d’architecture

169 Liam Young Los Angeles, USA — Liam Young, Australia, 1979; Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA and internationally Project Title: — The Great Endeavor Team members: — Partizan Entertainment (Producer), Pegah Farahmand (Executive Producer, Partizan), Lisa Cadwallader and Rickey Welch (Executive Producers, WaterBear Network), Alexey Marfin (VFX Supervisor), Lyra Pramuk (Original Score), Ane Crabtree (Costume Designer), Hae Min Yun (Tailor), Attilio Bonelli (Matte Painter), Andrew Hu (Environment Artist), Neasden Control Center (Graphics), Holly Jean Buck and David Goldberg (Science consultants), Jessie Saville (Impact Producer, WaterBear Network), Jolien Walhof (Impact Marketing Lead, WaterBear Network), Presented By WaterBear Network In Association With Resilient Foundation With the additional support of: — National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Contact: — Instagram: @liam_y — Twitter: @liam_young — www.liamyoung.org Catalogue images: — Courtesy and © Liam Young 425

175 Low Design Office Austin, USA; Tema, Ghana — Ryan Bollom, Spring, USA, 1979; Lives and works in Austin, Texas — DK Osseo-Asare, State College, USA, 1980; Lives and works in State College, USA and Tema, Ghana Project Title: — Enviromolecular Authorial collaborators: — Yasmine Abbas, Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP) Technical collaborators: — Humanitarian Materials Lab (HuMatLab) and Digital Fabrication Lab (DigiFAB) at the Stuckeman School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Graphic Design Team members: — AMP Makers Collective With the additional support of: — Stuckeman Collaborative Design Research Program at the Pennsylvania State University, ANO Institute for Art and Knowledge, producers of the Ghana Pavilion: Biennale Arte 2022, curated by Nana Oforiatta Ayim Contact: — Instagram: @LowDesignOffice — Twitter: @LowDesignOffice — YouTube: @qampnet1060 — www.LOWDO.net Catalogue images: — Photo Steven Scribner. Courtesy Low Design Office. © DK Osseo-Asare 177 MMA Design Studio Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa — Mphethi Morojele, Maseru, Lesotho, 1963; Lives and works in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa Project Title: — Origins Authorial collaborators: — Prof Karim Sadr (Wits University Archaeology Department), Kgaugelo Lekalakala Technical collaborators: — Black Roots Pictures, Moving Into Dance Company, Stephen Benhegyi Team members: — Bonolo Masango, Lwandile Maki Contact: — Instagram: @mmadesignstudio — Twitter: @studiomphethi — www.mmastudio.co.za Catalogue images: — © MMA Design Studio 179 Neri&Hu Design and Research Office Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Lyndon Neri / Guo Xi-En, Ozamiz, Philippines, 1965 — Rossana Hu / Hu Ru-Shan, Kaohsiung, People’s Republic of China, 1968 Live and work in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China 426

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Project Title: Liminality Team members: Christine Chang, Federico Saralvo, Chris Chienchuan Chen, Yinzhu Shen, Lance Liang, R.L. Nitya Ziyang Lin, Luna Hong, Lyuqitiao Wang, Serein Liu, Amy Cao, Hazel Zheng With the additional support of: Shanghai Yi Xuan Model Design and Manufacture Co. Ltd. Contact: Instagram: @neriandhu Facebook: Neri&Hu Design and Research Office LinkedIn: Neri&Hu Design and Research Office www.neriandhu.com Catalogue images: Photo Jiaxi&Zhe. Courtesy and © Neri&Hu Design and Research Office

181 Office 24-7 and Lemon Pebble Architects Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa — Nabeel Essa, Polokwane, Republic of South Africa, 1971; Lives and works in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa — Tanzeem Razak, Benoni, Republic of South Africa, 1973; Lives in Actonville and works in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa Project Title: — Drawing Memory into Being Technical collaborators: — Craig Mayers, Dymeng (Pty) Ltd, MGG Productions (Pty) Ltd Team members: — Office 24-7 Architecture: Samkelisiwe Kunene, Dinah Rabson, Chanél Du Toit — Lemon Pebble Architects and Urban Designers: Althea Peacock, Nicholas Coghlan, Najeeba Soobrathie, Jess-Sherita Aungunu, Aa’isha Begg With the additional support of: — Belgotex Floorcoverings (Pty)Ltd, Africa Futures Institute, Sajid Dawray, Khalil R Dawray, Keith Anderson, Priyan Moodley, Andrew Boyazoglu, Angelique Shippon Contact: — Instagram: @office247_architecture @lemonpebble_design — Youtube: @lemonpebblearchitects1714 — www.drawingmemoryintobeing.com — www.office24-7.co.za — lemonpebble.co.za Catalogue images: — Photographer unknown. Courtesy Miftahuddin Islamic Institute. © Unknown

183 orizzontale Rome, Italy — Jacopo Ammendola, born in Fiesole, Italy, 1983; Lives and works in Firenze, Italy — Juan López Cano, born in Cardeña, Spain, 1981; Lives and works in Rome, Italy — Giuseppe Grant, born in Caserta, 1987; Lives and works in Rome, Italy — Margherita Manfra, born in Rome, Italy, 1985; Lives and works in Rome, Italy — Nasrin Mohiti Asli, born in Rome, Italy 1987; Lives and works in Rome, Italy — Roberto Pantaleoni, born in Rome, 1987; Lives and works in Rome, Italy — Stefano Ragazzo, born in Rome, Italy 1987; Lives and works in Milano and Rome, Italy Project Title: — Sexy Assemblage — The Danger and Seduction in Juxtaposing Differences that May Clash Authorial collaborators: — Lukas Hamilcaro With the additional support of: — QU Lighting, Edilpiù, Proviaggi architettura, Fantoni spa Contact: — Instagram: @orizzontale_architecture — Twitter: @orizzontaleRM — www.orizzontale.org Catalogue images: — Photo Nicola Barbuto. © orizzontale — Photo Philip Fröhlich. Courtesy TRANSURBAN. © orizzontale — Photo Antonio d’Agostino. Courtesy La Rivoluzione delle Seppie. © orizzontale 185 Paulo Tavares / autonoma Brasília, Brazil — Paulo Tavares, Campinas, Brazil, 1980; Lives in Brasília, Brazil, works across Latin America Project Title: — An Architectural Botany, 2018 Trees, Vines, Palms and Other Architectural Monuments, 2017—2021 Authorial collaborators: — Architectural Botany: William Balée — Trees, Vines, Palms and Other Architectural Monuments: in collaboration with the Xavante of Marãiwatsédé. — Research team: Domingos Tsereõmorãté Hö’awari; Policarpo Waire Tserenhorã, Dario Tserewhorã, Marcelo Abaré, Magno Silvestre — Historic consultancy: Damião Paridzané, Cosme Rité, Caime Waiassé, Jurandir Siridiwe, Policarpo Waire Tserenhorã, Dario Tserewhorã, and Marcelo Abaré — Translation from Xavante: Caime Waissé — Graphic material and animation: Gabriel Kozlowski / POLES.studio Biennale Architettura 2023

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Digital model of archaeological sites: Grabriel Menotti Public advocacy campaign: Paula Marujo With the additional support of: Architectural Botany was originally commissioned by the CCA – Canadian Center for Architecture. Trees, Vines, Palms and Other Architectural Monuments was originally commissioned by the Brazilian Public Prosecutor’s Office. The installation at La Biennale was realized with the additional support of CCA Contact: Instagram: @pauloxtavares Twitter: @tavaresxpaulo www.paulotavares.net Catalogue images: Courtesy and © Paulo Tavares

187 Rahul Mehrotra with Ranjit Hoskote Mumbai, India; Boston, USA — Rahul Mehrotra, New Delhi, India, 1959; Lives and works in Mumbai, India and Boston, USA — Ranjit Hoskote, Mumbai, India, 1969; Lives and works in Mumbai, India Project Title: — Loops of Practice, Thresholds of Habitability Authorial collaborators: — Isabel Oyuela-Bonzani (Designer) Technical collaborators: — Santiago Aurelio Mota (Video Production) Team members: — Pranav Thole (Research and Production) With the additional support of: — RMA Architects, Architecture Foundation, India, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University Contact: — Instagram: @rma_architects @architecturefoundationindia @harvardgsd — www.rmaarchitects.com Catalogue images: — Photo Rajesh Vora. Courtesy and © Rahul Mehrotra 189 SCAPE Landscape Architecture New York, USA — Kate Orff, Silver Spring, USA, 1971; Lives and works in New York, USA Project Title: — Workshopping the Chattahoochee Authorial Collaborators — Client: The Chattahoochee RiverLands Project Management Team (The Trust for Public Land, Atlanta Regional Commission, City of Atlanta, Cobb County Government) — Design Team: SCAPE, Gresham Smith, New South Associates, Biohabitats, Dr. Na’Taki Osborne Jelks (Spelman College), Dr. Richard Milligan (Georgia State University), Edwards-Pitman Biographies and Credits

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Team Members: SCAPE Team: Gena Wirth, Nans Voron, Chris Barnes, Grace Dials, Sophie Riedel, Liz Camuti,* Tirta “Ryan” Pryandana,* Jessica Guinto,* Emmanuel Coloma,* Maria Palomares*

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* No longer affiliated with SCAPE

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Exhibition Team: Nans Voron, Christian Cueva, Jackson Rollings Contact: Instagram: @scape_studio Twitter: @scape_studio www.scapestudio.com www.chattahoocheeriverlands.com Catalogue images: © SCAPE

191 Stephanie Hankey, Michael Uwemedimo and Jordan Weber Berlin, Germany; Port Harcourt, Nigeria; New York, Boston, St. Louis, USA — Stephanie Hankey, Manchester, UK, 1973; Lives and works in Berlin, Germany — Michael Uwemedimo, Calabar, Nigeria, 1972; Lives and works in Port Harcourt, Nigeria — Jordan Weber, DesMoines, USA, 1985; Lives and works in New York, USA Project Title: — Synthetic Landscapes I Authorial collaborators: — Ana Bonaldo, Klaas Diersmann, John Peterson Technical collaborators: — Alex Braidwood, Barbara Narici Team members: — Counterpublic 2023, Chicoco Collective, Walt Lauridsen, Anna Lyman With the additional support of: — Walt Lauridsen Foundation, The Loeb Fellowship, Harvard Graduate School of Design Contact: — www.syntheticlandscapes.org Catalogue images: — Photo Ana Bonaldo and Michael Uwemedimo. © Michael Uwemedimo/ CMAP — © Michael Uwemedimo/CMAP 193 Studio Barnes Miami, USA — Germane Barnes, Chicago, USA, 1985; Lives and works in Miami, USA Project Title: — Griot Technical collaborators: — Quarra Stone Company, LLC, Nina Johnson Gallery Team members: — Gabriel Jean-Paul Soomar, Andrea Martinez, Noelle Davis, Kevan Washington, Offtop Design, Sacha Aina Braggs, George William Elliot

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With the additional support of: University of Miami, School of Architecture, Community Housing Identity Lab, Nina Johnson Gallery, Creative Capital, Harvard Graduate School of Design Contact: Instagram: @gmane16 @uncleremuschkn www.germanebarnes.com Catalogue images: © Studio Barnes

195 Studio of Serge Attukwei Clottey Accra, Ghana — Serge Attukwei Clottey, Accra, Ghana, 1985; Lives and works in Accra, Ghana and internationally Project Title: — Time and Chance Team members: — Hannah Grossman, Lisa Pomares With the additional support of: — Stefan Simchowitz Contact: — Instagram: @afrogallonism — www.afrogallonism.com Catalogue images: — Photo and © NII Odzenma 197 Suzanne Dhaliwal Korčula, Croatia; Birmingham, UK — Suzanne Dhaliwal, Birmingham, UK, 1982; Lives and works in Birmingham, UK and Korčula, Croatia Project Title: — Sunkissed: Reimagining Redistribution Contact: — Instagram: @_SuzanneDhaliwal @zoozanne — www.suzannedhaliwal.org Catalogue images: — © Suzanne Dhaliwal 199 Sweet Water Foundation Chicago, USA — Emmanuel Pratt, Richmond, USA, 1977; Lives and works in Chicago, USA Project Title: — chaord Technical collaborators: — PAC Leaders LLC Team members: — Lucero Flores, Alysse Hines, Courtney Hug, Phoenix Lewis, Jia Lok Pratt, Daniel Salomon, Sam Scardefield, David Snowdy, Rudolph Taylor, Jr., Knowledge Theodore Contact: — Instagram: @sweetwaterfdn — Twitter: @SweetWaterFDN — www.sweetwaterfoundation.com Catalogue images: — Photo Emmanuel Pratt. Courtesy and © Sweet Water Foundation 2022 427

201 The Funambulist Paris, France — Léopold Lambert, Paris, France, 1985; Lives and works in Paris, France Authorial collaborators: — Nadia El Hakim, Noelle Geller, Caroline Honorien, Shivangi Mariam Raj, Margarida Nzuzi Waco Project Title: — The Funambulist With the additional support of: — Institut français Contact: — thefunambulistmagazine — Instagram: @TheFunambulist_ — www.thefunambulist.net Catalogue images: — Courtesy ‫ © ﺧﻠﻴﻞ ﻃﻠﺤﺎوي‬The Funambulist 203 Twenty Nine Studio Brussels, Belgium — Sammy Baloji, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1978; Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium and Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo Project Title: — Aequare: the Future that Never Was Authorial collaborators: — Johan Lagae and the University of Ghent, Sandrine Colard Technical collaborators: — Kristof Vervoort and Toon Monballieu (Model: Stielatelier), Luca Mattei (Video), Florian Girault (Vitrines), Myrna D’Ambrosio and Arno Huygens (Graphic design) Team members: — Rosa Spaliviero, Estelle Lecaille, Marek Szponik, Juliette Hourcourigaray and Minne De Meyer Engelbeen With the additional support of: — KANAL Centre Pompidou, Galerie Imane Farès, FW-B (Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles), WBI (WallonieBruxelles International) Contact: — Instagram: @twentyninestudioproduction — www.twentyninestudio.net Catalogue images: — Photo Frank Mohka. Courtesy and © Twenty Nine Studio & Production — Courtesy Fonds Henry Lacoste – CIVA Collections, Brussels 205 Ursula Biemann Zurich, Switzerland — Ursula Biemann, Zurich, Switzerland, 1955; Lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland and internationally Project Title: — Devenir Universidad Authorial collaborators: — Hernando Chindoy Chindoy (legal representative of the Inga People), María Belén Saez de Ibarra (curator, Art Museum UNAL), Waira Nina Jacanamijoy (Inga education team), 428

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Flora Macas (Inga education team), Ivan D. Vargas Roncancio (legal researcher of nature rights) Technical collaborators: Richard Décaillet (camera), Yann Décaumont (camera) With the additional support of: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia Contact: www.deveniruniversidad.org www.geobodies.org Catalogue images: Courtesy and © Ursula Biemann

207 White Arkitekter Stockholm, Sweden Project Title: — One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Trees Authorial collaborators: — Clara Terne – Digital animations Technical collaborators: Martin Lang, Lang Film AB Magnus Lewrén, Lewrén Produktion AB Team members: — Alexandra Hagen, Charlie Bäckstrand, Jake Ford, Elena Kanevski, David Clark Contact: — Instagram: @whitearkitekter — Twitter: @whitearkitekter — www.whitearkitekter.com Catalogue images: — Courtesy and © Helene Schmitz 209 Wolff Architects Cape Town, Republic of South Africa — Ilze Wolff, Cape Town, Republic of South Africa, 1980 — Heinrich Wolff, Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa, 1970 Live and work in Cape Town, Republic of South Africa Project Title: — Tectonic Shifts Authorial collaborators: — Zahraa Essa Contact: — Instagram: @wolffcapetown — www.wolffarchitects.co.za Catalogue images: — © Wolff Architects 211 ZAO/standardarchitecture Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Zhang Ke, People’s Republic of China, 1970; Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China Project Title: — Co-Living Courtyard 共生院 Technical collaborators: — CAMERICH, Fang Xiaosong, Dr. Jing Jie Team members: — Matthias Castrischer, Tan Xiao, Jakob Schmitt, Hua Yunsi, Zhang Yehan, Chen Zhenyu, Zhu Zhongliang, Lu Juncong, Zhang Chengzhang, Yu Yihua, Nelly Vitiello, Luciano Ricci

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With the additional support of: CAMERICH Contact: www.z-a-o.cn Catalogue images: Photo Wang Ziling. © ZAO/standardarchitecture and Wang Ziling

Curator’s Special Projects: Food, Agriculture & Climate Change 241 BothAnd Group Dublin, Ireland — Jarek Adamczuk, Zamość, Poland, 1992; Lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland — Alice Clarke, Summerhill, Ireland, 1992; Lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland — Andrew Ó Murchú, Limerick, Ireland, 1991; Lives and works in London, UK — Kate Rushe, Galway, Ireland, 1992; Lives and works in London, UK Project Title: — The Landscape Rehearsals Authorial collaborators: — Banjo Abiodun, Ayodele Adebayo, James Adepitan, Olusegun Akanni, Usman Aliyus, Ganiu Amokun, Yusuf Bamidele, Dr. Brenna Bhandar, Segun Es, Dr. Eoin Flaherty, Adebukola Kolawole, Dr. Abiodun Elijah Obayelu, Ola Olaitan, Ola Omotosan, Dr. Colin Sage, Gbogboade Seun, Prof. Kevin Whelan Technical collaborators: — JJ Clarke, Tunde Pillar, Minco van der Weide With the additional support of: — Culture Ireland, TU Dublin, African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @bothandgroup — Twitter: @BothandG Catalogue images: — Photo: Author Unknown, reproduced by Jarek Adamczuk © The Cambridge University Collection of Aerial Photography — © BothAnd Group 243 Gloria Pavita Cape Town, Republic of South Africa — Gloria Pavita, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1995; Lives and works in Cape Town, Republic of South Africa Project Title: — [na Bulongo] With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Catalogue images: — Photo, Courtesy and © Gloria Pavita Biennale Architettura 2023

245 Margarida Waco Stockholm, Sweden, London, UK — Margarida Waco, Cabinda, Angola, 1992. Lives in Stockholm, Sweden; Works in Stockholm, Sweden and London, UK Project Title: — 5.5706° S, 12.1976° E Sedimentary Myths Authorial collaborators: — Aaiún Nin, André Taylor Technical collaborators: — Elizabeth Cox , Hawa Sanneh, J.B. , Russell E. L. Butler With special thanks to: — Suzana Mukende Filipe, Afonso Justino Waco, Ulrik Montnemery, Kaminsky Arkitektur. The 2022/23 RCA student cohort: Alicja Jaromirska, Hamza Gore, Hayden James, Linda Toven Naganathan, Mak Yuen Ching, Max Cooper-Clark, Tessnim Tolba, Timothy Webster, Elizabeth Cox, Ling Tiffany Lee, Lola Tartakover, Sofia Yanez Perteagudo, Zakiyyah Haffejee With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @margarida_waco — www.linktr.ee/_mnwaco Catalogue images: — © Margarida Waco

Gender & Geography 249 Caroline Wanjiku Kihato, Clare Loveday and Mareli Stolp in collaboration with Sedinam Awo Tsegah — Caroline Wanjiku Kihato, Nairobi, Kenya, 1971; Lives and works between Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa and Oxford, UK — Clare Loveday, Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa, 1967; Lives and works in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa — Mareli Stolp, Pretoria, Republic of South Africa, 1980; Lives and works in Pretoria, Republic of South Africa — Sedinam Awo Tsegah, Accra, Ghana, 1992; Lives and works in Accra, Ghana Project Title: — You Will Find Your People Here Authorial collaborators: — Juan S. Moreno, Loren B. Landau, Thomas Asher Technical collaborators: — Kabiri Bule (African Centre for Migration in Society, University of the Witwatersrand), Dare Brawley (Centre for Spatial Research, University of Columbia), Reuben Fleisch (Department of Architecture, University of Cape Town), Biographies and Credits

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Laura Kurgan (Centre for Spatial Research, University of Columbia), Nassim Majidi (Samuel Hall), Mary B. Setrana (Centre for Migration Studies, University of Ghana) With special thanks to: The women who made this project possible: Fazila and Florence from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Hannah from Malawi, Jeanette from Rwanda, Sibongile from Zimbabwe With the additional support of: Mellon Foundation ‘Mobility, temporality, and Africa’s future politics’ project at the University of the Witwatersrand; The African Centre for Migration and Society, University of the Witwatersrand; The Migration Governance Lab, University of the Witwatersrand and Oxford University; The Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg; African Futures Institute. Music commissioned by the South African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) Foundation Contact: Instagram: @framefortyfive Twitter: @FrameFortyFive Catalogue images: Photo and © Heather Mason

251 Gugulethu Sibonelelo Mthembu Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa — Gugulethu Sibonelelo Mthembu, Soweto, South Africa, 1992; Lives and works in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa Project Title: — Embodiments: Port of Shir — Final Act Team members: — Agashi With the additional support of: — Gonang Consulting Services, African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @googooletoo Catalogue images: — Photo Itumeleng Pitseng. Courtesy and © Gugulethu Mthembu 253 Ines Weizman London, UK — Ines Weizman, Leipzig, Germany, 1973 Lives and works in London, UK Project Title: — “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…” With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute

Contact: Instagram: @documentary_architecture Facebook: @DocumentaryArchitecture documentary-architecture.org Catalogue images: Photographer unknown. Courtesy Buildings & Sites Conservation Department, City Planning Office at the Haifa Municipality

255 J. Yolande Daniels New York, Boston, Los Angeles, USA — J. Yolande Daniels, New York, USA, 1962; Lives in Boston and works in Boston, New York and Los Angeles, USA Project Title: — The BLACK City Astrolabe: A Constellation of African Diasporic Women Technical Collaborators — Sunil Bald (studioSUMO), Alfredo Greco (Sinfonia group), Pierpaolo Martiradonna (Sinfonia group) Team Members: — Christina Dimitri Battikha, Ekin Bilal, Hana Meihan Davis, Doris Qingyi Duanmu, Jie Fan, Alexandros Haridis, Mara Jovanovic, Namhi Kwun, Nia Iman Rich, Afy Deborah Lauren Tsogbe, Hon Ting Wong, Cheng Qin, Shreya Verma, Hiteshree Das With the additional support of: — CAST Mellon Faculty Grant, MIT Center for Art Science and Technology; MIT School of Architecture and Planning/SA+P, Department of Architecture; Graham Foundation; African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @theblkcity — www.theblkcity.com Catalogue images: — Author Andreas Cellarius. Engraving Johannes van Loon courtesy The Glen McLaughlin Map Collection of California as an Island, Stanford University © Public Domain – From the Atlas Coelestis; Seu Harmonia Macrocosmica (Celestial Atlas of Universal Harmony)

Mnemonic 259 Adjaye Associates with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art — Sir David Adjaye OBE, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 1966; Lives and works in Accra, Ghana; London, UK and New York, USA — Kiran Nadar, New Delhi, India, 1951; Lives and works in New Delhi, India Project Title: — Partition — Partage 429

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Adjaye Associates Accra, Ghana; London, UK; New York, USA Team members: Luisa Alves, Joao Barroso, Marissa Glauberman, Sooyeon Lim, Rebecca Petrani, Anyu Chan Model Maker: Singh Modelers Pvt. Ltd. Contact: Instagram: @adjayeassociates @adjaye_visual_sketchbook Twitter: @adjayeassoc @dadjaye LinkedIn: @adjayeassociates YouTube: @adjaye_associates www.adjaye.com Kiran Nadar Museum of Art New Delhi, India Authorial Collaborators: Roobina Karode, Amit Dutta Technical Collaborators: Moey Team members: Deepanjana Klein, Aseem Vadehra, Apurva Kackar, Jijo Jose, Ashaq Hussain, Shobhit Singh Contact: Instagram: @knmaindia Facebook: @KiranNadarMuseumOfArt Twitter: @KNMAIndia YouTube: @KNMAIndia www.knma.in Catalogue images: Photo KNMA. Courtesy and © Estate of Nasreen Mohamedi Photo KNMA. Courtesy and © Tyeb Mehta Foundation

261 Craig McClenaghan Architecture Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa — Craig McClenaghan, East-London, South Africa, 1977; Lives and works in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa Project Title: — Letters from the Landscape Technical collaborators: — Dr David Morris, Rena Maghundu Phumani Paper: Kim Berman, Dumisani Dlamini, Thandekani Mchunu, Constance Ngobeni, Nelly Mphahlele, Virginia Ngobeni eiletz ortigas | architects: Mateo Eiletz & Claudia Ortigas Team members: — Hashim Tarmohamed, Wihan Hendrikz, Hugh Fraser With the additional support of: — Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg; William Kentridge; African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @craig.mcclenaghan — www.cmarchitecture.co.za Catalogue images: — © Craig McClenaghan 430

263 Looty London, UK — Chidirim Nwaubani, London, UK, 1988; Lives in Nigeria and works globally — Ahmed Abokor, Hargesia, Somaliland, 1987; Lives in London, UK and works globally Project Title: — (SA ‘EY’ AMA: To Commemorate) Technical collaborators: — Owo Anietie (Digital Artist), Ayesha Quraishi (Composer/Multidisciplinary Artist), Keleenna Onyeaka (Photography/Videography), Itohan Emonvomwan (Video Editor), Joel Atkinson (3D Concept visual), Emma MacNay (Creative Producer) With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @lootynft — Twitter: @lootyNFT — Youtube: @lootyart — www.looty.art Catalogue images: — Courtesy and © Looty.art — Photo and © Keleenna Onyeaka. Courtesy Looty.art 265 Mabel O. Wilson, J. Meejin Yoon and Eric Höweler in collaboration with Josh Begley and Gene Han — Mabel O. Wilson, Neptune, USA, 1963; Lives and works in New York, USA — Meejin Yoon, Seoul, Korea, 1972; Lives and works in Boston and Ithaca, USA — Eric Höweler, Cali, Colombia, 1972; Lives and works in Boston USA — Josh Begley, San Francisco, California, 1984; Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, USA — Gene Han, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1997; Lives and Works in Brooklyn, New York, USA Project Title: — unknown, unknown: A Space of Memory Technical collaborators: — Kirt Von Daacke, Erik Duda, Mitchell Powers Team members: — Justin Tan, Jessica Black, Ye Sul E. Cho With special thanks to: — We owe sincere thanks to all of our collaborators on the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers (2016 – 2020) at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia Contact: — Instagram: @studio_and @NegroBuilding — www.mel.virginia.edu Catalogue images: — Mabel O. Wilson, J. Meejin Yoon, and Eric Höweler, Courtesy Studio&

Special Participations 273 Amos Gitaï Paris, France; Haifa, Israel and internationally — Amos Gitaï, Haifa, Israel, 1950; Lives and works in Paris, France; Haifa, Israel, and internationally Project Title: — HOME. RUINS. MEMORY. FUTURE Authorial Collaborators: — Ayda Melika, Philippine Ordinare, AGAV films Technical collaborators: — Laurent Truchot, Jean Kalman Team members: — Alexey kochetkov, Kioomars Musayyebi, Nathalie Dessay, Bahira Ablassi, Barbara Hendricks, Irene Jacob, Rabiha Dajani With the additional support of: — La Colline — théâtre national, Paris, France Contact: — www.amosgitai.net Catalogue images: — Courtesy Amos Gitai and La Colline — théâtre national, Paris, France © Agav Films 2023 275 James Morris Bwlchllan, Wales; London, England — James Morris, Griffithstown, Wales, 1963; Lives and works in Bwlchllan, Wales; London, England and internationally Project Title: — Butabu With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — www.jamesmorris.info Catalogue images: — © James Morris 277 Rhael ‘LionHeart’ Cape London, UK — Rhael ‘LionHeart’ Cape London, UK 1987; Lives and works in London, UK Project Title: — Those With Walls for Windows Technical collaborators: — Patrick Bedeau, Charles Ekundayo, Michael Adeyeye Team members: — Melo-Zed, Theophilius O. Bailey, Delores Oblitey Biennale Architettura 2023

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With the additional support of: 180 Studios, InDetail Studios, New School Represents, A-COLD-WALL, African Futures Institute Contact: Instagram: @lionheartfelt Twitter: @LionHeartfelt YouTube: @LionHeartfelt www.lionheartfeltonline.com Catalogue images: © Lionheartfelt Ltd. (UK)

Guests from the Future 303 Ainslee Alem Robson Los Angeles, USA — Ainslee Alem Robson, Cleveland, USA, 1993; Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA Project Title: — Ferenj Technical collaborators: — Kidus Hailesilassie Team members: — Kidus Hailesilassie (Installation Designer), Domo Jones (Director of Photography for Live Action) With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @ahhslay — Twitter: @ahhslay — Vimeo: vimeo.com/user89427938 — www.ainsleealemrobson.com Catalogue images: — Courtesy the author. © Ainslee Alem Robson 305 Anusha Alamgir London, UK — Anusha Alamgir, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 1995; Lives and works in London, UK Project Title: — Porda Team members: — Salman Khan (Audio Composer), Farah Sultana (Production Assistant), Francesca Beltrame (Videographer), Irafa Binte Saood (Videographer), Masud Ur Rahman (Rana Rana Crew), Mohammad (Rony Crew) With the additional support of: — Steve Salembier, Maria Paez Gonzalez, Md. Alamgir Hossain, African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @anushaalamgir — www.anushaalamgir.com Catalogue images: — Photo, Courtesy and © Anusha Alamgir Biographies and Credits

307 Arinjoy Sen London, UK — Arinjoy Sen, Kolkata, India, 1996; Lives and works in London, UK Project Title: — Bengali Song Technical collaborators: — SHEKantha: Shamlu Dudeja, Malika Varma and Kantha artisans With special thanks to: — Marina Tabassum, Shumi Bose With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: arinjoy.sen — www.arinjoysen.com Catalogue images: — © Arinjoy Sen 309 Aziza Chaouni Projects Fez, Morocco; Toronto, Canada — Aziza Chaouni, Fez, Morocco, 1977 Lives and works in Fez, Morocco and Toronto, Canada Project Title: — Modern West Africa: Recorded Team members: — Dana Salama Authorial collaborators: — Aissatou Diallo, Amadou Faye, Amélie Essesse, Atepa Goudiaby, Aziza Chaouni, Babacar Sene, Bara Diop, Cheikh Amar, Dahouda Ouedroago, Dana Salama, El Hadj Amadou Diagne, Ibrahima Mbodj, Jalal Kassir, Jean Francois Lamoureux, Jean-Louis Marin, Madame Seynabou, Madame Zahra, Michel Faublée, Monsieur Driss, Mourtada Gueye, Ramatoulou Gaye, Ramde Hanoura, Rosalie Kabore, Salihou Keita, Xavier Ricou, Rachid Karkari, Zineb Tazi, Dominique Zevaco, Madame Boutaina, Madame Zahra, MAMMA Group, Zineb Andreas Laraki, Hajj Leghass, Clementine Braud, Rosine Arzoumpoko Kiéma Technical collaborators: — Amélie Essesse, Andreea Muscurel, Arnaud Lambert, Elyse Fitte-Duval, Mourtada Gueye, Nelson Roubert, Rosine Arzoumpoko Kiéma, Saiba Baguian, Serge Herbert Ilboudo, Seyni Ba, Zineb Tazi, Aahd Benchaouch, Madeline August With the additional support of: — The Getty Conservation Institute (Antoine Wilmering, Senior Program Officer), World Monuments Fund (Project Directors Javier Ors Ausín, Stephen Battle), The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @azizachaouniprojects — YouTube: @azizachaouniprojects1134 — www.azizachaouniprojects.com Catalogue images: — Photo and © Andreea Muscurel

311 Banga Colectivo Luanda, Angola; Lisboa, Portugal — Yolana Lemos, Luanda, Angola, 1995; Lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal — Elsimar Freitas, Luanda, Angola, 1993; Lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal — Kátia Mendes, Lubango, Huíla, Angola, 1995; Lives and works in Luanda, Angola — Mamona Duca, Luanda, Angola, 1993; Lives and works in Luanda, Angola — Gilson Mendes, Malanje, Angola, 1993; Lives and works in Luanda, Angola Project Title: — Soba Eternal Team members: — Isla de França, Pedro Monteiro – OficinaLab Fabricação Criativa With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @banganossa — YouTube: @banganossa1064 — www.banganossa.com Catalogue images: — Photo and © Banga Colectivo 313 Blac Space Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa — Kgaugelo Lekalakala, Mpumalanga, Republic of South Africa, 1994; Lives and works in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa Project Title: — Tales of the Vulnerability of African Women in Transit Spaces Authorial collaborators: — Diana Mokokobale Makgaopa (Voice over), Lelethu Mabaso (Voice over) Kegaogetswe Rakopa (Sound engineer) Technical collaborators: — Diana Mokokobale Makgaopa (Voice over) With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @Black_Space_sa @lekalakalakgaugelo Catalogue images: — Photo Kgaugelo Lekalakala. Courtesy Azole Njengele, Einstein Mohajane, Oomar Simba, Luba Nkiwane © Kgaugelo Lekalakala — © Kgaugelo Lekalakala 315 Black Females In Architecture London, UK — Akua Danso, London, UK, 1991; Lives in Ipswich, UK and works in London, UK — Selasi Setufe MBE, London, UK, 1990; Lives and works in London, UK — Neba Sere, Cologne, Germany, 1990; Lives and works in London, UK — Ama Ofori-Darko, London, UK, 1998; Lives and works in London, UK 431

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Project Title: A Voice for the 450 Plus With the additional support of: African Futures Institute Contact: Instagram: @blackfemarc Twitter: @BlackFemArc www.blackfemarc.com Catalogue images: Photo and © Tamed Designs Photo, Courtesy and © Kemka Ajoku

317 Cartografia Negra São Paulo, Brazil — Raissa Albano de Oliveira, São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, 1993; Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil — Carolina Piai Vieira, São Paulo, Brazil, 1993; Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil — Pedro Vinicius Alves, São Paulo, Brazil, 1992; Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil Project Title: — Root City Technical collaborators: — Allan da Rosa, Aryani Marciano, Felipe Augusto Silva Matos, Julia Lucia Albano de Oliveira, Janaina Viegas, Lahayda L. Mamani Poma Dreger, Rafael de Lorena Pinho Team members: — Noa Marchese With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @cartografianegra Catalogue images: — Photo and © Joao Lopes. Courtesy Cartografia Negra Collection 319 Courage Dzidula Kpodo with Postbox Ghana Accra, Ghana; Boston, USA; Milan, Italy — Courage Dzidula Kpodo, Kumasi, Ghana, 1999; Lives and works in Boston, USA — Manuela Nebuloni, Rho, Italy, 1986; Lives and works in Milan, Italy — Nana Ofosu Adjei, Accra, Ghana,1993; Lives and works in Accra, Ghana Project Title: — The Beautyful Ones Always Were With the additional support of: — Nkrumah Voli-ni, Tamale, African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @dzidula_k @postbox.ghana Catalogue images: — Photo and © Courage Dzidula Kpodo. Courtesy Courage Dzidula Kpodo and Postbox Ghana 432

321 Dele Adeyemo London, UK — Dele Adeyemo, Kaduna, Nigeria, 1985; Lives and works in London, UK Project Title: — A Dance of the Mangroves Technical collaborators: — Ronnie Scott (Fabricator: Eco Furniture UK), Lauren-Loïs Duah (Technical drawings) Team members: — Hermes Chibueze Iyele (Movement Director), Sunday (Valu) Obiajulu (Community coordinator and consultant choreographer) Olatunde Obajeun (Original score), Yemi Osokoya (Cinematography) Temitayo Derinsola (Production manager), Featuring the dancers: Janet Koja, Hermes Chibueze Iyele, Blessing Ekpenyong Offiong, Jumoke Ekundayo, Samuel Udoh, Kehinde Yeri, Taiye Yeri, and the community of Oworonshoki, Lagos With the additional support of: — Het Nieuwe Instituut, African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @dele_adeyemo — Twitter: @dele_adeyemo — www.deleadeyemo.com Catalogue images: — Photo, Courtesy and © Dele Adeyemo 323 Elementerre with Nzinga Biegueng Mboup and Chérif Tall Dakar, Senegal — Doudou Deme, Dakar, Senegal, 1982; Lives and works in Senegal — Nzinga Biegueng Mboup,Maputo, Mozambique, 1989; Lives and works in Dakar, Senegal — Chérif Tall, Dakar, Senegal, 1991; Lives and works in Dakar, Senegal Project Title: — Bunt Ban Authorial collaborators: — Nicolas Rondet, Moussa Diaw Technical collaborators: — Chérif Tall (Director), Nzinga B. Mboup (Producer), Rahman Tall (Production Assistant and sound engineer), Cheikh Diop (Transport and logistics) With the additional support of: — Hotel le Djoloff, Carrière de Sindia, Elementerre, Worofila, African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @uddudem, @cheriftall @nzingabm, @worofila — www.elementerre-sarl.com — www.worofila.com — www.jovence.co Catalogue images: — Courtesy and © Chérif Tall

325 Faber Futures London, UK — Natsai Audrey Chieza, Harare, Zimbabwe, 1985; Lives and works in Oslo, Norway and London, UK Project Title: — Museum of Symbiosis Authorial collaborators: — Claire L. Evans Technical collaborators: — Mogu, Mathias Arrignon, Francesco Anselmo Team members: — Ioana Man, Camille Thiery, Laura Vent, Magdalena Obmalko With special thanks to: — Dr. Megan J. Palmer, Cameron Fox, Dr. Melissa Salm, Elissa Prichep, Dr. Christina Agapakis, Dr. Lotte Asveld, Selassie Atadika, Margo A. Bagley, Marlene van Bergeijk, Dr. Rob F. Beudeker, Tom Bosschaert, Dr. Roel Bovenberg, Fernando ‘Nano’ Castro, Carole Collet, Dr. Drew Endy, Paul Freemont, Chido Govera, Dr. Pim Klaassen, Dr. David Sun Kong, Douwe Korting, Dr. Natalie Kuldell, Dr. Kyle Lauersen, Emma van der Leest, Dr. Gillian Marcelle, Maurizio Montalti, Dr. Nhlanhla Msomi, Geoffrey Otim, Dr. Megan J. Palmer, Dr. Jahnavi Phalkey, Julia Rijssenbeek, Corinne Okada Takara, Dr. Kassahun Tessfaye, Dr. Ionat Zurr With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @faberfutures @FaberFutures — www.faberfutures.com Catalogue images: — Courtesy contributors to the BIO STORIES project. © Faber Futures 327 Folasade Okunribido London, UK — Folasade Okunribido, Lincoln, UK, 1995; Lives and works in London, UK Project Title: — Blue Hour Authorial collaborators: — Jimi Okunribido (Editor and Music Producer) With the additional support of: — John Ng, James Kwang Ho Chung, Zsuzsa Peter (Studio tutors); Valerio Massaro (History and Theory Studies tutor); African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @flashok Catalogue images: — Courtesy and © Folasade Okunribido 329 Ibiye Camp London, UK — Ibiye Camp, London, UK, 1991; Lives and works in London, UK Project Title: — Rebellious Copies Biennale Architettura 2023

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With the additional support of: Royal College of Art, School of Architecture; Grymsdyke Farm; Xcessive Aesthetics; African Futures Institute Contact: Instagram: @ibiye_camp Twitter: @ibiyecamp www.ibiyecamp.com Catalogue images: Photo, Courtesy and © Ibiye Camp

331 Juergen Strohmayer and Glenn DeRoché Accra, Ghana — Juergen Strohmayer, Istanbul, Turkey, 1990; Lives and works in Accra, Ghana — Glenn DeRoché, New York, USA, 1985; Lives and works in Accra, Ghana Project Title: — Plugin Busua Authorial Collaborator: — Nii Obodai (film & sound art), With the additional support of: — Chadi Dakmak (carpentry), African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @juergenstrohmayer @gderoche01 Catalogue images: — Photo, Courtesy and © Julien Lanoo 333 Lauren-Loïs Duah London, UK — Lauren-Loïs Duah, Mulhouse, France, 1998; Lives and works in London, UK Project Title: — ‘Obroni Wa’awu’: Cross-Continental Clothescapes With special thanks to: — The family, friends and residents around Kantamanto Market, Ghana who participated in the project and the Kayayei who added their voices to the soundscape With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @laurenlois.wip — www.laurenlois.art Catalogue images: — Photo, Courtesy and © Lauren-Loïs Duah 335 Miriam Hillawi Abraham Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — Miriam Hillawi Abraham, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1994; Lives and works in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Project Title: — Through Time and Terra: Mining the Abyssinian Cyber Vernaculus A Non-Extractive Archeology of the Future Authorial collaborators: — Nasra Abdullahi (The AfroCosmologist’s Treatise On The Astrolabe, The Horn of Africa Fracturing Timelines) Biographies and Credits

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Technical collaborators: Kimo Zampathas (Abyssinian Cyber Vernaculus) With the additional support of: The Graham Foundation (production funding for the Virtual Reality component of Abyssinian Cyber Vernaculus), African Futures Institute Contact: Instagram: @miru_h Twitter: @miruh7 www.miriamhillawi.com Catalogue images: Courtesy and © Miriam Hillawi Abraham

337 Moe+Art Architecture Lagos, Nigeria — Papa Omotayo, Ijebu Ode, Nigeria, 1975; Lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria — Mosun Ogunbanjo, Lagos, Nigeria, 1959; Lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria — Oluwadamilola Akinniyi Salami, Lagos, Nigeria, 1987; Lives and works in Winnipeg, Canada Project Title: — The Future of the Past: Gbogbo odò ló na ọwọ́ sí Olókun (All rivers point to a source) Technical collaborators: — Phillip Fagbeyiro (Artist), Phillip Iguehide (Wood Artist), Phillip Omoruyi, Peter Femi, Godwin Ugherebe, Adewale Bamigboye, Tosin Olasukomi, Yemi Abayyomi Team members: — Nnamdi Akubuiro, Dike Anthony With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @moeaa.feed — www.moeaa.com Catalogue images: — Author Papa Omotayo, Photo MOE+Art Architecture, Background black and white Photo Logor Oluwamuyiwa. Courtesy Moe+ Art Architecture — Author Papa Omotayo, Photo Logor Oluwamuyiwa. Courtesy Moe+ Art Architecture — Author Papa Omotayo, Site Installation Artwork Polly Alakija, Photo Andrew Esiebo. Courtesy Moe+ Art Architecture 339 New South Paris, France — Meriem Chabani, Algiers, Algeria, 1989; Lives and works in Paris, France — John Edom, Portsmouth, UK, 1983; Lives and works in Paris, France Project Title: — Mediterranean Queendoms

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Team members: Mélissa Dyminat, Marine Gilouppe With the additional support of: SAFE Architecture Studio, African Futures Institute Contact: Instagram: @newsouth___ www.newsouth.fr Catalogue images: Photo, Courtesy and © New South

341 Rashid Ali Architects Hargeisa, Somaliland; London, UK — Rashid Ali, Hargeisa, Somaliland, 1978; Lives and works in Hargeisa, Somaliland and London, UK Project Title: — Hargeisa Courtyard Pavilion Team members: — Rashid Ali, Hussein Mohamoud With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @rashidaliarchitects — www.rashidali.info Catalogue images: — Photo Lyndon Douglas. Courtesy and © Rashid Ali Architects and Lyndon Douglas 343 Riff Studio New York, USA — Rekha Auguste-Nelson, Philadelphia, USA, 1991; Lives and works in New York, USA — Farnoosh Rafaie, Los Angeles, USA, 1988; Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA — Isabel Strauss, Chicago, USA, 1990; Lives in Cambridge, MA, USA and works in Washington DC, USA Project Title: — A Window (Detail) from the Future (Case Study House) With the additional support of: — African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @riffstudio.llc — www.riffstudio.llc Catalogue images: — Courtesy and © Riff Studio 345 Tanoa Sasraku London, UK — Tanoa Sasraku, Plymouth, UK, 1995; Lives and works in London, UK Project Title: — Yellow Gate (Terratype), 2021 With the additional support of: — Spike Island Gallery, Vardaxoglou Gallery, The Simon Nixon Collection, African Futures Institute Contact: — Instagram: @tanoasasraku — www.tanoasasraku.com Catalogue images: — Photo, Courtesy and © Tanoa Sasraku 433

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Aerial view of Old Fadama, Agbobloshie, Accra AFI Workshop 6, Accra Festus Jackson-Davis 2023 Page 434 — 435

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Testing paint, Arsenale, Venice Alice Clancy 2023

18th International Architecture Exhibition

18. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura The Laboratory of the Future La Biennale di Venezia Editorial Activities and Web Head — Flavia Fossa Margutti Editorial Coordination — Maddalena Pietragnoli Editorial Team — Francesca Dolzani Giulia Gasparato Graphic Design — Fred Swart Editorial Realisation — Liberink srls, Padova Coordination — Stefano Turon Layout — Livio Cassese English language copy editing — alphaville traduzioni e servizi editoriali Photolithography and Print — Graphicom spa www.graphicom.it viale dell’Industria 67, Vicenza

by SIAE 2023 Didi Helene Schmitz Joao Lopes

© La Biennale di Venezia 2023 All Rights Reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Paper made from cellulose from environmentally respectful , socially useful , and economically sustainable forests , production and supply chains , and other controlled sources

ISBN 9788898727803 La Biennale di Venezia First Edition May 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

The Laboratory of the Future

Participating Countries & Collateral Events

Contents

Biennale Architettura 2023

Participating Countries & Collateral Events

6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52

Participating Countries Albania Argentina Australia Austria Kingdom of Bahrain Belgium Brazil Bulgaria Canada Chile People’s Republic of China Croatia Republic of Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Egypt Estonia Finland France Georgia Germany Great Britain Greece Grenada

54 56 58 60 62 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98

Holy See Hungary Ireland Israel Italy Japan Republic of Korea Republic of Kosovo Kuwait Latvia Lithuania Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Republic of North Macedonia Mexico Montenegro The Netherlands Republic of Niger Nordic Countries Sweden – Finland – Norway Republic of Panama Peru Philippines

100 102 104 106 108 110 112 114 116 118 120 122 124 126 128 130 132 134 136

Poland Portugal Romania Republic of San Marino Saudi Arabia Serbia Singapore Republic of Slovenia Republic of South Africa Spain Switzerland Türkiye Ukraine United Arab Emirates United States of America Uruguay Republic of Uzbekistan Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Padiglione Venezia

148 150 152 154

156

158 160

142

Special Project Pavilion of Applied Arts Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Power in West Africa

162 164

Collateral Events A Fragile Correspondence Scotland + Venice Catalonia in Venice_ Following the Fish Climate Wunderkammer Diachronic Apparatuses of Taiwan Architecture as on-going details within landscape EUmies Awards. Young Talent 2023. The Laboratory of Education Radical yet possible future space solutions Students as Researchers: Creative Practice and University Education Tracé Bleu. Que faire en ce lieu, à moins que l’on y songe? Transformative Hong Kong

166

Index of Participants

Participat Participating C Countries Participat Participating C Countries Participat Participating C Countries Participat Participating C Countries Participat Participating C Countries Participat Participating C Countries Participat Participating C Countries

Participating ting Countries Countries Participating ting Countries Countries Participating ting Countries Countries Participating ting Countries Countries Participating ting Countries Countries Participating ting Countries Countries Participating ting Countries Countries

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How do we learn to live in synthesized realities Can you create a place in nowhere – What about a place in no time.

Biennale Architettura 2023

Albania

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Since the cognitive revolution, humanity has endeavoured to alter its environment while simultaneously altering its consciousness. At the dawn of technological unrest, we are confronted with realities that will inevitably alter our consciousness, perhaps to the same extent as the cognitive revolution. The digital transformation has blurred the distinctions between the physical and the virtual, between fact and fiction, and between artificial and natural. Its consequences can be joyous or disturbing, liberating or subjugating, and they result in ambiguous synthesised realities that we must learn how to live with. The exhibited work introduces a new system comprised of various relationships and entanglements between humans, the natural environment, and technology that occurs in two civic spaces in Tirana. Using architecture as a performative theory of everything, we start with what is already there and place as few new elements as it is necessary for this complex system to emerge: a sports area that exhibits infrastructure in the same manner as sports; a carefully planned and continuously monitored forest that allows its ecosystem to evolve freely; a stadium that can be a contemplative space in the middle of the city; a laboratory for human interaction and gathering; a manmade lake that hosts life in all its forms; and, all the while, a running track that extends into the city, carrying us all on a rhythmic journey. — Era Merkuri, Martin Gjoleka Participating Countries

Commissioner Elva Margariti, Minister of Culture of the Republic of Albania Curators heramarte Era Merkuri, Martin Gjoleka Participants Martin Gjoleka Era Merkuri Ani Marku Geraldo Prendushi

Untimely Meditations or: How We Learn to Live in Synthesized Realities 7

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Collage, 2022. Courtesy Diego Arraigada Arquitectos Interior image, 2022. Courtesy Diego Arraigada Arquitectos

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Interior image, 2022. Courtesy Diego Arraigada Arquitectos ↓↓↓

Biennale Architettura 2023

Argentina

Within the Laboratory of the Future in Venice, the Argentine pavilion studies El Futuro del Agua (The future of water). As we know, water is fundamentally linked to the history of life on the planet. Life has always depended on water, and its relationships with geography and climate have shaped the characteristics of the biosphere over millions of years. The future of life on earth will also depend on these relationships: in any of the future scenarios of the planet, the role of water will be essential. Water and the human habitat have always defined each other. Our technology and culture have developed throughout the centuries interventions that seek to ensure the availability of water and its benefits while controlling its negative effects. It is precisely human activity that has given rise to the current excesses and imbalances: the future availability of fresh water, the ability of rivers and oceans to absorb waste, or the eventual rise in sea level are issues that can drastically affect life on the planet. The exhibition presents the many facets and scales of water across the country. By making water resources and our behaviour and actions around them visible, we will be able to better interpret our relationship with water and promote reflection on future actions. Upon entering the pavilion, we find ourselves surrounded by a serene, slightly surreal atmosphere, which stands apart from the outside. We realise that a blue fluid has flooded the lower part of the pavilion, while the upper part remains intact. This ‘fluid’ is not a literal liquid, but a single colour that covers it all up to a perfectly horizontal level of 70 cm in height. Above this intangible liquid, a series of white planes of light are loosely arranged, with the typical disorder of floating things. These white rectangles are the tops of large light tables, like those found in photo labs, or as drawing tables. Above them, slides with images arranged by theme present the content of the exhibition. The diffuse light that bathes the whole space accentuates the liquid illusion of the place. The exhibition is structured through a water glossary that includes all water scales. Each table displays a glossary entry and, images are arranged on the table that resonate with the term. New relationships emerge between water, territory, cities, and a selection of recent Argentine architecture. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Paula Vázquez Curator Diego Arraigada Organisers and Other Collaborators Sofía Rothman Paula Pasquinelli Francisco Falabella Tomás Marciali Nicolás Alvarez Manuel Bianchi Facundo Spina With the Support of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship, Argentina

El Futuro del Agua 9

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Aileen Sage, Djinjama, Jean Rice, Noni Boyd & City of Sydney, Redfern Community Facility, 2022. Illustration by Aileen Sage Sarah Rhodes, from the series Isolation 2022, 2021

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Hurst, Bird, Pedisic with Piccoli & Ramsey and UniSA MArch students, Revolutionary Terrains, 2020 ↓↓↓

Biennale Architettura 2023

Australia Australia’s identity is built on a double rupture: the expropriation of First Peoples’ lands; and the displacement of settler populations from their ancestral motherlands. The country’s wealth is based on an extractive relation to nature, regarding it as a standing reserve for exploitation. A dominion within the Commonwealth, Australia’s statehood is bound to the British Crown. This structure of relations to land, people, and nature is inscribed in the patterns of its settlements, its architecture the spatial language of this inscription. ‘Queenstown’ is the name we give to this pattern of relations. At the end of the second Elizabethan age, as the voice of First Peoples calls for reckoning, and with planetary urgencies pressing, the settled configuration of this inheritance is under question. Queenstown is being unsettled. This exhibition explores and participates in this unsettling, weaving elements from real places and gleanings from current architectural intelligence in search of ingredients to contribute to Venice’s ‘Laboratory of the Future’. Queenstown is a construction both real and imagined, and there are many Queenstowns. This exhibition draws from two real Queenstowns to construct its fictional version. The first is a colonial copper-mining town on the island of Lutruwita/ Tasmania. Here the despoliations of colonialism and extractivism are revealed with particular clarity, while the outlines of an alternative future are being formed within its spaces. A suspended fragment of the arched belvedere of the town’s Empire Hotel centres the exhibition. Outlined in copper tubing, this colonial ghost encloses community voices and frames atmospheric landscapes, immersing the viewer in its dark magnetism. The names and narratives of Queenstown obscure those of prior inhabitations; Aboriginal Country is overwritten by colonial maps. A process of ‘demapping’ accompanies the reimagining of Queenstown. Fragments of a critical cartography of Country demapped, combining Aboriginal placenames and elements drawn from the second Queenstown on Kaurna Yarta/Adelaide, South Australia, shadows the colonial spectre. An open archive of tactics and methods from contemporary practice, engaging themes of temporality and narrative, completes the exhibition, offering openings towards a reimagined future, transcending the encirclements of our many inherited Queenstowns. — Anthony Coupe, Julian Worrall, Ali Gumillya Baker, Emily Paech, Sarah Rhodes Participating Countries

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Commissioner Janet Holmes à Court AC Curators Anthony Coupe Julian Worrall Ali Gumillya Baker Emily Paech Sarah Rhodes Organiser Australian Institute of Architects With the Support of Brickworks SMEG Australia Council for the Arts The University of Melbourne Office for Design and Architecture South Australia The University of New South Wales Lyons Janet Holmes à Court AC Monash University Arney Fender Katsalidis Turnbull Foundation Hillam Architects Kennedy Nolan Cera Stribley Denton Corker Marshall TKD Architects Mirvac Design Bespoke Careers Anita Belgiorno-Nettis AM and Luca Belgiorno-Nettis AM Dulux ARM Architecture The University of Queensland Architectus Archisoul Architects Framed Future Moloney Architects Bureau Proberts Allen Jack+Cottier Penelope Seidler AM Architecture Australia Fender Katsalidis Wax Design Ashley Halliday Architects

unsettling Queenstown 11

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Diagrams of the pavilion: before the intervention (left), rejected wall breakthrough (centre), submitted variant with bridge (right). © AKT & Hermann Czech

Biennale Architettura 2023

Austria

‘Partecipazione’ was one of the core demands of the 1970s for an ‘open, democratic’ Biennale, as was working on site in the context of the city. The Austrian contribution to the Biennale Architettura 2023, entitled Partecipazione / Beteiligung, takes up these two approaches and transfers them to the contemporary reality of Venice’s old city. The Austrian pavilion is located at the north-eastern border wall of the Giardini area of the city. Here La Biennale as an exclave of international art tourism is neighbour of the Castello district, which is one of the remaining districts of Venice that is predominantly inhabited by local people and today one of its most controversial development areas. Both these territories coexist as spatially unrelated to each other. Vienna-based architecture collective AKT and architect Hermann Czech are shifting the separation between La Biennale and the city into the pavilion in order to make room for the urban public: an opening of La Biennale not by spreading into the city, but by reversing this spatial practice. To this end AKT and Hermann Czech have been closely cooperating with local initiatives for almost two years. For the duration of the exhibition, La Biennale cedes part of its historic core area – half a pavilion – to the adjacent district as a public gathering space. By moving the historical boundary, by participating in the space of the pavilion, new spatial conditions and modified accessibilities are established that allow the relationship between the city and La Biennale to be spatially condensed and productively negotiated: a built “Laboratory of the Future”. Should the opening to the city fail due to the resistance of the Biennale and/or the involved institutions, this failure will become the political content of the exhibition. The architectural intervention for the project will be carried out except for the connection and will become the central exhibit of the exhibition. The half of the pavilion that is then not accessible to the public will become visible to Biennale Architettura visitors as a missed opportunity for participation. The failure as well as its reasons will be documented and contextualised in the course of the exhibition. The political dimensions of the responsibility of cultural institutions will thus be presented to the international public all the more vividly and urgently. — AKT & Hermann Czech Participating Countries

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Commissioner The Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport of Austria Curators and Participants AKT (Fabian Antosch, Gerhard Flora, Max Hebel, Adrian Judt, Julia Klaus, Lena Kohlmayr, Philipp Krummel, Gudrun Landl, Lukas Lederer, Susanne Mariacher, Christian Mörtl, Philipp Oberthaler, Charlie Rauchs, Helene Schauer, Kathrin Schelling, Philipp Stern and Harald Trapp) & Hermann Czech Design AKT & Hermann Czech Project Management section.a Press and Media Neumann + Luz Network Graphic Design Soybot Structural Engineer Bollinger + Grohmann Support on Site M+B studio On Behalf of The Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport of Austria With the Support of Land Oberösterreich Land Kärnten Land Niederösterreich Lanz Salzburg Stadt Salzburg

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Main Sponsor Kallinger Projekte BIG Fogarassy Privatstiftung Geyer & Geyer Triflex Buwog Laufen Zumtobel Bundeskammer der Ziviltechniker*innen I Arch + Ing Arwag Barta M.A.I. Vinofaktur Architektenkammer Wien, Niederösterreich, Burgenland ÖSW Monika Kaesser Bioweingut Lenikus Bollinger + Grohmann Ingenieure Gebrüder Thonet Vienna University of Applied Arts Vienna Gerin Druck Renderhouse Dérive

Partecipazione / Beteiligung 13

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Aggregated cooling systems in Diplomatic Area, Bahrain, 2023. Courtesy Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities. © Hussain Almosawi Drainage infrastructure by Buhair Valley, Bahrain, 2023. Courtesy Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities. © Hussain Almosawi

Biennale Architettura 2023

Kingdom of Bahrain Since the mid-twentieth century, cooling mechanisms have protected Bahrain’s inhabitants against severely hot and humid conditions. Generational resilience to heat no longer a necessary legacy, cooling technology has been embraced as an infrastructure that promotes comfort. With a projected 5°C temperature increase by the turn of the century, the region is at the extreme point of both water shortage and heat. The use of such systems is and will continue to be not only unavoidable, but rather a necessity. An ecology exists between flora, fauna, and cooling units. Yet, the AC is often isolated. Climate ties those characters, best exemplified by the proportional demands between human cooling and vegetal needs for water across the year. Bahrain’s pavilion identifies the loose ends of cooling infrastructure, investigating its overlooked offerings in the form of water. Enclosed habitats behave as vessels of condensation. They sweat moisture to provide a pleasant, sheltered experience. Buildings do so in two ways – deliberately, by dehumidifying the air fed into dwellings, collecting reservoirs of water from the atmosphere; and inadvertently, due to an obsession with the transparent surfaces of modernity. When accumulated, these water reservoirs hold immense potential. However, as it stands, they are taken for granted in a low-water environment, simply fed into the wastewater streams. Infrastructure like hospitals, airports, malls, and data centres consistently utilise substantial cooling and create large deposits of water continuously. The investigations quantify and speculate on the use of untapped reservoirs, alleviating water needs currently met by desalination and environmental sacrifices. Sweating Assets advocates for an adaptive approach to resource management by working with existing systems to their best capacities rather than starting anew. By no means encouraging wasteful usage of cooling systems, the possibilities made through their necessary consumption are uncovered. In Bahrain’s intense conditions of high heat and humidity, air conditioning produces proportionally high condensation. Utilising this unintended by-product of anthropogenic activity, loose ends are tied, redirecting water to other parts within the larger ecology. Participating Countries

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Commissioners Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmad Al Khalifa Bahrain Authority for Culture & Antiquities Curators Maryam Aljomairi Latifa Alkhayat Participants Waleed Alzubari Reem Al Maella Alanood Alkhayat Alya Ali Chenyue xdd Dai Hajar Budhahi Hussain Almosawi Hsin-Ying Huang Yi-Liang Ko Khushi Nansi Marwa Al Koheji Maryam Al Noami Melad Alfulaij Nada Almulla Nasser Al Zayani Natalie Pearl Nujud Alhussain Rabeeya Abduljabbar Saleh Jamsheer Sara Ali Sasha McKinlay Shan-Chun Wen Vijay Rajkumar Zicheng Xu Collaborator Aeris Group HVAC consultant

Sweating Assets 15

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Bento, Genesis of Therolinguistics, 2023. Pencil drawing. © Bento

Biennale Architettura 2023

Belgium How can we rethink architecture in a world of finite resources? We are becoming increasingly aware that the impacts generated by our choices have longterm, very long-term consequences, both in terms of the occupation of space and the use of materials. More than ever, these choices are political. It is urgent to change our modes of production, and even to rethink production itself, which is still too often considered in the context of an extractivist policy. It is also urgent to invent new ways of living. We propose to experiment with enviable alternatives for our territories, our cities, alternatives that would be forged with and from the living people who inhabit them and make up their fabric. In short, these experiments would simply prolong, extend and even honour the multiple (and often neglected) arrangements between humans and non-humans, living and nonliving... More concretely, we are proposing the possibility of making an alliance with mushrooms, which can constitute a highly available, sustainable, renewable by self-generation and inexpensive building material. We have acquired a certain expertise with it! The In Vivo pavilion will offer a time and a place for critical thinking, particularly because questions of responsibility, of taking other beings into account and of justice will be discussed in relation to living and building. But its strength will be defined above all by concrete and inventive proposals for an enviable future of living, for which the territory of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation will be a starting point for thinking, listing, affirming, confirming, revoking, planning, fantasising and above all dreaming. The proposal is structured in three, according to intertwined spatialities and temporalities. While a central built installation will mark the concretization of an engagement in the decarbonization of construction, being built with an earthen floor, a wooden skeleton and a mushroom skin, the catalogue will be the place and time of a projection into the future, through speculative fiction, which will narrate the entry into a new biological era. At the centre of the story, the living finds its material incarnation in the mycelium, whose specificities and possibilities, between containment, generation and regeneration, will lead us to think differently about Architecture. — Bento & Vinciane Despret Participating Countries

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Commissioner Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (Architecture Department) Curators Vinciane Despret Bento Participants Vinciane Despret Bento in collaboration with Corentin Mahieu Juliette Salme Corentin Mullender PermaFungi BC materials Sonian Wood Coop Organisers Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles in collaboration with Wallonie-Bruxelles International Architects Bento Corentin Dalon, Florian Mahieu and Charles Palliez Designer Corentin Mahieu Anthropologist Juliette Salme Microbiologist Corentin Mullender Researchers Etienne Blais, Elise Elsacker, Simon Vandelook, Eveline Peeters, Lars Dittrich (VUB) Video Kluut Paul Thoreau and Rodolphe de Brabandere Sound Designer Pierre-Marie Blind Providers BC materials Sonian Wood Permafungi Company for General Logistics Rebiennale With the Support of Université de Liège Vlaams Universiteit Brussel Reynaers aluminium JCX Nüesch Development Thrasos

In Vivo 17

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Aterramento [Grounding]. Study for installation, 2023. © Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares Indigenous swidden by Uaupés river, Alto Rio Negro, Amazonia, 2022. © Fellipe Abreu

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Fish trap (cacuri) placed by the rocks of Cachoeira do Iauretê, a well-known spot for the Indigenous Tukano, Arawak, and Maku peoples, 2008. © Vincent Carelli / Vídeo nas Aldeias ↓↓↓

Biennale Architettura 2023

Brazil Terra is a founding motif in the narratives of the formation of Brazil. Representations of national identity, forged in a continent-sized country, were historically structured by idealised and racialised views of the frontier and tropical nature that subalternised Indigenous and Black peoples. Terra is also a founding motif in the cosmologies, philosophies, and imaginaries of the Indigenous and African Brazilian populations that compose the majority of the national cultural matrix. But here terra appears in a different form, drawing ancestral and diasporic territories that refer to artistic and architectural geographies more deeply and beyond Brazil. They point to another sense of the earth – as belonging, cultivation, right – and thus to other imaginaries of Brazil, and of planet Earth, both as past and future, as heritage and project, as reparation and design. Entitled Terra, Brazil’s representation draws from this other perspective: terra as soil, ground, territory; terra as roça [swidden] and terreiro [yard or cult-houses]. But also Terra in its global and cosmic dimensions, as common home for all life, human and non-human. Terra as ancestry and memory, as well as becoming, looking towards the landscape heritage built by Indigenous and Black populations as a way of expanding and politicising the field of architecture in the face of the most pressing urban, territorial, and environmental issues globally. The pavilion opens with narratives that question the canon of Brasília, a World Heritage Site. Contrary to the frontier imaginaries of ‘void’ and ‘desert’ that informed the planning of the modernist capital, this land is ancestral Indigenous and Quilombola territory. Entitled Places of Origin, Archaeologies of the Future, the second room displays Indigenous and African Brazilian architectures recently recognised by the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN). Not only do they present a decolonial view of heritage, but also, through their deep connection to the earth and the design technologies they perform, present alternatives for the repair of planet Earth in the face of the ecological crisis. Following the teachings of Ailton Krenak, the pavilion acknowledges that “the future is ancestral”, displaying architectures and landscapes that present us with a radically new but already existing future towards communality, equality, and justice. — Gabriela de Matos, Paulo Tavares Participating Countries

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Commissioner José Olympio da Veiga Pereira president of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo Curators Gabriela de Matos Paulo Tavares Participants Ana Flávia Magalhães Pinto Ayrson Heráclito Day Rodrigues with the collaboration of Vilma Patrícia Santana Silva Fissura collective Ilê Axé Iyá Nassô Oká Casa Branca do Engenho Velho Juliana Vicente Mbya-Guarani Indigenous People Tecelãs do Alaká Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá Thierry Oussou Tukano, Arawak, and Maku Indigenous Peoples Vídeo nas Aldeias Organisers Fundação Bienal de São Paulo Ministry of Culture Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Embassy of Brazil in Rome

Terra 19

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Alexander Dumarey, Rayovo, 2017. © Alexander Dumarey Alexander Dumarey, Levunovo, 2010. © Alexander Dumarey

Biennale Architettura 2023

Bulgaria

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This is the first time in fifteen years that Bulgaria has appeared at Biennale Architettura. During this period the population of the country has dropped by more than 10 per cent or around 700,000 people. This is a continuous trend in the country that started in the mid 1980s just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The process was accelerated by negative growth, easy migration, inadequate health care, and so on. Based on the latest survey, there is no region in the country experiencing population growth. The country marks the largest decline on a global scale and the expectation that another 22 per cent of the inhabitants will disappear by 2050. As the population dwindles there are fewer and fewer children to fill the schools. Every year dozens of schools close their doors. In 2008 alone, more than 300 schools did not reopen after the summer. Some of the buildings have been renovated and are back in use as housing or as hotels. Most of them have been abandoned. The exhibition focuses on the traces of existence, depopulation, and the abandoned schools of Bulgaria. It is an exploration of a different future, marked by urban decline and rural flight. How do we cope with shrinking regions? How to address preservation? How to adapt to change? The pavilion becomes a platform for debate and speculation for the future. The images of the Belgian photographer Alexander Dumarey expose the traces of human presence, the ravages of time, and obsolescence. During his travels in Bulgaria, he documented the process of decay. Maintaining his focus on the schools allows him to illustrate the complexity of the issue on multiple levels. The absence of a new generation, the scale of abandonment, and the image of an architecture that is not serving a purpose are triggers for reflection and topics that have to be addressed. Alexander is an outsider to the Bulgarian context, an observer of spaces we all were once part of, but somehow decided to abandon and forget. Looking at his images we are trespassers, voyeuristically looking where we are not supposed to; yet these spaces provoke a strong sense of belonging and call out memories and associations. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Alexander Staynov, Ministry of Culture Curator Boris Tikvarski Participants Alexander Dumarey Mariya Gyaurova Bozhidara Valkova Mike Fritsch Kostadin Kokalanov Collaborators Mihail Novakov Valentin Bansac Alice Loumeau Luca Moscelli Antonina Ilieva Antonina Tritakova Georgi Sabev Marin Kafedjiiski Lilyana Todorova Galina Milkova Nedko Nikolov Monika Marinova Social Media Marketing D3 design Web Developer Onvocado Ltd. Stoyan Staynov Video Production Twin Pickles Mihail Novakov, Marin Kafedjiiski Motion Graphics Designer Marin Zlatev With the Support of Ministry of Culture Chamber of Architects in Bulgaria Union of Architects in Bulgaria Vidin Municipality Izgrev Municipality ROI CAPITAL ALPIN HOME Ltd. AAG - ANDREY ANDREEV GROUP

Education Is the Movement from Darkness to Light 21

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Chris Lee, AAHA posters, 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Canada

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c\a\n\a\d\a is suffering from a deep and protracted housing crisis – ranging from a widespread lack of affordability to under-housing, precarious housing, and homelessness. Real estate speculation is extractive. It transforms homes into spatio-financial assets and in the process changes the form, function, and aesthetics of housing to enable it to better serve the logics of wealth storage and speculation. This process is violent, creating a systemically racist, sexist, and classist urban environment. This global phenomenon is no more apparent than in c\a\n\a\d\a, a country whose economy is now largely driven by real estate. Financialisation is only the latest acceleration of a process that commenced with colonial land dispossession, which attacked Indigenous ways of knowing and doing and attempted to replace them with land conceived as private property. Modern fee-simple property is itself a historically specific construction formed through the encounter between Europeans and Indigenous people in settler colonial contexts, including French and British North America. Unique in its rights of exclusion and exchangeability, this novel form of property in which something as fixed and rooted as land is thrown into circulation is the basis of what David Madden and Peter Marcuse have named “residential alienation”. Alienation connects the fact of housing’s increasing exchangeability to the existential insecurity people feel and experience in regard to it. We see housing alienation, the estrangement that comes from the instant exchangeability of a commodity, as the severing of three forms of connection, the first to the land that we inhabit, the second to the social world that supports us, and the third to our ability to creatively shape our own environment. Not for Sale!! is a campaign of ten demands to end housing alienation. The Canada pavilion is the campaign headquarters, connecting architects, advocates, and activists within the growing movement for housing accessibility and affordability. Architects Against Housing Alienation is mobilising Canadians to demand socially, ecologically, and creatively empowering housing for all. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Canada Council for the Arts Curators Architects Against Housing Alienation (AAHA) Adrian Blackwell, David Fortin, Matthew Soules, Sara Stevens, Patrick Stewart, Tijana Vujosevic Participants A Better Tent City Waterloo Region Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia Alex Wilson, University of Saskatchewan At Home in the North Atelier Big City Bâtir son quartier Blackwell Canadian Cohousing Network Centre d’écologie urbaine de Montréal (CEUM) Comité logement Ville-Marie CP Planning (Community in Public) David T Fortin Architect Inc. FBM architecture • interior design • planning Gentrification Tax Action Grounded Architecture Inc. Haeccity Studio Architecture Idle No More Ipek Türeli, McGill University Interloge Katlia Lafferty, National Indigenous Housing Network Keele Eglinton Residents L’OEUF Architects Lancelot Coar, University of Manitoba LGA Architectural Partners Luugigyoo, Patrick R. Stewart Architect, Nisga’a Nation Maison du développement durable Maison du Savoir et de la Littérature by Maison des gens de lettres Navigator Street Outreach Program One House Many Nations Ouri Scott, Urban Arts Architecture Inc. Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust

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Sarah Silva, Hiyam Housing, Squamish Nation Shawn Bailey, University of Manitoba SOCA (Studio of Contemporary Architecture) SOLO Architecture SvN Architects + Planners Sylvia McAdam, Windsor University Table de concertation du Faubourg Saint-Laurent This Should Be Housing Toronto Tiny Shelters tuf lab Xalek/Sekyu Siyam Chief Ian Campbell, Sk_ wx_ wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) Graphic Designer Chris Lee Web Designer Ali S. Qadeer Campaign Strategist Vince Tao Project Research + Design Team David Kalman Josephine Li Piero Sovrani Noa Wang Film Producer and Editor Marie-Espérance Cerda Social Media Content Creators Kara Crabbe Lee-Ann Kam Anaïs Trembling Project Logistics Tamara Andruszkiewicz With the Support of School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of British Columbia School of Architecture, University of Waterloo Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Ontario Association of Architects Architecture Foundation of British Columbia Fedrigo Fratelli

Not for Sale!! 23

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Instituto Agrícola; Alumnos en el Campo Experimental de La Estación Agronómica, 1908, from Eduardo Poirier, Chile en 1908, Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Barcelona, 1909, p. 42. Seeds collected in Los Molles Natural Park, Chile, 2023. © Moving_Ecologies

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Seeds collected in Los Molles Natural Park, Chile, 2023. © Moving_Ecologies ↓↓↓

Biennale Architettura 2023

Chile

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In the north-west corner of the Quinta Normal Park in Santiago de Chile there are four Senegal Palms (Phoenix reclinata), originally from Africa, that along with hundreds of other species were brought from all over the world as part of the collection that since 1842 has served as a natural laboratory where the agricultural, botanical, landscape, and ecological future of the national territory was conceived. In the Quinta Normal Park, architecture and science allowed for the imagination of the future of the landscapes and cities of a country that was entering modernity, in a project for the transformation and spatial arrangement of an entire territory, carried out by means of a catalogue and a botanical collection. A true cosmopolitical assemblage where non-human agents in collaboration with architecture, engineering, and planning colonised, modified, and created ecologies for the imagined futures during the early years of modern Chile. Today, future challenges focus not on progress and production, but rather on the ecological repair and restoration of cities and landscapes deteriorated by an extractivist model of economic growth. Scenarios for which architecture and urban planning will not only need their traditional tools, but also a complete inventory of plants and vegetal matter that allow for the preparation of a future guided by common care, biodiversity, and interdependence between species. A future that will be both designed and planted, built and cultivated, made of architecture and seeds, cities and ecologies. These futures are already here. From landscape science and architecture, from species travelling in moving ecologies, repairing the damage we have caused, working from the ruins of a capitalist lifestyle. The objective of this exhibition is to imagine this inventory: the collection and cabinet of species that will prepare for those worlds to come. An exhibition that opens up the debate about our possible futures, human and non-human, starting with the natural stories told by the species mobilised to address the risks, threats, and possibilities of tomorrow’s communities, cities, and territories. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Cristobal Molina Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage of Chile Curators Gonzalo Carrasco Purull Beals & Lyon Arquitectos Pavilion Design Gonzalo Carrasco Purull Alejandro Beals Vaccaro Loreto Lyon Nuño Researcher Gonzalo Carrasco Purull Ecology Consultants Macarena Calvo Tagle Cristóbal Elgueta Marinovic Art Director Belén Salvatierra Meza Graphic Identity Constanza Gaggero Silva Architectural Collaborator Stefano Sciaraffia Henriquez Lighting Consultancy Aquiles Pavez Toro Organiser Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage of Chile With the Support of Division of Cultures, Arts, Heritage and Public Diplomacy (DIRAC) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile

Moving Ecologies 25

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Ruan Xing, ‘Oumoumou, China pavilion, interior view of the exhibition, 2023. Multiinstallation. © ‘Oumoumou Ruan Xing, ‘Oumoumou, China pavilion, hall exhibition, 2023. Multi-installation. © ‘Oumoumou

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Ruan Xing, ‘Oumoumou, China pavilion, interior view of the exhibition, 2023. Multiinstallation. © ‘Oumoumou ↓↓↓

Biennale Architettura 2023

In order to foster a more liveable and sustainable future, architects ought to learn from the past and integrate climate justice, clean energy, social equality, and other significant topics of our time with the design of built environment. Such an agenda is at the core of the Laboratory of the Future. Over the past forty years, Chinese architects have undertaken a diverse range of experiments in urban and rural renewal, exploring a symbiotic world where different people can better communicate, share, and co-exist, cities and people are interdependent, and more space is provided for nature. The theme of the exhibition tells of Chinese experiments in shaping liveability in high-density built environments. The China pavilion uses more than forty scroll-like columns to generate the experience of being in a metropolis. Visitors encounter a unique Chinese story by ‘viewing’, ‘unfolding’, ‘contemplating’, and ‘strolling’ in the China pavilion. Three sets of data illustrate the Chinese narrative of density. Shanghai’s population soared from 11 to 25 million from 1978 to 2023, while the per capita living space increased from 4.5 to 37.4 square metres. This drastic change of density, on one side, shows a complex and delicate symbiotic relationship between life, architecture, city, and nature. Density is an architectural enigma. The outdoor installation of the China pavilion represents density as a ‘mathematical pattern’. The indoor exhibition is illustrated below. Chinese architects have long pursued liveable and sustainable environments in high density. The interdependence of city and people can be shown by sensational urban scenes such as trams travelling through buildings and juxtapositions/evolutions of different densities. The symbiosis between people and nature creates reimagined rural life, while reshaping the sense of ‘home’. Shanghai is the “Metropolis Fantastical”, where diversity flourishes. Its vivid life spectacles can be depicted by “knots, lines, and interfaces”. “Knots” represent interactions between local residents and delivery riders, demonstrating the convenience of living in Shanghai. “Lines” capture narrow public realms in dense neighbourhoods, presenting a unique leisure of Shanghai life. “Interfaces” consist of a variety of building frontages, demonstrating a strong capacity of Shanghai to adapt to different needs. With technological innovation in clean energy, electric cars and cities, virtual reality, and more, changes in population density could resonate with a rejuvenated urban ecology in post-industrial cities. How can an era of clean energy foster cities that are more liveable, efficient, shared, and just? — Ruan Xing Participating Countries

People’s Republic of China

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Commissioner China Arts and Entertainment Group (CAEG) Curator Ruan Xing Participants Bo Hongtao Cai Chunyan/Liu Tao Du Chunlan Fan Beilei/Kong Rui/Xue Zhe Guo Yuchen/Yang Siqi/Zhan Beidi/Jiang Boyuan/Wang Jingwen/Yang Shuo He Jianxiang/Jiang Ying He Mengjia Huang Huaqing Huang Yinwu Kong Yuhang/Yang Wei Li Danfeng/Zhou Jianjia Li Xinggang Liu Doreen Heng Liu Kenan/Zhang Xu Liu Moyan/Su Peng/Ju Anqi/ Ying Shijiao/Li Yuanyuan/Song Jiawei Liu Yuyang Long Ying Luo Jing/Yu Borou Meng Fanhao Qian Shiyun Ruan Xing/Zhang Yang Shui Yanfei Song Yehao Sun Haode/Student Team SJTU Tong Ming/Ren Guang/Guo Hongqu Wang Dan/Li Zhibo Wang Qiu’an

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Wang Xin/Sun Yu Wang Yan Wang Zhuo’er Xu Xunjun/Zhang Xudong/ Pang Lei Yang Yongliang Zhang Bin Zhang Hai’ao/Xu Hang/Li Di Zhang Jiajing Zhang Li/Zhao Peng/Ye Yang Zhang Ming/Zhang Zi/Qin Shu/ Su Ting Zhang Tong/Aldo Aymonino Zheng Xiaodi Zhou Wei Zhuang Shen/Ren Hao/Tang Yu/Zhu Jie Zhuang Ziyu Atelier Deshaus Arcplus Group - ECADI East China Architectural Design & Research Institute Arcplus Group - Institute of Shanghai Architectural Design & Research (Co., Ltd.) CBC Building Centre Chongqing Architectural Design Institute of Chongqing Design Group Assistant Curator Zhang Hai’ao Academic Support Shanghai Jiao Tong University Organiser Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China

Renewal: A Symbiotic Narrative 27

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Same as it Ever Was. Photo Mia Roth. © Croatian pavilion

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Same as it Ever Was. Photo Marko Mihaljevic. © Croatian pavilion

Biennale Architettura 2023

Croatia The Croatian pavilion is an ode to ambiances of coexistence of the wild and the domesticated, natural and fabricated, inanimate and living. It originates from the Lonja wetlands in which dynamic environments evolved from centuries of symbiosis between a landscape in constant flux and communities adapting their lives to it. It documents the slowness of natural change, perspectives of plants and animals, looking in the opposite direction of inevitable crises. Synchronicities of time depend on the viewpoint of the actors, measured in seasons of grazing, annual intercontinental migrations of birds, daily migrations of people, seconds of visitor’s reactions, centuries of plants growing, and decades of movement of the rivers meandering. What we see is just the superficial trace of these systems. There is no hierarchy in this flow, and the Lonja wetlands are taken as a laboratory sample, a lesson for the future, oriented towards interaction and reciprocities between what comes from nature and culture, possible in various environments. This sample becomes a backdrop for the discursive segment of the pavilion, an ongoing laboratory documented in real time, exploring the futures in practice and education. To effect real change, what is needed is above all continuity and coordination among those various small-scale movements. On the other hand, we are living with crises, i.e., disasters, which are increasingly becoming the new normal, realities in which we have to build a new resilience. The study of resilient autonomous communities in our region gives us an insight into those small communities used to living and surviving with nature, which are more likely to survive in future such scenarios. We no longer question the supply chains of food, water, and energy and, doing so, we can no longer even understand how the systems work, because they become hidden from us. The laboratory of the future begins with understanding the interconnectedness of actors from all origins. The pavilion includes a spatial installation which is a part of the bestiarium of built and unbuilt observatories in the Lonja wetlands. It evokes structures that blend the natural and the cultural, within a landscape which seems still, but whose seasonal changes are radical. The pavilion’s network includes workshops and discussions that test themes and future action in the education of architects. These are documented in real time, making a retroactive catalogue, a note for the future. — Mia Roth, Tonči Čerina, Ivica Mitrović Participating Countries

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Commissioner Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia Curators Mia Roth Tonči Čerina Participants Mia Roth Tonči Čerina Luka Fatović Vedran Kasap Ozana Ursić Niko Mihaljević Ivica Mitrović Organiser Croatian Architects’ Association (CAA) With the Support of Zagreb Tourist Board Croatian Post Inc. MARKOJA production, trade and services d.o.o. JANAF d.d. Hrvatske autoceste d.o.o. Zagrebačka banka d.d. Lonjsko Polje Nature Park Public Institution Zumtobel Group Croatia

Same as it Ever Was 29

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Cyprus pavilion team, video still 1 Time-Matter-Space, 2023 Cyprus pavilion team, video still 2 Time-Matter-Space, 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Republic of Cyprus

How can we take on the first community dwellings of the Cyprus Aceramic Neolithic Khirokitia and use it as a stepping stone to address issues of social sustainability within a humanistic and cultural context, set on a platform towards a newly built environment that will be created on planet Mars? Operating under the premise that social sustainability can be attained through means of collaboration and common awareness, the exhibition aims to activate spaces in a three-dimensional and temporal manner in order to induce values of social and egalitarian participation. Social sustainability is mainly concerned with the creation and maintenance of the quality of life of people within a society. It gives emphasis to the protection of the psychological and physical health of all people, it encourages social cohesion and provides education to people who in turn can contribute to society as a whole and develop relationships within it. In the prehistoric period Khirokitia was one of the world’s most innovative cultures. It played a role in the transmission of culture from the Near East to the European world. A Cypriot Neolithic settlement starting around 7500 BCE has been an autonomous self-sufficient settlement, an example of social sustainability, politics, economics, and environment. It contained the socio-political elements of an egalitarian society, as there is no evidence of warfare or competition. A voyage channelled by the stars can take you anywhere... Indeed, this describes the voyage of the early Neolithic travellers from the mainland to the coasts of Cyprus, by these courageous wanderers searching for their future homeland. They have been undeniably successful in their pursuit, as seen from today’s archaeological record; but how about today’s wanderers/scientists/space navigators? Could this specific architectural community provide the leading edge when designing for Mars? Might the primitive paradigm of the Neolithic period model the future of architectural design? Could the new settlers/scientists, using current knowledge and technology, be sufficiently competent and dexterous to successfully bring to completion a future project of community living on another planet? Will this be the solitary salvation of humankind? Our proposal takes you through matter, time, and space. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Petros Dymiotis Cultural Officer at the Cultural Services of the Deputy Ministry of Culture Curators and Participants Petros Lapithis Lia Lapithi Nikos Kouroussis Ioanna Ioannou Xiari Cyprus Space Exploration Organisation George Danos, Colm Larkin With the Support of Cyprus Architects Association Cultural Services of the Deputy Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Cyprus Cyprus Institute Department of Antiquities of the Republic of Cyprus University of Nicosia Pantheon Cultural Association

From Khirokitia to Mars 31

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Eliška H. Pomyjová, David Neuhäusl, Jan Netušil, The Office for a Non-Precarious Future – Factory, 2023. © NGP Eliška H. Pomyjová, David Neuhäusl, Jan Netušil, The Office for a Non-Precarious Future – Laboratory, 2023. © NGP

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Eliška H. Pomyjová, David Neuhäusl, Jan Netušil, The Office for a Non-Precarious Future, 2023. Axonometric. © NGP ↓↓↓

Biennale Architettura 2023

Czech Republic Young architects are educated in the spirit of the profession’s calling, the impetus to transform the world through a single act of a creative genius. Architecture’s daily business is subject to a strictly rational logic of economic growth and the ever-growing production of built substance. However, architects often lack the agency and the tools to instigate real change in society and ecology. In this sense, architecture becomes mere labour, an endeavour to secure one’s own living in the material sense. How can we change the world if we can’t provide decent working conditions for ourselves? The exhibition metaphorically takes on the form of a Factory and a Laboratory. The Factory, the dystopian environment, reflects the negative status quo of the profession based on existing research and data. It presents the emblematic production space of the twentieth century, associated with rationalised administration and assembly-line working processes. Spatially, an abstract rationalist grid underlies sets of white screens on individual workplaces and the cold steel frames of unusable office furniture. The Factory’s opposite, the Laboratory, denotes a space that welcomes experimentation and work-in-progress. Originating with the Constructivists and the Bauhaus, such a space served architects to set the discipline on a more experimental but rational basis. The Czech avantgarde architectural theoretician Karel Teige considered architecture to be an interdisciplinary speculative science, an approach that is relevant today – aiming at the formulation of positive future concepts and even a search for utopias. The Laboratory provides information and enables cooperation, conversation, and actual work. It formulates important questions and identifies problematic areas in relation to the precarity of the architecture profession: toxic working conditions; diversity, with an emphasis on gender; the notion of authorship; and economy and architecture in the context of working conditions. It suggests tools and solutions, and highlights best-practice examples of individual (discussions/thinkers), collective (collectives, agencies and platforms), and systemic (e.g., in teaching) approaches. Visitors, along with ten residents, are invited to speculate on the nonprecarious future of the architecture practice. — Helena Huber-Doudová, Eliška H. Pomyjová, David Neuhäusl, Jan Netušil Participating Countries

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Commissioner Helena Huber-Doudová Participants Eliška H. Pomyjová David Neuhäusl Jan Netušil Organiser National Gallery Prague Residencies Supervisor Simona Binko Editorial Assistant Barbora Řepková Project Manager Barbora Lesáková Co-Author of the Concept Karolína Plášková Advisory Board Eva Franch i Gilabert, Radka Neumannová, Osamu Okamura, Andreas Ruby, Marcin Szczelina, Yvette Vašourková With the Support of Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic (National Recovery Plan) and the European Union (Next Generation EU)

The Office for a Non-Precarious Future 33

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Coastal Imaginaries, model 1, 2023. Photo Christian Friedländer Coastal Imaginaries, model 2, 2023. Photo Christian Friedländer

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Christian Friedländer, Mermaid Bay ↓↓↓

Biennale Architettura 2023

Denmark

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This is an exhibition of nature-based design solutions in an age of human-based environmental destruction, as well as a training ground for emerging ecological imaginaries addressing the current crisis of the coastscape. Through a composite of speculative scenographies and displays of novel research projects, Coastal Imaginaries invites the audience to explore the spatial logistics of the coastal realm and its field of fluctuating forces, destabilising and disclosing the terrestrial bias of human headspace, habits, and habitats. Setting out to be a laboratory of hope in a world of viral hopelessness, the exhibition offers a catalogue of proposals for a coastal future grounded in seven nature-based principles, not only stretching across time and vast landscapes, but similarly addressing the perspective of the here-and-now urgencies of floods and storm surges. Beyond simply being mechanisms of resilience, these strategies can serve as CO2 sinks, foodscapes, material banks, and spaces for human recreation and more-thanhuman habitation. Offering a way to (re)synchronise with nature, the septet of principles opens up a new re-enchantment with natural ecologies through changing practices within the architectural profession. Yet, architecture needs allies, and we must cross disciplinary and institutional boundaries to learn from each other and, most importantly, cultivate the political will to instigate radical changes. This is why Coastal Imaginaries is structured as a collective and collaborative effort of artists, craftspeople, practitioners, and researchers coming from a wide and varied array of disciplines. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Kent Martinussen CEO, Danish Architecture Center Curator Josephine Michau Participants Schønherr Landscape Architects David Garcia Giacomo Brusa Cattaneo Laurits Sporon Bøving Genz Dejle Zaradesht Mohamad Iisa Eikaas Katrina Wiberg Anna Aslaug Lund Christian Friedländer Deputy Commissioner Eva Kirstine Fabricius Danish Architecture Center Assistant Curators Anna Aslaug Lund lisa Eikaas Exhibition Designer Christian Friedländer Exhibition Design Assistant Ellen Leer Exhibition Architect Alexandra Wedderkopp Emelianov Graphic Design and Identity Alexis Mark Sound Designer Peter Albrechtsen Consulting Researchers Mitigating Sea Level Rise group Anna Aslaug Lund (main) Gertrud Jørgensen and Ole Fryd, Landscape Architecture (University of Copenhagen) Karsten Arnbjerg, Roland Löwe and Anna Lea Eggert (Technical University of Denmark) Tom Nielsen, Soo Jung Ryu and Katrina Wiberg (Aarhus School of Architecture)

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Construction in Venice M+B Studio Sound Mix Erik Christoffersen Peter Albrechtsen Light Designer Christian Vest Berntsen Scenic Artist David Drachmann Assistant Sound Designer Mikkel Nielsen Mermaid Voice Dawn Wall Music-Piece for Mermaid Bay Peter Peter Production in Denmark Guido Liebgen With the Support of Ministry of Culture, Denmark Realdania Danish Arts Foundation Publication Support Dreyers Fond Ministry of Culture, Denmark Realdania Danish Arts Foundation Partner Kvadrat

Coastal Imaginaries 35

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NiLab pavilion. Processing Landscape_inProgress

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NiLab Aswan. Photo Yara Soliman

Biennale Architettura 2023

Egypt

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NiLab is a laboratory for the knowledge and development of ideas and projects on the Nile River, a space for reflection on the theme of water in the general context of climate change. The presence of a watercourse has never been identified with the history of civilisation, in its cultural, scientific, and humanistic aspects, as it was in Egypt. Its extraordinary geographical dimension draws natural and anthropic landscapes, feeds cities and production systems, reserves and agricultural landscapes. Any alteration of it can represent a destruction of a millennial balance between living species and the historical and natural landscape, especially in an era in which the great territorial and productive transformations risk causing entropy and degradation. The themes, corresponding to six landscape sections – Nature, Agriculture, Urbe, Infrastructure, Industry, Archaeology – are developed through eighteen project areas, identified for an international comparison between Egypt and the world. Together with Cairo’s Ain-Shams University, Faculty of Engineering (Egypt), Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, dArTe Department (Italy), and curators of the pavilion who have been collaborating for years in research and teaching activities, 24 international universities are invited to build NiLab, a laboratory in which, students, teachers and researchers discuss possible future scenarios along the river. The aim is to create a reflection on design strategies, as a contribution to major urban and landscape emergencies, in the general context of a contemporaneity that demands new reflections on the tools and languages of architecture from the project. In this sense, the Egyptian pavilion represents a cognitive and planning experience. Crossing the threshold, one enters a space–time dimension in which the visitor is immersed in the landscape of the Nile as an inclusive part along with water, nature, and history. A room ‘visual machine’, the pavilion is characterised by the surreal presence of objects such as the Solar Boat, a metaphor for a journey on the Nile, evocative of water, myth, and archaeology. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Ministry of Culture Arab Republic of Egypt – Accademia d’Egitto – National Organization for Urban Harmony Curators Ahmed Sami Abd Elrahman Marina Tornatora Ottavio Amaro Moataz Samir Ghada Farouk Participants Ain-Shams University of Cairo, Faculty of Engineering (Egypt) Università Mediterranea Reggio Calabria, dArTe Department (Italy) Organisers and Other Collaborators Cristiana Penna Arwa Ehab Abbas Malak Haytham Weshahy Wegdan Hossam Faydullah Yomna Walid Ali Menna Medhat Qubtan Omar Mohamed Elnamer George Rafik Azer Esraa Ahmad Farrag Lina Reda Elbaz Abdelaziz Abdelfattah Ali Elgabaly Mohamed Hany Yasmina Safwat Menna Othman Salma Mohamed Ali Malak Tarek Yara Soliman Tasneem El Naggar Ludovica Amaro Nour el Khayat Donia Elboghdady Nour Zikry Ahmed Yasser Nadine Khalil Omar Ashraf

NiLab. Nile as Laboratory 37

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Aet Ader, Arvi Anderson, Mari Möldre, Bed Sheets: Spreadsheets, 2023. Photo Arvi Anderson, Kertin Vasser Aet Ader, Arvi Anderson, Mari Möldre, Modern: Maintenance, 2023. Photo Arvi Anderson, Kertin Vasser

Biennale Architettura 2023

Estonia What is the value of ‘home’? Is ‘life’ profitable? Does architecture provide a shelter for the body or for money? Do homes secure people or investments? Welcome home! A number of Estonian performers, one at a time, will each spend a month in a Venetian rental apartment, which becomes both home and stage. Two-faced domesticity All around us are the contradictions between home and real estate, dream and reality, tenant and owner, resident and visitor. Housing is no longer just about living: investment and speculation have become the primary purpose of an increasing number of homes, as property prices and rents continue to rise. City centres are made up of houses where living itself has become redundant. Avoiding depreciation by limiting use leads to homes that have owners but no occupants. Elsewhere, there are residents who struggle to become owners. The stability of the home as an intimate space of one’s own, a place for family history and material biography, is in contrast to the flexible and temporary nature of real estate, of rapid buy-and-sell markets – ‘home’ as disposable lifestyle product. Home Stage The home on display is a common sight. Ever looked for somewhere to live? Ever been given a tour of someone’s new place? Homes are staged for us – to invite a feeling of comfort, to please us aesthetically, or even to intimidate. Or are we buying dreams? In someone’s home – a space of intimate relationships – a wider set of market relations is revealed. Hello! Come in, come in! Sorry, don’t mind the hallway, it’s in a constant state of renovation, but at least that will keep the place looking new! Let me show you the bedroom. Isn’t the water calming! I feel like I have all the time in the world, so relaxing… Look at the view from here! That alone is easily worth a million! Come on, come along! Bathroom! There was one time when all the pipes in the bathroom burst – ah, those were joyful fountains! This has all been fixed – we have high-quality technical systems now! This way, let me open the door for you. Ah, the dust fluff dancing in the sunshine, ha ha – you know, the soul of the house! Let’s head back to the living room. I’m sure you’d like a drink! Who are you? Are you a home-seeker on a house tour? A guest at a private housewarming party? An architectural explorer? A curious neighbour? An amateur investor? — Aet Ader, Mari Möldre, Arvi Anderson Participating Countries

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Commissioner Raul Järg Curators / Participants Aet Ader, Arvi Anderson, Mari Möldre b210 Architects Stagers and Performers Liisa Saaremäel Keithy Kuuspu Performers Arolin Raudva Kirill Havanski Anumai Raska Külli Teetamm Eline Selgis Paula Veidenbauma Johhan Rosenberg Dramatist Jan Kaus Technical Solutions Margus Tammik Sound Design Markus Robam Scenographer Kairi Mändla Photographer Kertin Vasser Graphic Design Stuudio Stuudio Production Anna Lindpere, Anu Lill Estonian Center for Architecture With the Support of Estonian Ministry of Culture Cultural Endowment of Estonia Thermory Thinnect

Home Stage 39

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The huussi, a traditional Finnish outhouse. Photo Arja Renell Droughts have become a reality also in Europe: the River Rhein in 2022. Photo Jochen Tack, imageBRO / Shutterstock

Biennale Architettura 2023

Finland The exhibition critically reassesses sanitation infrastructure in the context of global freshwater shortages which have become a reality in Europe. Sanitation infrastructure is also connected with the possibility of restoring the nutrient cycle in food production. By questioning the so far indisputable position of the current water-based sanitation system, the exhibition aims to inspire architects to start looking for alternative solutions, to better serve the world we inhabit today. Lack of fresh water is a result of overconsumption, a growing global population, and climate change. Annual rainfall patterns have changed and groundwater reserves are decreasing. Natural water sources are overused by urban areas and irrigation systems. Ultimately, we need to ask some fundamental questions: what do we need water for most – to grow food or to flush down our waste? The other question linked to sanitation infrastructure is the potential to recycle valuable nutrients for food production. After each harvest, nutrients must be replaced into the soil. Commercial farming relies on industrial fertilisers which are used much like single-use plastic. As we flush, nutrients in our waste are washed away and lost in the chemical cleaning processes. Nutrient residues in poorly cleaned up wastewater is a major cause of eutrophication. As a low-density solution, the exhibition presents a contemporary dry toilet, the huussi, which is a typical sanitation solution in remote locations, especially in summer cottages all over Finland. The modern dry toilet is easy to use and the composted waste can be used for domestic food production. The bigger challenge, of course, is developing more sustainable sanitation solutions which work at the urban scale. Some examples, based on pressure-assisted technology, can be found in Europe. These neighbourhood level systems consume significantly less water and enable the collection of waste for nutrient recycling. How could these solutions be developed further? Are entirely water-free solutions feasible in urban areas? What kinds of solutions work in different parts of the world? And, most importantly, how can we make change happen? Adjusting our ways of living in the face of climate change and a growing global population is taking place now, not in the future. — Arja Renell Participating Countries

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Commissioner Katarina Siltavuori Archinfo – Information Centre for Finnish Architecture Curator Arja Renell The Dry Collective Participants The Dry Collective Antero Jokinen, Emmi Keskisarja, Barbara Motta, Arja Renell, Eero Renell, Janne Teräsvirta Organiser Archinfo – Information Centre for Finnish Architecture Director Katarina Siltavuori Head of Communications Miina Jutila Project Manager Sini Parikka Project Coordinator Francesco Raccanelli Contributors Juha Helenius University of Helsinki Eeva-Liisa Viskari Tampere University of Applied Sciences Suvi Lehtoranta SYKE Paula Pennanen-RebeiroHargrave UN-Habitat Sari Laurila Huussi Ry

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Film Production Henkka Hämäläinen Pekka Hara Local Collaborator Veras Association With the Main Support of Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland With the Support of The Finnish Cultural Foundation With the Additional Support of Embassy of Finland in Rome LAB Institute of Design and Fine Arts Durat City of Helsinki Biolan Fiskars Artek Stora Enso Helsinki Distilling Company

Huussi — Imagining the Future History of Sanitation 41

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Ball Theater. © Muoto + Georgi Stanishev et Clémence La Sagna Ball Theater. © Muoto + Georgi Stanishev et Clémence La Sagna

Biennale Architettura 2023

France

The Ball Theater is an installation designed to reawaken our desires for utopia. Its hemispherical shape elicits multiple images. It can be interpreted equally as a globe or as a mirror ball, a kitsch icon of an era when partying was still possible. This party aura suggests a new approach to today’s crises, one in which the emphasis is no longer on emergency, but on the possibility of alternative futures. This is expressed in the theatre for the duration of the Biennale Architettura by an alternation between moments of contemplation and immersion in a world of sound echoing with foreign and far-off voices, and periods of intense occupancy in the form of variations on the theme of the ‘ball’, an interplay of workshops–residences between artists, researchers, and students. The architecture of the theatre stands midway between structure and setting. The purpose of this scenographic dimension is – like in a real theatre – to accommodate a stage, its performers and an audience. What it projects is nevertheless ambivalent, juxtaposing images as contradictory as the futuristic capsule and the primitive hut. In this way, it reflects our contrasting feelings of hope and nostalgia. Our desire to rebuild a future that belongs to the past by recycling a host of found objects. As a result, the theatre experience raises more questions than it answers. What is the origin of this demi-sphere? Who lives in it? What is it for? How did it get there? What are the shards of voices, whispers, and radiophonic interferences emanating from its loudspeakers telling us? Has it just landed or is it about to take off? These are the questions that we ask ourselves in an uncertain world: should we land or take off? Should we get close to things, create new communities, erase distances and distinctions, or conversely withdraw and remain aloof? How to choose? How to reinvent our relationship to this world in its quest of a future? The installation is complemented by a photo-novel conceived and imagined by the illustrator Ugo Bienvenu. The novel emphasises the installation’s fictional side by retracing the story and odyssey of the demi-sphere in the landscape of an abandoned city now inhabited only by children and robots. It reveals how it was built, the origin of the objects that surround it, and its future destinations. — Muoto & Georgi Stanishev Participating Countries

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Commissioner Institut français in Close Collaboration with The Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Culture Curators Muoto Georgi Stanishev Lead Curators Muoto Gilles Delalex, Yves Moreau Georgi Stanishev Associate Curator Jos Auzende Project Leader Sophie Mandl Scenography Georgi Stanishev Clémence La Sagna Program Management Jos Auzende Anna Tardivel Sound Design Pilooski Cédric Marszewski Alain Français Thomas Fourny Lighting Design Les Ateliers de l’Éclairage Scientific Sound Consultants Carlotta Darò Nicolas Tixier Executive Producer ARTER Realization Mainardi Metallurgica Author Photo-Novel Ugo Bienvenu Image Production Ugo Bienvenu Studio Remembers Simon Cadilhac Côme Albes-Nicoux Fritsch Publication Director Carlotta Darò Publisher Caryatide Claudia Mion Graphic Design Spassky Fischer

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With the Partnership of ENSA ParisMalaquais research unit LIAT ENSA Saint Étienne ENSA Bretagne with EURCaps, ENSA Grenoble AAU research unit, Cresson Team Université Gustave Eiffel ENSA Paris-Est D-ARCH ETH Zurich B_AIR Art Infinity Radio / Creative Europe Translitteræ Université PSL With the Participation of Le Réseau International Ambiances École Supérieure d’Art Annecy Alpes Radio France Internationale Beaux-Arts de Paris arc en rêve centre d’architecture Bordeaux Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine Maison de l’architecture Île-de-France Lille3000

Ball Theater 43

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Biennale Architettura 2023

Georgia The installation explores the relationship between the flow of time and energy. Energy, as a primal life force, and human methods of its consumption, distribution, and preservation – energy politics; temporality or permanence of such politics within the shared, historical reality. By 1985, the first unit of the hydroelectric power station was launched in the Dusheti region, Georgia, between the Alevi, Gudamakari, and Kartli ridges. The 11.5 square kilometre plant – substantial in generating electricity and Tbilisi’s water supply – completely flooded the village of Zhinvali and destroyed the river ecosystem while forcing the entire local population to migrate. Walking around the area today, one steps on an endless carpet of black sludge, stumbling across ancient artefacts or samples of mutilated stone or wood. The settlements of the Eneolithic age and significant examples of cultural heritage have also disappeared; the twelfth-century Jvaripatiosani church, among them, is submerged under water for several months and reappears in the drained landscape when consumption of water in the capital city rises – in January, February, and March. The project symbolically focuses on reservoirs, their creation, and their impact on ecological, urban, and demographic shifts in the age of rapid political transformations and climate change. It attempts to reconstruct the spatial memory of the area through primitive archetypes – a city, a house, a church… The intersection of living and lifeless landscapes – formed around the dried-up rivers – metaphorically connects to a sunken abstract form composed of sedimented sludge material. How temporary is our footprint on the environment? Can water be a determinant of order? What type of flows do we mean when we mention the flows of energy, migration, time, and the outflow of the landscape itself? What are the costs of disrupting an order or creating a new one? To what extent can the spatial–political development of humans bring changes in nature and society? What physical and conceptual forms fade or remain with such transformations? Are the natural creations, their memory, history, and artefacts that signify their past life permanent? What will be the vestige of defining such places, and, above all – considering the global and local contexts – what is their future? — Tbilisi Architecture Biennial Participating Countries

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Commissioner Magda Guruli Curators Gigi Shukakidze Otar Nemsadze Tinatin Gurgenidze Participant Tbilisi Architecture Biennial Authors Gigi Shukakidze Otar Nemsadze Tinatin Gurgenidze Project Team Giorgi Vardiashvili Aleksi Soselia Elene Pasuri Stefano Tornieri Lado Kandashvili Giorgi Kartvelishvili Tamar Janashia Tato Kotetishvili Nodar Nozadze Gigi Butkhuzi Andro Barbaqadze Arsen Kurdgelashvili Giorgi Kolbaia Mariam Elene Gomelauri Aleksandra Aroshvili Lela Rekhviashvili Nikoloz Tsikaridze Teona Rekhviashvili Giorgi Tsintsadze Irakli Macharashvili Mamuka Gvilava Tikuna Adeishvili Video Tato Kotetishvili Nodar Nozadze Gigi Butkhuzi Andro Barbaqadze Arsen Kurdgelashvili Giorgi Kolbaia Mariam Elene Gomelauri With the Support of The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth of Georgia

january february march 45

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Open for Maintenance – Wegen Umbau geöffnet is realized with salvaged materials from the Biennale Arte 2022. Following its dismantling, the curators of the German pavilion for the Biennale Architettura 2023 reclaimed material fragments from other participations, such as the installation Queendom at the Israeli pavilion. These collected spolia were then stored and inventoried in the German pavilion for later reuse. © ARCH+ / SUMMACUMFEMMER / BÜRO JULIANE GREB

Biennale Architettura 2023

Germany

The installation, curated by ARCH+ / SUMMACUMFEMMER / BÜRO JULIANE GREB, is dedicated to matters of care, repair, and maintenance. By squatting the German pavilion through a series of maintenance works, the contribution renders visible processes of spatial and social care work typically hidden from the public eye. The concept refers to the social practice of maintaining urban fabric by the squatters’ movement in 1970s Berlin that contributed to the conservation of urban communities and built structures, a practice that we might call sustainable today. This precedent demonstrates that ecological sustainability is inextricably linked to the social question. The act of squatting and maintaining the German pavilion starts with taking it over in its existing condition. Rather than dismantling Maria Eichhorn’s work Relocating a Structure, Germany’s contribution to the Biennale Arte 2022, the project is actively incorporated into the pavilion’s new design. The exhibition itself will be made entirely using leftover material from last year’s Biennale. The German pavilion will become a productive infrastructure, promoting principles of reuse and circular construction in tandem with architecture’s social responsibility. It will serve to collect, catalogue, supply, and process used material from the Biennale. An on-site workshop will form the basis for various initiatives from Venice and beyond, as well as for universities to engage, through one-on-one interventions, with the maintenance of sociospatial structures. The project thus takes a creative angle toward the resource problem presented by Biennales, which leave behind hundreds of tons of trash every year. In addition, Open for Maintenance deals with questions of social and spatial inclusion in Venice. Due to the commercialization of urban space through mass tourism, Biennales, and the events industry, everyday life is disappearing, and with it go networks of social and material maintenance oriented toward the common welfare. This very circumstance has resulted in a variety of local activist groups taking practical approaches to solving the problem. Our project offers these actors a platform: for the entire duration of the Biennale Architettura 2023, they will take part in a series of workshops featuring interventions within the pavilion as well as the urban space of Venice. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building Curators ARCH+ / SUMMACUMFEMMER / BÜRO JULIANE GREB: Anne Femmer, Franziska Gödicke, Juliane Greb, Christian Hiller, Petter Krag, Melissa Makele, Anh-Linh Ngo, Florian Summa Participants Agriluska (Luca Vallese), Assemblea Sociale per la Casa (Chiara Buratti), Bellevue di Monaco eG (Barbara Bergau, Grisi Ganzer, Till Hofmann, Denijen Pauljevic) with hirner & riehl architekten und stadtplaner BDA, Centro Sociale Rivolta (Elena Carraro, Filippo Lunian), ConstructLab (Patrick Hubmann, Alexander Römer, Peter Zuiderwijk), CRCLR House with Concular (Annabelle von Reutern), Die Zusammenarbeiter & TRNSFRM eG (Christian Schöningh), Impact Hub (Sascha Stremming), LXSY Architekten (Kim Le Roux, Margit Sichrovsky , Christine Andreas), Marie-Louise Greb, Axel Sichrovsky, Giorgio de Finis (RIF – Museo delle Periferie), Gustavo Fijalkow, Forward Dance Company / LOFFT - DAS THEATER, German pavilion for Biennale Arte 2022: Relocating a Structure (Yilmaz Dziewior, Maria Eichhorn, Ellen Strittmatter), Haus der Materialisierung – Zentrum für klimaschonende Ressourcennutzung with Berliner Stadtmission (Sofie Göppl Leon), FahrArt Atelier (Benjamin Känel), Kostümkollektiv (Katrin Wittig), Kunst-Stoffe e.V. (Jan-Micha Garma, Rhea Gleba, Corinna Vosse), Mitkunstzentrale (Rahel Jakob, Julie Teuber, Nora Wilhelm), mrtz Forschungswerkstatt (Moritz Wermelskirch), Ort-schafft-Material (Jannis Schiefer, Elena Stranges), stefan is doing things (Stefan Klopfer) STREETWARE saved item (Alice Fassina), Studio Patric Dreier, ZUsammenKUNFT Berlin eG (Kim Gundlach, Andrea Hofmann), Institute of Radical Imagination (Marco Baravalle, Emanuele Braga, Gabriella Riccio) and Anna Rispoli, in cooperation with S.a.L.E. Docks, Kotti & Co (Tashy Endres, Sandy Kaltenborn), Laboratorio Occupato Morion, Rebiennale/R3B

(Giulio Grillo, Tommaso Cacciari), Alessandro Schiattarella, Giovanna Silva (Photo- and Videography; Video Editing: Angelo Boriolo – Boris), Working Group Sanitärwende with Eawag (Michel Riechmann), Finizio–Future Sanitation (Florian Augustin, Tom Kühne), German Toilet Organization, KanTe – Kollektiv für angepasste Technik (Ariane Krause, Johanna Moser, Eleftheria Xenikaki) and Sina Kamala, klo:lektiv (Sabine Bongers-Römer, Katharina Ciax, Martine Kayser), Leibniz-Institut für Gemüse- und Zierpflanzenbau (Stefan Karlowsky), NetSan, P2GreeN, urin*all (Leonie Roth, Luisa Tschumi), VaLoo —

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Organisation Team SUMMACUMFEMMER / BÜRO JULIANE GREB: Yngvild Faeroy, Marie-Louise Greb, Anna Hugot, Beatrice Koch, Vittorio Romieri, Felix Schaller Team ARCH+: Elke Doppelbauer, Nora Dünser, Mirko Gatti, Felix Hofmann, Sascha Kellermann, Markus Krieger, Daniel Kuhnert, Nikolaus Kuhnert, Arno Löbbecke, Victor Lortie, Alex Nehmer, Barbara Schindler, Finn Steffens Graphic Design Stan Hema, Peer Hempel, Niki Moreira, André van Rueth, Thomas Spieler, Daniela Vogel Lithography max-color (Tobias Hoesl) Contact Architect cfk Architetti (Clemens Kusch, Martin Weigert), Bureau N Programme Partners Goethe-Institut, Sto-Stiftung, AIT-Dialog With the Support of Volkswagen Group Albrecht Jung GmbH & Co. KG, Equitone, VHV x Hand schafft Wert Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development, Building and Housing Agrob Buchtal GmbH, Heidehof Stiftung, n.b.k. Euroboden Architekturkultur, New Tendency BRLO GmbH, caspar, competitiononline Verlags GmbH, HAROLD’S Lederwaren GmbH, JOANES Stiftung, J. MAYER H. and Partners, mai public relations GmbH, ROBERTNEUN™, Schnitzer& GmbH

Open for Maintenance – Wegen Umbau geöffnet 47

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Dancing Before the Moon

Biennale Architettura 2023

Great Britain

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This exhibition advocates rituals as a form of spatial practice, celebrating their unique ability to organise, transform, and create space. When spaces are not designed to accommodate certain behaviours, cultures, or traditions, rituals can become powerful, disruptive tools for facilitating occupation and supporting different lived realities. Journeying through this pavilion, you will encounter a series of newly commissioned works designed by six UK-based artists and architects: Yussef Agbo-Ola, Madhav Kidao, Sandra Poulson, Mac Collins, Shawanda Corbett, and Jayden Ali. Through material investigation and making, these works reflect everyday rituals and practices from different global settings and cultural contexts, from ephemeral rituals within Yoruba and Cherokee communities to Hindu and Buddhist philosophies of destruction and reincarnation, cleansing rituals in Luanda, Jamaican-style dominoes in the British Midlands, healing spiritual traditions in the American South, and the hybrid familial influences of Cypriot outdoor cooking and Trinidadian steelpan drumming in London. In their own ways, these rituals resist governing powers and create space for multiple perspectives. Collectively, these works capture how people in different cultures make sense of their world through ritualistic acts. Transcending time and place, they reflect the ancestral practices and homelands of the artists and contemplate their legacies in African, Caribbean, and South Asian diasporas in Britain. As ‘spatial portals’, these works rethink the past and imagine alternative futures where architecture is agile and communities are bound together by social (rather than economic) practices. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Sevra Davis, Director of Architecture Design and Fashion at the British Council Curators Jayden Ali Joseph Henry Meneesha Kellay Sumitra Upham Participants Yussef Agbo-Ola Jayden Ali Mac Collins Shawanda Corbett Madhav Kidao Sandra Poulson

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With Kind Assistance from AKT II BFI National Archive JACK ARTS The Dalmore Commissioned by British Council Production Management and Installation M+B Studio Visual Identity TEMPLO

Organisation British Council Exhibition Design JA Projects With the Support of Gold Partners Therme Group Patron Paul Karakusevic Associate Ebele Okobi Fellowship Programme Partners Anglia Ruskin University Arts University Plymouth Beyond The Box Consultants CIC Birkbeck University of London Coventry University Crafts Council Dartington Arts School / Dartington Trust London Metropolitan University Loughborough University Manchester Metropolitan University Middlesex University Saqqra Ltd. SOAS University of London Ulster University University of Exeter University of Leicester University of Liverpool University of the West of England

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Biennale Architettura 2023

Greece Arriving in Greece by plane we fly over extensive, mountainous, sparsely populated areas. More frequently than expected, large reflective water surfaces meander across the rugged terrain, mostly artificial water reservoirs. Travelling by car, the sudden calmness of their undulating surface or the eerie sound of an overflowing dam surprise us round a bend of the winding road. For each artificial reservoir a considerable extent of land is submerged, along with its pastures, crops, roads, and bridges, as well as sometimes houses, churches, and even entire settlements. At the same time, a new ecosystem is launched where nature, human activity, and habitation are re-networked in new, often unexpected ways. The Hellenic territory has been shaped, since the tenth century at least, to a large extent by a series of catastrophic or creative anthropogenic interventions, such as extensive overgrazing and desertification, or the incredibly pervasive construction of stone walls that retain the scarce arable soil and rainwater. After the establishment of the modern Greek state, and with great intensity after 1950, large and medium-sized water reservoirs as well as drainage, irrigation, water supply, and hydroelectric projects constitute a support system for agricultural production and all kinds of human activity. It is a fundamental transformation of the land where a new hydro-geological map of the country is essentially invented, constructed, and operationalised. It is a process of national scope with an immeasurable spatial, environmental, and anthropological footprint over time, an emblematic confirmation of the Anthropocene era. Bodies of Water addresses this evolving geological construct, a distillation of collective toil and concern for amelioration. It investigates and presents the problematic existence of these bodies and their technical works as a laboratory of the future. The main exhibition objects are threedimensional glass scale models of the ground footprint – the bed – of important water volumes throughout the country, representing the sloping ground by means of elevational contours. They are suspended by cables or strings and float at various heights, depending on their actual altitude in the country. On the floor, wooden scale models of major dams, fused with their contiguous land masses, present themselves as retroactive collective architectural elements, while the surrounding wall surfaces are arrayed with drawings of a complete collection of Greece’s major water reservoirs along with a collection of historic and current related photographs. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Efthymios Bakogiannis, General Secretary of Spatial Planning and Urban Environment Curators Costis Paniyiris Andreas Nikolovgenis Curatorial Team Members Kostas Apostolidis Spyros Karakostas Matoula Kroustalli Evita Marioglou Marianthi Chimariou Mary Pantazi Evi Tarantili Collaborators Elias Cosindas Dimitris Karageorgos Philippos Theocharidis Marinos Kolokotsas / Nowhere Studio Vasilis Kalisperakis Fotini Adrimi / lost minute studio Vangelis Brachos Alexandros Papadopoulos / papercuts Theodora Papadopoulou Mina Mantzari / luun Dimitra Efkolidou Eirini Sapka Consultants Prodromos Papadopoulos / DOMa Nikoletta Tsitsanoudis-Mallidis Dimitris Kourkoumelis Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos Antonis Zacharopoulos, Nikos Soulis

Bodies of Water 51

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Biennale Architettura 2023

Grenada

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As a Caribbean Island, once at the centre of the transatlantic slave trade, Grenada welcomes the concepts expressed by Lesley Lokko, curator of this year’s Biennale, and presents a project that highlights the legacy of this forced migration, the cultural plurality that characterises its cultural traditions. Asking itself how to participate in the collective workshop of the Biennale Architettura, Grenada has decided to present a group project focused on the construction and use of traditional wooden boats. By the very history of the island, the activity of building boats has its roots in the confluence of knowledge and memories from different origins, from the indigenous people, the Kalinago, from Scotland, from Africa, from the creolisation of many, handed down and improved in collaborative work units such as workshops. Imagining, designing, building, and launching a boat is also ‘architectural’ work, understood as the ability to transform the visions, plans, and examples born from the knowledge and skills of previous generations into new objects, solid and real, capable of facing the depths and uncertainties of the sea. The curator will address the problem of climate change – and the changes it causes – from an unprecedented point of view. A ‘Crew’ will introduce this issue with performances, installations, and short videos. And, finally, the Caribbean island and the city of Venice hosting the pavilion will be able to share their experiences about the wooden boats, a persistent and tangible visual element of both cultures, and to weave a dialogue about a real risk they both run: that the knowledge, memory, and skills behind the construction of these inspiring artefacts will disappear in the future. — Luisa Flora Participating Countries

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Commissioner Susan Mains Ministry of Culture Curator Luisa Flora Participants The Crew: Fredericka Adam, Alexis Andrews, Associazione Vela al Terzo members, Sarah Baker, James Douglas, Alwyn Enoe, Melinda Hughes, Asher Mains, Massimo Marchiori (aka Stari Ribar), Everton Peterss The Flotilla: contributors from China, Dominican Republic, Barbados, Grenada With the Support of Associazione Vela al Terzo ASD Grenada Arts Council Grenada Tourism Authority Grenada Enterprises Group The Mermaid Hotel in Carriacou Susan Valentine, Carriacou Art and Soul Gallery Art House 473 Act: Art and Design Century 21 Insurance Consultants Grenada Ltd. Laluna Boutique Hotel and Villas McGuinness Foundation Andcosta CandC architettura ingegneria Venice Documentation Project MareVivo - Delegazione Veneto Christine Breghy Denis Mirlesse

Walking on Water 53

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Studio Albori, Sketch, 2023. Courtesy Studio Albori Álvaro Siza, O Encontro, 2023. Sketch. Courtesy Álvaro Siza

Biennale Architettura 2023

Holy See

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Taking care of the planet as we take care of ourselves and celebrating the culture of encounter are the teachings of the Holy Father, which, through his encyclicals Laudato si’ (2015) and Fratelli tutti (2020), guide the exhibition in the Holy See pavilion at the Benedictine Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. The Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza (Pritzker Prize, 1992), an indisputably renowned figure in the artistic and architectural scene, and the Italian collective Studio Albori (Emanuele Almagioni, Giacomo Borella, and Francesca Riva), whose multidisciplinary practice develops projects that mix architecture activities with participatory and ecological processes, were invited to represent the Holy See pavilion. The installation at the Benedictine Abbey – a response to the theme The Laboratory of the Future – is the end result of an encounter between the Holy Father’s encyclicals, a select group of architects, and a series of technical contributions. The exhibition develops inside the Benedictine Abbey: from the entrance rooms that face the Giudecca Channel, through the Manica Lunga gallery and the rooms that open onto the garden, to the garden itself. The installation O Encontro by Álvaro Siza welcomes and leads the visitor, who dialogues with the pieces designed by the maestro, outside, with a new layout, which has been specially designed so that it can be used in the future: the garden design by Studio Albori. This space will be open to external visitors. The new layout of pathways between the vegetable gardens, the chicken coop, and the rest, sharing, and contemplation areas, are the backdrop that describes the daily life of the monastery, opening up the possibility of a dialogue with those who visit and use the spaces. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See Curator Roberto Cremascoli Participants Álvaro Siza Studio Albori Emanuele Almagioni, Giacomo Borella, Francesca Riva Scientific Project Mirko Zardini Coordination COR arquitectos Roberto Cremascoli, Edison Okumura, Marta Rodrigues Production Flavia Chiavaroli

Social Friendship: Meeting in the Garden 55

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Biennale Architettura 2023

The focal point of our exhibition is the new building of the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest as an architectural piece itself. The building – designed by Marcel Ferencz (Napur Architect) – was completed in 2022 after being selected in an international design competition as a part of the Liget Budapest Project, one of Europe’s grandest urban development programmes. The project includes buildings such as the House of Music Hungary (Sou Fujimoto), and the New National Gallery, designed by SANAA, which is currently under construction. The two wings of the Museum of Ethnography evoke an imaginary circle with a diameter of one kilometre, and the surface of the building expands into a rooftop garden of more than 7,000 square metres. What we see is not merely a perfect slice of a circle but also a gateway between the natural landscape of the renewed City Park and the pulsating city life. The architect emphasised this function of conveyance and transmission through the embellishment of the metal shading lattice which envelopes the façade of the building, adorning it with contemporary transcriptions of the ornamental patterns used by the various traditions and cultures displayed and preserved in the museum. Counting nearly half a million pixels, the façade ornamentation symbolises the unparalleled richness of the Museum of Ethnography’s collection as an interwoven tapestry of Hungarian and worldwide culture. This building is the first home of this long-established institution with 150 years of history, which has been specifically designed to accommodate the museum’s purposes. The exhibition presents the new building, its ornamentation, the museum’s collection and contemplates the culmination of these elements observing the overall artistic relationship that connects this piece of architecture with music and light. The music is present in the exhibition as an object in the form of a new contemporary instrument – the Soundcylinder, designed for the exhibition by architect and composer Péter Mátrai – which condenses and expresses the history of music as an instrument and a musical motif, which makes the relationship between the building and the music audible. Reziduum is an interactive exhibition; a sound, light, and space installation that attempts to create a representation of cultural memory where different cultural layers become transparent through examining historical artefacts, the new building, and its urban context as well as contemporary music. — Mária Kondor-Szilágyi Participating Countries

Hungary

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Commissioner Julia Fabényi Curator Mária Kondor-Szilágyi Participants Marcel Ferencz Ferenc Haász Péter Mátrai Judit Z. Halmágyi Organiser Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest Graphic Design Zsombor Kiss Project Coordination Géza Boros Anna Bálványos Zsigmond Lakó Technical Manager Béla Bodor Communication Zsuzsanna Fehér Gabriella Rothman Professional Partner Museum of Ethnography, Budapest With the Support of Hungarian Ministry of Culture and Innovation Liget Budapest Project

Reziduum – The Frequency of Architecture 57

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Biennale Architettura 2023

Ireland

“But remember that words are signals, counters. They are not immortal. And it can happen – to use an image you’ll understand – it can happen that a civilisation can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of... fact.” Brian Friel, Translations The time of endless expansion, extraction, and exploitation has passed. In order to escape the gravity of the familiar, these now redundant modalities of living, we must decolonise our minds and configure new ways of conceptualising and inhabiting the world. Travelling along the tangible or intangible threads of the forgotten, the overlooked, and the yet unknown can lead us to new vistas. Visceral encounters that are the seed, root, and branch of new stories. “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues In Search of Hy-Brasil derives from an intense engagement with the islands of Ireland and is a direct provocation to all of us to reimagine the vast combined territory of land and ocean we call our ‘home’. Geographically remote and mainly peripheral to contemporary discourse, our islands are by necessity robust, resilient, and inventive places. They have long been a significant crucible for language, music, and song bound up with lived experience and support a rich and unique biodiversity. Their small communities, existing on the margins of viability, have embedded in their social order and cultural memory a deep knowledge and understanding of the ocean, land, and resource management. They’ve long thrived successfully and creatively with less while building and nurturing a rich and complex ecology. We are an island nation facing an uncertain future. The challenges of climate change, renewable energy, ethical food production, and biodiversity must be met quickly, with purpose. In making this adjustment, our islands’ inventiveness in the face of adversity and creativity in response to having less provides us with the necessary tools and narratives to inspire more sustainable ways of living. Ireland’s national pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2023 puts our islands’ diverse communities, culture, and experiences right at the centre of the discourse surrounding our shared future. The installation offers an immersive experience that shifts between the local and the territorial, the micro and the macro, to make explicit the implicit intelligence of these most remarkable of places. — Hy-Brasil Participating Countries

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Commissioner Culture Ireland Curators Peter Carroll Peter Cody Elizabeth Hatz Mary Laheen Joseph Mackey Participant Hy-Brasil Collaborators A2 Architects Coláiste Naomh Eoin, Inis Meáin Cushendale Woollen Mills Fiona Ní Ghloinn Hanneke & Stefan Frenkel Harry Keenan, Timothy Mills, Kevin Quinlan Infomar IUAV Mairéad Ní Fhatharta Muintir Inis Meáin Nicholas Allen One-Off Design Red Pepper Productions The Royal Irish Academy UCD Building Laboratory Production BH Audio Cody Fabrications and Design Dan Welldon Diego Carpentiero Firestation Artists’ Studios Inspirational Arts Kavanagh Lighting McKeon Stone Monarú Phideas Stone Raygun TG4 The Office of Public Works Thomas Ferguson Irish Linen Vinehall

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Installer Space Forms Graphic Design Peter Maybury Communication Caro Communications With the Support of Culture Ireland The Arts Council of Ireland Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media Cardinal Capital University College Dublin University of Limerick Cork Centre for Architectural Education The Office of Public Works The Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland Kavanagh Lighting TG4 National Irish Language Public Service Broadcaster PricewaterhouseCoopers Infomar Techrete Galway Co. Council Kerry Co. Council Mayo Co. Council

In Search of Hy-Brasil 59

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Oren Eldar, Blue-Raman Fiber Optic Cable Landmark, 2023. Colour print. Courtesy the Artist Edith Kofsky, Laying of the Blue Raman Cable, 2023. Colour print. Courtesy the Artist

Biennale Architettura 2023

Israel The Israeli pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2023 has been sealed up. The modern 1952 building, which usually welcomes visitors through its glass façade, is now opaque, dark, and uncanny. The act of closure alludes to the physical nature of modern communication networks and the technological cloud: data centres and telephone exchange structures – commonly referred to as ‘black boxes’ – connected by a vast network of cables, overland, underground, and underwater. The relative lack of architectural attention to these infrastructures contrasts directly with the significant role that communication infrastructure buildings have played throughout the twentieth century, and the great efforts invested in the planning of the national telecommunication hubs as part of the nation-building project in Israel. By examining the rapid changes these informational infrastructures have undergone over the years, the exhibition sheds light on the economic and geopolitical processes currently underway in Israel and the region. Israel, in this regard, presents a unique case. Its strategic location as a passageway between continents, in addition to the importance of its land to the three monotheistic religions, have turned it into a historical battleground. Since the formation of the state in 1948, however, it has become a quasiisland and has remained within a fragile equilibrium. Today, this relative stability is undermined by a new optic cable laid by Google, set to bypass Egypt en route from India to Europe, reviving the ancient merchant roads which passed through this land. Meanwhile, in central Israel, both Google and Amazon are building data centres for Israel’s new government cloud project, Nimbus, turning Israel into a cloud region competitive with similar endeavours in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The exhibition reflects this dynamic, while incorporating histories of the Middle East, recent developments in global technology, and the shifting power structures they implement. Focusing on the transition from sound to light, it extends as an immersive installation, examining the shift from analogue to digital communication, from citycentred accessible buildings to sealed structures in peripheral locations, and from a direct to a decentralised connectivity: the hardware of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. — Oren Eldar, Edith Kofsky, Hadas Maor Participating Countries

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Commissioners Michael Gov Arad Turgeman Curators Oren Eldar Edith Kofsky Hadas Maor Participants Oren Eldar Edith Kofsky Daniel Meir Organisation The Israel Ministry of Culture and Sports The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Collaborator The Israel Lottery Council for Culture & Arts With the Support of Outset Contemporary Art Fund

cloud-to-ground 61

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Italy —

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Commissioner Onofrio Cutaia, Director-General for Contemporary Creativity – Ministry of Culture Curators Fosbury Architecture

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Gennaro Sangiuliano, Minister of Culture Under Secretaries of State Lucia Borgonzoni Gianmarco Mazzi Vittorio Sgarbi Chief of Staff Francesco Gilioli Head of Press Office and Communication Andrea Petrella

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Onofrio Cutaia, Director-General Unit 1 - Cultural and Creative Industries, Fashion and Design Director: Maria Luisa Amante Unit 2 / 5 - Contemporary Art / Photography Director: Fabio De Chirico Unit 3 / 4 - Contemporary Architecture / Peripheries and Urban Regeneration Director: Maria Vittoria Marini Clarelli General Coordination Luciano Antonino Scuderi Technical-Scientific Area Patrizia Cavalieri Eliana Garofalo Simona Gervasio Caterina Tantillo Director-General Staff Eva Barrera Sara Airò Secretariat Roberta Gaglione Support Staff Chiara Francesconi Antonella Lucarelli Claudia Vitiello Administrative Area Graziella D’Urso Communication and Press Office Silvia Barbarotta Francesca Galasso

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Commissioner Onofrio Cutaia Curators Fosbury Architecture Curators’ Assistants Lorenzo Cellini Valeria Cesti General Organisation and Institutional Relations Chiara Bordin Communication Strategy P:S Visual Identity & Digital Giga Design Studio Press Office Lara Facco P&C

SPAZIALE. Everyone Belongs to Everyone Else Participating Countries

Biennale Architettura 2023

Illustrating the theme chosen for the Biennale Architettura 2023, The Laboratory of the Future, curator Lesley Lokko posed the question of “discipline’s relevance to this world — and the world to come”. The response of the Fosbury Architecture group, which has been entrusted with the exhibition project of the Italian Pavilion 2023, is summed up in the adjective chosen as the title, SPAZIALE, where space is understood to mean not so much the built environment but the network of relationships that allow one to physically settle in the present. These are relationships involving the body, the environment, the landscape, physical and political geography, education and recreation, and cultural heritage in its material and immaterial survival. The bet for the future, according to Fosbury Architecture curators, is therefore no longer authorship, the individual sign, but participatory and transdisciplinary design. Thus Fosbury Architecture has chosen – as stated in the subtitle Everyone Belongs to Everyone Else – to share the contents of the exhibition with nine other designers under the age of forty, who in the months leading up to the opening have activated as many ‘stations’ on the Italian territory. What emerges is a picture in which spatial relations do not hide pathologies and distortions, because it would be unrealistic to talk about architecture today regardless of environmental emergency or intercultural tensions, but also show possibilities for new syntheses. After all, sensitivity to the spatial component is generally considered a specificity of the Italian approach to the visual arts even in their intersections, as the history of twentieth-century movements, from Futurism to Spatialism and Arte Povera, shows. It is no coincidence that in the Italian language, openness to others is rendered by expressions such as ‘make space’, in the sense of welcoming, and ‘give space’, in the sense of allowing someone to participate. Both can figure among the key words of The Laboratory of the Future. — Onofrio Cutaia Commissioner of the Italian Pavilion 2023 Director-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture Participating Countries

Biennale Architettura 2023

Like any ephemeral event of this magnitude, an exhibition is by its very nature a process that dissipates a great deal of energy, raw materials, and economic resources. While this is clearly necessary to celebrate moments of confrontation and contamination, it is also essential to drastically rethink its horizons. With the aim of transforming consumption into investment and the end into a beginning, SPAZIALE foresees a three-pronged approach: SPAZIALE presenta, an observatory on nine site-specific actions staged throughout Italy and promoted thanks to the support of the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture; SPAZIALE. Everyone Belongs to Everyone Else, which as part of the Italian Pavilion, embodies the formal and theoretical synthesis of processes triggered elsewhere; and, finally, the SPAZIALE platform itself, to be launched after the inauguration as an incremental workshop over a dilated timespan. ‘Space’ in this sense is viewed as a landscape of potentialities, a field of action for an unprecedented array of players, in the attempt to shift back the boundaries of architecture, trigger collaborative processes, address the challenges of the contemporary sphere, and generate antibodies to fight disillusionment. The agenda defines nine urgent themes for the transition which is not only ecological but is also that of the discipline itself. This is what guided us in the selection of nine designers under the age of forty – representative of a generation that has grown up in a context of ‘permanent crisis’ – identified on the basis of the attitude with which they engage, the means they adopt, the questions they raise, and the answers they come up with. Each practice is coupled with an advisor, a figure of excellence from various areas of the creative industry, capable of informing and enhancing the projects as they unfold. The installations are staged in nine sites, each in some way emblematic of a state of fragility or of transformation in our country. Each action was supported by public or private institutions that actively contribute to the local community of the pioneer projects and to which their fate will be entrusted. — Fosbury Architecture Curators, Padiglione Italia 2023 Participating Countries

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Collecting ceramic pieces by the shore in Tokoname, 2023. Photo Yuma Harada. © Futoshi Mizuno Exploring textile visualising wind and light, 2022. © Akane Moriyama

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Biennale Architettura 2023

Japan

Even after the pandemic, when the importance of coexistence is reconsidered, faceless developments continue to overtake the city, a homogeneously managed and endlessly reproduced space. In such a world, do we have grounds to believe that architecture is loved today? “The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference”, they say. In today’s world, people seem to have lost interest in the cities and architecture that surround us. How can we find amazement in architecture, find joy in a shared place? Architecture, a place to be loved, could refer to something other than a building. When we see a polished wooden handrail, we can imagine how much a building has been used. When we visit a brewery where delicious miso or soy sauce is made, we can feel the potential of architecture from the living fungi on walls and beams, sensing that architecture also means something to invisible living organisms. In a village of thatched-roof dwellings, the scenery of mountains behind and the residents’ way of life are inextricably connected to the houses. Architecture with aroma and a pleasant touch engages all our senses and makes us feel at ease. When a place is constantly being retouched, with furniture and objects that fill the architecture, ‘to create’ and ‘to use’ become one, emanating richness and power. In other words, a place to love is possible when the architecture encompasses the memories and stories engraved and embodies the backdrop and the activities that took place, giving the architecture a broader meaning. It is also possible to perceive architecture as a living creature, rather than an entity separate from nature. When we love our children, we cannot measure their uniqueness by their roles or abilities. Similarly, when we see architecture as a living creature, we do not measure its existence by its function and performance. Instead, we love and take care of it, accepting all its flaws and its parts that are unfinished, nurturing it to grow with us. The members of our team have many different specialties: textiles, ceramics, photography, design, editing, and architecture. We believe a place to be loved starts from the act of loving architecture, and through Takamasa Yoshizaka’s Japanese pavilion we create a spatial experience that invites visitors to think about architecture as a place to be loved. Participating Countries

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Commissioner The Japan Foundation Curator Maki Onishi Participants Toshikatsu Ienari, Wataru Doi, Ai Ikeda, Keiko Miyachi (dot architects) Akane Moriyama Futoshi Mizuno Deputy Curator Yuki Hyakuda Curatorial Team Tomomi Tada Yuma Harada Collaborators Yurika Kono Shiho Eika, Makoto Furusawa, Kotaro Igo o+h Dai Nagae, Chiaki Hanyu MUESUM Megumi Takahashi, Yuka Tsuda UMA / design farm Kazuki Imai Mizuno Seitoen Lab. Ryohei Yoshiyuki Ryohei Yoshiyuki to Job Yuji Okazaki Atelier Tuareg Masanobu Ito Shinko Industry Naoki Kasahara Kasahara Hosohaba Orimono Norihiko Ikeda, Tatsushi Heguri Taiyo Kogyo Corporation Yoshiyuki Hiraiwa André Raimundo Yoshioki Mizuno Mizuno Seitoen Yosuke Taki Julia Li Tanpopo-no-ye Yokohama National University

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With the Special Support of Ishibashi Foundation With the Support of Motherhouse Sankyo Tateyama Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects Karimoku Nagoya Mosaic-Tile S&R Evermay / Sachiko Kuno Philanthropic Endowment Shelter Kajima Corporation Ohnishi Netsugaku Tajima Roofing Takenaka Corporation Amame Associate Japan Daiko Electric Phoenixi Taihei Building Service Corporation Ishikawa Construction Industry Voce Yokohama National University Yokohama Graduate School of Architecture In Collaboration with Taiyo Kogyo Corporation

Architecture, a Place to Be Loved — When Architecture Is Seen as a Living Creature 69

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N H D M Architects, Measure Island, 2023. Digital print on paper, 91 × 61 cm. Courtesy N H D M Architects. © N H D M Architects

Biennale Architettura 2023

Republic of Korea 2086: Together How? is an exhibition that wonders how we could work together to endure current and future environmental crises and how to imagine an ecocultural revolution through critical reassessment of our anthropocentric legacy. Hence, it starts with the historical conditions and future potential, until the supposed peak year of the global population, in three small communities in South Korea. Located in a global city, a small city, and a village, these communities constitute a cross section of urbanisation, modernisation, and westernisation in South Korea. They are presented though research and design collaboration between architects and local community leaders, which is guided by a set of dialectics that have shaped these communities, such as urban/rural, global/local, individualism/communalism, capitalism/socialism, anthropocentrism/biocentrism, and spiritualism/ materialism. Central to the exhibition is a participatory game that will invite audiences to make decisions in current and future ecocultural scenarios. Their choices are registered on an oversized scoreboard comprising hundreds of light bulbs, which visualizes how the players are cooperating or competing and whether they are resolving or furthering the environmental crisis. The dialectical text on the scoreboard helps the players to understand how their choices relate to our anthropocentric legacy, which has shaped the world’s environmental crises. Fictional videos help the players to imagine future ecocultural possibilities. The daily results of the game are translated into numbers that represent global temperatures, sea level, CO2, global migration, Gini coefficients, and others. These numbers measure the impact that the players’ choices will have on future environmental and socioeconomic changes. Instead of using climatic data to pretend that the problem is all around us and not within us, the exhibition loops the data back to our Faustian ideology of progress and individualism and how we have sought unlimited material pleasure through industrialisation, colonisation, and globalisation. 2086 argues that not only will the environmental crisis force us to change, but it will also be our only chance to make a better ecocultural paradigm for the future. If we do not, then we, the most predatory organisms on earth, may well deserve an extinction. — Kyong Park Participating Countries

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Commissioner Arts Council Korea Curators Soik Jung Kyong Park Participants Soik Jung, Kyong Park Yehre Suh (Urban Terrains Lab, UTL) x WoonGi Min Yerin Kang (Seoul National University), Lee Chi-hoon (SoA) x Zoosun Yoon (Chungnam National University, UDTT lab.), Ahram Chae (Studio UDTT) Nahyun Hwang, David Eugin Moon (N H D M) x Wolsik Kim Jaekyung Jung Sunhee Yang (Gute form), Chris Ro (A Dear Friend) Our Labour Artists of “Together How Game” Soik Jung Kyong Park Assistant Curators Kim Yuran (Secretary General) Han Dabin Collaborators East Incheon Team: Ara Song (UTL), Haein Choi (UTL) / Naomi, Kim Soo Hwan, Beck In Tae, Oh Suk Kuhn Gunsan Team: Hyoeun Kim (SoA), Jennifer Park (SoA), Chae Young Lee (SoA), Mingyu Lee (SoA) / TechCapsule, Sungjae Son, Studio Texture on Texture, Jongbuhm Kim, Z-bang Co., Ltd. / Supported by Gunsan-Si, Commonz Field Gunsan, Ministry of the Interior and Safety Gyeonggi-Do Village Team: Myungju Ko (N H D M), Hyung Chul Ko (N H D M), Chaewon Kim (N H D M), Helen Ilse Adelheid Winter (N H D M) / Milan Shrestha, Youngkyun Park, Sange Sherpa / Supported by Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Video Team: Jihye Park, Tae Hyung Kim (Nalsea) Zava (Lighting Engineer, Supplier)

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Pavilion Manager and Construction Supervisor Eun Jeong Kim Local Project Manager Marco Scurati Production and Installation Our Labour Falegnameria Vianello di Vianello Nicola Enrico Wiltsch (AV), Dario Sevieri (AV) Maurizio Baston Raoul Girotto With the Support of Woori Bank Zava LG Electronics Samsung Foundation of Culture MCM University of California, San Diego, Academic Senate

2086: Together How? 71

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Exhibition visualisation

Biennale Architettura 2023

Republic of Kosovo Migration has played a significant role in Kosovo’s social development up to the present day. It is often characterised by the concept of translocality: a co-presence of a person, household, or family in several places, sustained by connections, communication, and the transfer of information, material, and immaterial goods. In the course of the tense political situation and an ever-worsening marginalisation of the Albanian population, hundreds of thousands of people sought refuge and protection abroad. During this wave of conflict- and war-related migration between the late 1980s and the late 1990s, people fleeing found a temporary home mainly in OECD countries, regulated in the form of a residence permit as politically persecuted persons. This legal status did not provide for a return to the homeland until the reason for flight had been resolved and lifted. For many refugees, this represented a state of waiting and lingering, because the reason for migration was imposed from the outside. The perceived locality of this migration group is the starting point for a spatial-philosophical concept: transcendent locality. Transcendence implies the process of crossing a boundary that separates two fundamentally different spheres. For the individuals living in migration, not being able to return to their homeland for an indefinite period represented a deep caesura in their lives. This had the consequence that, on the one hand, the migrated individuals managed in the host country: daily life went on and they were physically present. Emotional presence was a different matter: because of the conflict, attention and thoughts were turned to the abandoned homeland, often fears and insecurities did not give the individual a chance to settle in the host country, leaving them in an intermediate state of suspension. In this intermediate state, the boundaries between the immanent being in the now and the transcendent being in the mind blur – the migrated individual find themselves in a transcendent place. The project questions the influence that transcendent locality can have on immanent being in the short and long term. The way it affects architecture and urban planning can be observed very well in Kosovo, as well as in many other places in the world. The aim is to investigate these phenomena and encourage reflection and critical discussion on them. — Poliksen Qorri-Dragaj, Hamdi Qorri Participating Countries

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Commissioner Dafina Morina Participants Poliksen Qorri-Dragaj Hamdi Qorri Collaborators Marcia Singer Lisa Brandstetter Zymryte Hoxhaj Producer Engjëll Berisha Visual Identity Jetë Dobrunja Local PR Simon Kurti International PR Nadia Fatnassi Kathrin Luz

rks² | transcendent locality 73

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Naser Ashour, Decolonisation of Kuwait and Ahmadi, 2023. Multi-media collage, 50 × 50 cm. NCCAL, BP Archive

Biennale Architettura 2023

Kuwait

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The fabric of Kuwait City was once a field of organically aggregating structures interlaced with various scales of openness. Courtyard houses were connected by a network of paths with public courts that disrupted their density, creating platforms for cultural, political, and economic exchange. Once the home of numerous aspects of Kuwaiti civil life, the walled city was mostly eradicated to make way for modernisation. A new heritage was born, creating a new landscape of modern structures designed by significant international and regional architects of that era dissociated from its indigenous origins. The Kuwait pavilion is rethinking urban planning processes through rethinking transportation, walkability, and accessibility. The experiment started as a response to various foreign master planning efforts for Kuwait. The project’s focus is to improve the human scale of the city by enhancing urban transitional and interstitial spaces as well as prioritising mass transit over individual vehicular modes of travel. The process looks at an approach to urban planning that explores a top-down macroscale simultaneously with a bottom-up microscale keeping the human experience and scale critical for the new plan. The interconnectivity of the city’s historic fabric is revisited through various scales of urban interventions, resulting in a new network of connectivity that forms multiple modes of transportation culminating on the human scale. The project’s title reflects the process of rethinking as an effort to decolonise architectural discourse; Rethinking Rethinking emerges as a process for re-evaluating existing processes while moving beyond the colonialist principles and values typically driving the development of architectural projects. The approach examines existing conventions and precedents while allowing room for local forces to generate a new process. History is treated as a spiral rather than a linear timeline, looking for moments of precedent that can inform future development that is otherwise disjointed in a conventional linear workflow. — Rethinking Rethinking Kuwait Team Participating Countries

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Commissioner Abdulaziz Almazeedi Curators Hamad Alkhaleefi Naser Ashour Mohammad Kassem Rabab Raes Kazem Participants Abdulaziz Bazuhair Abdullah Albusaili Abdulrahman Sadeq Aliaa Mahdy Aziz Motawa Bader Al Moulah Batool Ashour Dana Alrashid Fareed Alghimlas Fatima Al Fulaij Hasan Al Saffar Jassim Alelwani Jassim Alnashmi Latifa Al-Hajji Maha Al Asaker Malak Al Suwaihel Maryam Mohammed Mohammed Khesroh Nada Abu-Daqer Noor Abdulkhaleq Nour Jafar Nourah Alazmi Qutaiba Buyabes Sara Al-zeer Sayer Al Sayer Suad Al-Bahar Sultan Alsamhan Vinod Kumar Yasmeen Abdal Zahra Al-Mahdi Zahra Hashim Partners Art Events Reale Società Canottieri Bucintoro

Rethinking Rethinking Kuwait 75

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TC Latvija, 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Latvia

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TCL brings together the ‘products’ of the last ten architecture Biennales, since Latvia’s first participation in NEXT (2002). From then on, numerous architects have been involved and numerous ideas have been produced. The connection between La Biennale (as a ‘supermarket’) and national pavilions (as ‘products’) is an analogy which the Latvian pavilion explores. Find everything for your desires, visions, and needs in TC Latvija’s idea shop, a genuine space where all ideas meet and find place on the same shelf. Welcome to the infinite horizons of shopping shelves. It’s not the products that are important, it’s your decisions that matter. Overwhelming amounts of ideas may be draining, but what if decision making could be fun? The authors request that a part of this process be moved to the Arsenale, emphasising Lesley Lokko’s suggestion that La Biennale itself is the ‘laboratory of the future’.

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Commissioner Jānis Dripe, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia Curators Uldis Jaunzems-Pētersons Ernests Cerbulis Participants Ints Menģelis Toms Kampars Project Manager Austra Bērziņa Architects Toms Kampars Ernests Cerbulis Ints Menģelis Graphic Design Karola Rubene Communications Kalvis Kidals Collaborators The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia DEI ARH architecture office

More ideas More architecture More products The Latvian pavilion offers choice-making as a spatial experience that we encounter every day in commercial structures. Choosing one product over another makes us think. Behind decisions stand the quality or origin of the product, the marketing of the product, the price, and so forth. Some choices are based on individual convictions and a sense of belonging, others on the characteristics and perceived history of the product, adherence to the product category, or the desire to stand out from the product category scene by contrasting with the overall picture. Participating Countries

T/C LATVIJA (TCL) 77

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Fragment of the playscape, 2023. Photo Jonas Žukauskas

Biennale Architettura 2023

Forests are architectural and infrastructural spaces: environments of natural systems governed, exploited, and regulated by human interventions, technologies, industries, institutions, and agencies, but also places of depleting biodiversity. The Lithuanian pavilion is composed as a playscape and conceived to acknowledge the unique approaches of children to observe, draw conclusions, explain the forest, and demand agency in forming it. The Children’s Forest Pavilion brings together works and findings developed in parallel to outdoor activities held with children in the woodlands around Vilnius and the Curonian Spit in Lithuania, as well as areas of old-growth forest in Paljakanvaara in Finland. Guided by environmental educators, activists, artists, architects, and foresters, they were introduced to think of forests as negotiated spaces where no single actor has a central stake. The children learned about ancient forests, primordial swamp landscapes, and long processes of geological formations. On a microscopic scale, they looked at the growth patterns of lichens and explored chemical pollution molecules through augmented reality – creatures they called ‘Ecomonsters’. Timelines helped them to trace the changing environments of the forests and compare the ability of ecosystems to compensate for forestry extractions. A flock of sturdy Skudde sheep that grazed in the woodlands in Dzūkija provided wool for producing soft objects. Children explored sounds made by string instruments that produced reverberations of ancient and living timber and were also invited to be part of a new phenomenon-based learning programme as a way of acquiring forest literacy skills. In the exhibition, they encounter an alphabet of branches of century-old mountain pines, a space with supersized shadows, and computergenerated spores and slime moulds in a myriad of shapes and forms. The pavilion is made using timber from trees grown on the Curonian Spit that has, over several years, been collected to form an archive, in which each tree is marked and dated. Planed, drilled, and packed in the wood workshop in Nida, the timber was transported to a seaport in Marghera, where it then travelled by boat to the pavilion’s location in Campo della Tana in Venice, to be assembled for the exhibition. Combined with film installations, worktables, and play structures, the architectural elements support the research and learning environment of the exhibition. By the end of the Biennale, the installation will be prepared for its return to the woodlands of the Curonian Spit where it will function as a destination for forest walks and environmental education workshops. Participating Countries

Lithuania

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Commissioner Ines Weizman Curators Jurga Daubaraitė Egija Inzule Jonas Žukauskas Participants Aistė Ambrazevičiūtė Ancient Woods Foundation Gabrielė Grigorjevaitė Laura Garbštienė Monika Janulevičiūtė Mustarinda Association Tiina Arjukka Hirvonen, Michaela Casková, Robin Everett, Riitta [Nyyskä] Nykänen Mantas Peteraitis School of Creativity Kristupas Sabolius New Academy Nene Tsuboi, Tuomas Toivonen Urbonas Studio Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas Kornelija Žalpytė

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Graphic Design Monika Janulevičiūtė Video Production Eitvydas Doškus Elis Hannikainen Video Editing Ignė Narbutaitė Lighting Martynas Kazimierėnas Organisation Neringa Forest Architecture Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts With the Support of Neringa Municipality Nordic Culture Point Lithuanian Council for Culture Thanks to All the children, educators, and schools who participated in workshops in Lithuania and Finland

Coordinator Dovilė Lapinskaitė Architecture Jonas Žukauskas in collaboration with Antanas Gerlikas Jurgis Paškevičius Anton Shramkov

Children’s Forest Pavilion 79

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SnT University of Luxembourg, LunaLab, training robots for space mining, Luxembourg, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Vistamare Milano / Pescara. © Armin Linke 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Grand Duchy of Luxembourg From the development of human settlements on the Moon to the asteroid mining of rare minerals and metals, the wild imaginaries of extractiondriven growth have, quite literally, transcended the boundaries of the Earth. This displacement of resource exploitation from the exhausted Earth to its ‘invisible’ backstages – celestial bodies, planets, and, ultimately, the Moon itself – calls for an urgent debate on the impact this shift will have on our understanding of land, resources, and the commons. Down to Earth critically unpacks the project of space mining through the perspective of resources. It starts from the following questions: how does this new iteration of the space race, wrapped in the false promises of endlessly available resources, depart from the existing extractivist logic of capitalism and its destructive environmental and social effects on the ground? How will the ongoing privatisation of space, characterised by a sharp turn towards private companies as main actors in the exploitation of space resources, affect the current status of extraterrestrial bodies as a form of ‘planetary commons’? What are the materialities of space mining – its logistics, technologies, infrastructures, and workers – and their relationship to the existing geopolitical power hierarchies? And, finally, how are architects to mediate critically the ramifications of these material fictions, rooted in the existing paradigms of growth? Designed as mock-ups of the Moon’s landscapes, ‘lunar laboratories’ have emerged in recent years as a default feature that many institutions and private companies around the world use as infrastructure for testing different mining technologies. With the speculative economies of the space mining industry relying heavily on the staging of techno-fix narratives and resource-related narratives, it becomes clear that lunar laboratories are far more than spaces meant solely for carrying out scientific experiments, instead playing the role of media studios for the production of imagery of human technologies on the Moon. The exhibition Down to Earth uses the lunar laboratory as a site for unpacking the tech industry’s space exploration narratives. With the space of the pavilion itself turned into a lunar laboratory, a stage where the performance of extraction takes place, Down to Earth focuses on the unveiling of the ‘backstages’ of the space mining project, offering another way of seeing the Moon that goes beyond the current optics of the Anthropocene. Participating Countries

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Commissioners Kultur | lx - Arts Council Luxembourg Luca — Luxembourg Center for Architecture, on behalf of Ministry of Culture Curators Francelle Cane Marija Marić Participants Francelle Cane, Marija Marić in collaboration with Armin Linke and Lev Bratishenko with the contributions of Jane Mah Hutton, Anastasia Kubrak, Amelin Ng, Bethany Rigby, and Fred Scharmen Thanks to Master in Architecture, University of Luxembourg

Down to Earth 81

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Model of the exhibition, scale 1:15 Model of the exhibition, scale 1:15

Biennale Architettura 2023

Republic of North Macedonia

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The Summer School of Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture, Saints Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, was held within the Monastery of Saint Joakim Osogovski from 1992 to 2017. During this period, the Summer School was a collaborative effort by all of its participants, including students, teachers, guests, and support staff, who were actively engaged in it from the end of June to the beginning of July each year. The monastery is located at the foot of the Osogovo Mountains. The spatial morphology of the monastery is atypical for closed monastery fortifications. It is divided in relation to the undulations of the terrain on the different elevation plans, forming a kind of open node that collects the natural flows of the surrounding area. Thus, the monastery became a gathering place for many visitors from the east and the west, from the north and the south. The Summer School of Architecture has been operating since the 1990s, amidst a period of significant geopolitical turmoil globally and particularly in the Balkans. Despite these disruptions, the school served as a hub of unity, bringing together individuals from diverse regions of the world. The guesthouse of the Monastery of Saint Joakim Osogovski served as a space of unification, an ‘oasis’ of collaboration, creation, and discourse on various concepts, methodologies, and approaches to learning, thinking, and doing. This exhibition aims to provide a documentary basis to our memories, stories, imaginations, and experiences, placed on a common table as objects, photographs, records, drawings – traces of the past for a potential future. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Dita Starova-Qerimi Director of National Gallery of Macedonia Curators Ognen Marina Dimitar Krsteski Aleksandar Petanovski Darko Draganovski Marija Petrova Gordan Petrov Participants Faculty of Architecture, Saints Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje Minas Bakalchev Mitko Hadzi-Pulja Aleksandar Radevski Saša Tasić Dimitar Papasterevski

Stories of the Summer School of Architecture in the Saint Joakim Osogovski Monastery 1992–2017 83

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APRDELESP, Case Study 89 (Mexico Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia), design development (axonometric view – A), 2023. Digital drawing. Courtesy APRDELESP. © APRDELESP Brian Cross, Brian B+ Cross, Ayutla Study, 2021. Digital image. Courtesy Mochilla. © B+

Biennale Architettura 2023

Mexico The Mexico pavilion is an immersive space based on a 1:1 scale fragment of the expanded model of the campesino basketball court, an infrastructure that has become repurposed as a privileged space for poly- and pluri-valent processes of decolonisation in Mexico’s indigenous communities. From the time of their creation as part of the development programmes for agrarian communities executed during the land distributions of Mexico’s 1930s Agrarian Reforms, the campesino basketball court has been an exceptional example of radical transformation and deviation from the prescribed guidelines of centralised developmentalism toward a model of constructivist infrastructure, where a concrete platform, appropriated and converted, becomes the foundation for a contemporary indigenous communalism. Our case study on these basketball courts functions as a laboratory for investigation of the adaptations and transformations that have allowed these spaces to transcend their original purpose, dedicated entirely to recreation and the promotion of sport, and to become instead focal points for the construction of political, social, and cultural processes. The campesino basketball court, conceived as public infrastructure, has thus transformed into a strategic tool for the formation of an alternative system of social organisation exemplified by the communalisms of Mexico’s indigenous peoples. In a sense, the typology of the campesino basketball court is an ideal extension of the logic of twentiethcentury modernism: a concrete slab and two nets suffice to provide a community a multifunctional tool of social organisation. Beyond its prescribed use, the campesino basketball court constitutes a flexible form of public infrastructure. The basketball court functions as the symbolic epicentre for organisation and renewal of communal government. To accommodate these auxiliary uses, the communities often add extra elements, both permanent and temporary, such as catwalks, kiosks, stalls, markets, and tarps, among others. In our field research, we have documented a system for aggregating functionalities where collective processes, social imagination, and forms of direct democracy have subverted the developmentalist typologies of modernisation. The campesino basketball court, repurposed, is much more than the deconstruction of a Western sporting facility: it is the foundational unit of construction upon which indigenous utopias build cultures of resistance. — APRDELESP and Mariana Botey Participating Countries

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Commissioner Diego E. Sapién Muñoz Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura - INBAL Curators APRDELESP and Mariana Botey Organisation Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL) Collaborators Antonio Turok Brian Cross Centro Ecológico Milpa Urbana Delmar Penka Dr. Lakra e+e El Espectro Rojo Elisa Ramírez Castañeda Eunice Adorno Hormigas Bordadoras de Tanivet Jorge Santiago Karla Kaplun Kasser Sánchez Pablo Escoto Luna Patchwork Healing Blanket / La manta de curación Radio Nopal Salvador Amores Sergio Galaz Studio Fabien Cappello Taka Fernández

Infraestructura utópica: la cancha de básquetbol campesina 85

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Duško Miljanić, BK 08 02, 2008. Digital photograph, 100 × 70 cm. Photo Duško Miljanić © dusko.miljanic Duško Miljanić, BK 08 02, 2009. Digital photograph, 100 × 70 cm. Photo Duško Miljanić. © dusko.miljanic

Biennale Architettura 2023

Montenegro

The theme of the presentation of Montenegro at the Biennale Architettura 2023 is set on the wealth of natural resources, heritage, and people whose talent created artefacts of the past of permanent value in the context. The intention is to create an interactive atmosphere and experience that bring architecture and concepts back into the context of Heritage values, and which as such in the near future could open the most valuable topics in the (re)shaping of the Landscape of the Future and, especially, to open and establish creative and free dialogue of the most gifted and most responsible – in the creation of New harmonised paradigms. New motifs in the landscape: this notion implies the generation of a New layer of culture, the activation of the development of all regions of Montenegro through small/large interventions in the natural/urban landscape with the creation of a cultural network of New content and artefacts, including all dislocated locations, through careful treatment, creative proposals, inspired texts, qualitatively and ethically integrated New artefacts in the historical, natural/urban context, up to the creation of a New amalgam of culture and behaviour in the affirmation of existing values, inactivated resources of nature, people, history, and culture. Apart from architects, artists, and experts of various professions, all those interested in the creation of New omni-cultural, multi-ethnic values and positions of Montenegro will participate in the opening of creative dialogues: architectural proposals, competition works, archival material relating to existing places, projects and ideas in written or oral form, conversations, presentations of individuals/teams. Proposals would be based on resources: the context of life and the cradle of identity. The obtained results would represent Mirages visions, brilliant reflections of the climate and people, images of the New. “Creativity means: building on the inherited, accepting, adopting, creating new and better from the old and good” (Goethe). The authors, presenting themselves through the power of visions and their work, will introduce Montenegro through a New Capacity to Understand the Future – From Utopia to Progress. Oscar Wilde believed that progress was the realisation of Utopia, while Le Corbusier said that Utopia is nothing but the reality of tomorrow. — Vladan Stevović, Zoran Lazović Participating Countries

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Commissioner Vladan Stevović Curator Zoran Lazović Participants Ninoslav Mitrić Branislav Milatović Andrija Mugoša Duško Miljanić Branislav Strugar Lazar Pejović Maja Žugić Vlado Lutovac Marko Stjepčević Marko Radonjić Radovan Radoman, Eldin Kabaklija, Jovana Marojević and Milica Jaramaz Darko Radović, Davisi Boontharm and co+re.team Mileta Bojović Luka Skansi Djordje Stojanovic, Milan Katic and Milica Vujovic Petra Čoko, Rok Žnidaršič Goran Ivo Marinovic Nikola Novaković Marija Novaković Srđan Marlović Bratislav Braca Gaković Mustafa Musić Anoe Melliou, Artem Terteryan, Zlatko Nikolic Mladen Maslovar Anđelka Bnin-Bninski Srdjan Tadić, Jelena Vlaović, Aleksandra Saša Vukićević, Anja Tadić, Bojan Vlahović and Aleksandar Marsenić Milena Delević Grbić Darko Karadjitch Aleksandar Čarnojević Aleksandar Suhanov and Marijana Simić Jelena Ivančević Ana Tošić Sara Jeveričić Đurđa Garčević Andrej Jovanović Ema Alihodžić Jašarović Nemanja Milićević, Goran Andrejin and Sonja Dubak Maša Mušikić Andjelka Bnin-Bninski, Stanislava Predojević and Ksenija Radovanović

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Creative Team Vladan Stevović Zoran Lazović Jelena Janković Miodrag Savić Boško Drobnjak Tamara Koneska Maša Mušikić Viktorija Nikolić Tamara Marović Maja Radonjić Mina Novosel With the Support of Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urban Planning of Montenegro, Directorate of the Chief State Architect and Architecture Development

Mirages of the Future (MNE) 87

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Carlijn Kingma in collaboration with Thomas Bollen and Martijn Jeroen van der Linden, The Waterworks of Money

Biennale Architettura 2023

The Netherlands

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Architecture can be seen as an articulation of systems – economic, social, political – that shape the built environment and the flows of people, activities, resources, and ecologies that it organises and regulates. These systems, often based on extraction and exploitation, can seem so thoroughly entrenched as to appear immutable, but in order to move towards a more sustainable, regenerative, and just future, many of them will need to be rethought. Responding to the Biennale’s Laboratory of the Future theme, the Dutch pavilion aims to show how alternative systems might work on a macro scale, while attempting to enact (and test) real changes on a micro level – in other words, to think globally and act locally. The pavilion will present The Waterworks of Money, a series of drawings by architect Carlijn Kingma that intricately translates the complex economic framework into a spatial environment using water as a metaphor. By mapping the flows and pipelines of resource distribution, Kingma illustrates the workings of capitalism and its deeply embedded mechanisms that can both hinder and enable change. Kingma has collaborated with leading thinkers in economics to develop and illustrate tangible alternatives or ‘road maps’ that can lead to a more socially and ecologically regenerative economy. Zooming in, the pavilion then seeks to test a hypothesis of systemic change by implementing change on itself. Continuing with the metaphor of water – and given Venice’s current water challenges – pavilion curator Jan Jongert of Superuse Studios proposes to integrate a low-tech water retention system in the building. Capturing rainfall will not only supply the pavilion’s water needs, but also make the surrounding garden more resilient. Asking the question of whether cultural events can do more than simply discuss, debate, and raise awareness of the urgent issues of our times, the pavilion will document and present the process (and, inevitably, the hurdles and challenges) of undertaking this seemingly straightforward task. What is learned, it is hoped, can act as a guide for future change. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Aric Chen General and artistic director, Nieuwe Instituut Curator Jan Jongert / Superuse Studios Participants Carlijn Kingma in collaboration with Thomas Bollen, Martijn Jeroen van der Linden Jan Jongert, Frank Feder, Valentina Cella, Junyuann Chen, Césare Peeren (Superuse), Marit Janse (De Urbanisten) in collaboration with Friso Klapwijk (Wavin) and Afrikaander Wijkcooperatie Rotterdam

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With the Support of Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science Embassy and Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Italy With the Additional Support of Creative Industries Fund NL, The Netherlands Jane da Mosto (We are here Venice), Isabella Inti & Giulia Cantaluppi (Temporiuso.org), Extinction Rebellion Venice, Constructlab, Re-Biennale, ASC, and many others

Spatial Design Gokce Caliscan, Wessel Geysels, Jan Jongert, Iris de Kievith (Superuse) in collaboration with Sarah van der Giesen and Piero Vespignani Scenography Yannick Verweij Graphic Design ARK Roosje Klap with Nóra Békés Manager Francien van Westrenen (Head of Agency, Nieuwe Instituut) Project Lead Ellen Zoete (Nieuwe Instituut) Production Charly Blödel (Nieuwe Instituut), Nikita Hurk On-Site Production Bouwko Landstra & Jeannine van Erk, Rob Gijsbers, Hans Jansen, Lika Kortmann, Basile Marée Communication Taco de Neef (Nieuwe Instituut), Leonard van Hout (Nieuwe Instituut) Programme Affiliated research Ester van de Wiel Onur Can Tepe and Crispijn van Sas Michiel Raaphorst, Rudolph Eilander, Bas Lagendijk, Kaj Boonstra, Ilaria Palmieri V8 Architects

Plumbing the System 89

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Archifusion. Photo rendering. Courtesy Studio Architettura Mauro Peloso

Biennale Architettura 2023

Republic of Niger Eclectic is a term that is used to refer to those, in the field of arts and science, who do not follow a predetermined system or direction, but rather select and harmonise diverse systems and directions in order to achieve optimal project results. This is also the foundational principle of our project for the Nigerien pavilion, which combines different African and Western cultures. This combination generates a cultural workshop in which, from the encounter of the two cultures, a third one emerges. We call this Archifusion (Architectural Fusion). The project consists of the fusion of traditional, tribal, and ethnic architecture with the Western techniques. This collaboration is based on the exchange of common experiences and, therefore, on the development of common knowledge of all parties. This development and growth play a central role in knowledge exchange, as knowledge has become a capital resource and intellectual property, which may generate barriers that exclude technologically less advanced countries. Archifusion aims at overcoming these barriers by offering the most advanced technologies to serve a third diverse, miscellaneous culture. The purpose is to preserve the architectural beauty and history of the Republic of the Niger without neglecting or devaluing its aesthetic authenticity, but rather enhancing and perpetuating it. This contribution originates from the analysis of the evolution of bricks in the Western world over the last decades to improve living comfort and energy efficiency. This analysis produced ‘Brique Magique’, a brick that can still be produced with raw soil, but with a different shape and internal holes. These simple changes give the brick new features which allow thicker bricklaying, providing more stability and more thermal inertia and thus enhancing the living comforts. The holes can be filled with any local materials (e.g., sand, stone chippings, dirt, straw, and so on), which further increases the brick’s efficiency. Moreover, the peculiar shape allows building either straight or curved walling – which can be used, for instance, to build silos for grain storage. On the other hand, the traditional decorations of the houses are here re-interpreted by Italian artists who place themselves in relation to Nigerien culture, as a collective artisan workshop, in order to revive this tradition in ‘modern’ terms, thus trying to give a different aspect to the constructions. — Boris Brollo Participating Countries

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Commissioner Ibrahim Souleymane Curator Boris Brollo Honor Committee Mohamed Hamid, Minister of Culture, Tourism and Crafts of the Republic of Niger H.E. the Ambassador of Niger to Italy, Fatmata Cheffou Emilia Gatto Ambassador of Italy in Niamey Gianluca Cinque CISP, International Committee for the Development of Peoples Andrea Rossi Andrea, Multimedia Artist Technical Committee Mauro Peloso (Architect Designer) Lucia Tomasi (Executive Architect) Luca Casonato (Photographer) Simone Simon Ostan (Graphic Designer) Decorative Art Pattern Nino Barone Paola Bega Alda Bòscaro Bluer (Lorenzo Viscidi) Giancarlo Caneva Giampietro Cavedon Maristella Chiarello Arlia-Hamda Elmi Mirko Filipuzzi Pamela Fullin Annamaria Gelmi Luciano Longo Paolo Marazzi Marvin (Marta Vendrame) Roberto Mondani Lucia Paese Franz Pelizza Manuela Pittana Manuela Poggioli Claudia Raza Carla Rigato Pietro Ronzat Andrea Rossi Andrea Cesare Serafino Simon Ostan Simone Lucia Tomasi Anna Trapasso Andrea Vizzini Leonardo Zanin Antonio Zucchiatti

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Self-Financed Project in Collaboration with Aiap - Unesco, Portogruaro (Venice, Italy) Artestruttura, Udine (Italy) Patronage Foreign Ministry Regione Veneto With the Support of ZANUTTA, una casa da vivere With the Technical Support Officine Clementi, San Stino Livenza (Venice) A. Kovre, Conegliano (Italy)

Archifusion 91

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Biennale Architettura 2023

Nordic Countries Sweden – Finland – Norway

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For over fifteen years, architect and artist Joar Nango has been assembling an archive of books about issues relevant to Indigenous architecture. In 2018, Girjegumpi first opened to the public. For the Biennale Architettura this structure, social space, and source of knowledge around Sámi architecture travels to the Nordic Countries pavilion. The installation is a spatialisation of conversations and research initiated by Joar Nango over two decades of practice at the intersection of architecture and art. As an itinerant, collective library, the project has evolved and expanded as it has travelled. Everywhere it stops, it involves numerous collaborations with architects, artists, and craftspeople. Central to Girjegumpi is the archive that it contains and shares – from rare titles to contemporary books, the collection of more than five hundred editions embraces topics such as Sámi architecture and design, traditional and ancestral building knowledge, activism, and decoloniality. As a gathering space, it hosts large groups of people. As a reading room, it offers an environment for solitary study and reflection. As a critical project, it builds spaces for Indigenous imagination. Nomadic by design, Girjegumpi is a living project addressing the relevance of Indigenous culture in architectural discourse and construction today: the importance of collaborative work, building techniques, and use of resources in rapidly changing climate conditions, the use of locally grounded material flow and sensitive approaches to landscapes and nature. It highlights the architects’ position towards a more polyphonic understanding of the world. Participating Countries

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Commissioners Kieran Long, ArkDes, The Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design Carina Jaatinen The Museum of Finnish Architecture Stina Høgkvist The National Museum of Norway Curators Carlos Mínguez Carrasco and James Taylor-Foster (ArkDes) Participant Joar Nango

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Collaborating Institutions Ájtte Arctic Arts Festival Sámi Dáiddaguovddáš (SDG) RDM – Sámiid Vuorká-Dávvirat UiT – The Arctic University of Norway Project Manager Luba Kuzovnikova (ArkDes) Local Production M+B Studio, eiletz ortigas | architects

Collaborators Håvard Arnhoff Ánte Niillas Bongo Ken Are Bongo Petter Bratland Mathias Danbolt Ole-Henrik Einejord Astrid Fadnes Jenni Hakovirta Eirin Hammari Elin Haugdal Petri Henriksson Tone Huse Robert Julian Hvistendahl Iver Jåks and Jon Ole Andersen Anne Kare Kemi Annik Kristiansen Hagen maka design Grete Johanna Minde Karen Inger Anne Nango Nils John Nango Anne Henriette Nilut Ole Thomas Nilut Raisa Porsanger Tobias Aputsiaq Prytz Anders Rimpi Katrine Rugeldal Wimme Saari Sámi Architecture Dictionary Group Arne Terje Sæther Katarina Spik Skum Marry Ailonieida Sombán Mari Ćetil Somby Anders Sunna Anna-Stina Svakko Eystein Talleraas Petter Tjikkom Magnus Antaris Tuolja

Joar Nango – Girjegumpi: The Sámi Architecture Library 93

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Unknown author, President Theodore Roosevelt sitting on a steam shovel at the Panama Canal, 1906. Source: The New York Times photo archive Tropical nature and protective architecture. Parker O. Wright, Jr., Type 17 ICC Single-Family House, Empire, United States Canal Zone (Panama), c. 1907. Courtesy Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology, Kansas City, Missouri, USA

Biennale Architettura 2023

Republic of Panama For over five hundred years, the isthmus of Panama, a narrow strip of land better known as “the land bridge between two oceans”, proved itself as a region of geopolitical importance in global transportation. Often portrayed from a Western perspective as a faraway place of exotic beauty and luxuriant vegetation, this tropical nation became a landscape of experimentation for modern civilisation. Within these limits, an othering narrative and ideology led to a demarcation of zones of segregation alienating nature, Panamanians, and their cities. These buffer zones as architectural structures of protection between the coloniser and the colonised now activate wider discussions of equality, empowerment, and identity in a constantly changing environment. They create a liminal space wherein the relationship with the land – one that was threatened because the community was alienated – becomes fundamental. Given the power of western modernity in erasing histories and Indigenous languages, local Panamanian communities were lost in the process of the Panama Canal construction, resulting in the domination of a singular ideology of human progress, order, and control. The destruction of small towns, historical areas, rural settlements, and Panamanian landscapes evoked feelings of nostalgia for the environment that was, and the desire to preserve its image in the collective memory, which is reflected in the recurring theme of the landscape in Panamanian literature and art. Our exhibition focuses on analysing three different areas within the former Panama Canal Zone that address these issues of division and integration, namely 1) the divisive architectural structures and systems introduced during the era of the Panama Canal Zone, 2) the erased identities of communities submerged when the waters of the Chagres River were dammed to create Gatun Lake as part of the canal, and 3) the island of Barro Colorado envisioned as a ‘laboratory of the future’, a hilltop that became isolated in the middle of the Panama Canal. Set aside by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute as a nature reserve since 1923, today, exactly a hundred years later, this island is the most studied tropical forest in the world. A living scientific archive and laboratory in which the landscape became both – an object and repository of scientific research. — Aimée Lam Tunon Participating Countries

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Commissioner Itzela Quirós Curator Aimée Lam Tunon Participants Dante Furioso Joan Flores-Villalobos Danilo Pérez Alejandro Pinto Luis Pulido Ritter Marixa Lasso Collaborators Jasper Zehetgruber (Concept/ Creative Direction) Marvin Flores Unger (Production Design / Visual Research ) Finn Steffens and Conrad Weise (Graphic Identity / Web Archive)

Stories from Beneath the Water 95

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The Calendar Project. Kichwa Lamas calendar. Kichwa Morillo native community. San Martin region, 2019. Photograph, 147.4 × 103 cm. © Edi Hirose

Biennale Architettura 2023

Peru Walkers in Amazonia have been reconfiguring their territories by hand for at least ten thousand years. They survived European domination and the impact of modernity through the exchange of specific knowledge in regional encounters. By walking on slopes between riverbanks, they trained their observation skills and developed cultural resistance in order to regenerate the diversity and variations in tropical rainforests, the places of ancestral learning. The maintenance of this networked knowledge and its care depended upon the collective cooperation between humans and non-humans. This craftknowledge is conserved and renewed by Waman Wasi (House of the Sparrow Hawk) in the San Martin region. This organisation has been the intercessor in a project of education governance and territorial management for two decades by the Peruvian State in collaboration with the Kichwa Lamas, Shawi, and Awajún communities, who protect the forests. The Calendar Project and its time technology instruments (the matrix, the calendar, and the forest lore booklets) reinforce the concept of a mutual nurturing of the territory attuned with nature. A complex network of actors with opposite perspectives tries out a bio-cultural pact. Using this simple, mobile tool, which is constantly edited and expires time and again, life spaces are reconfigured: the house, the chacra, the forest, and the water. A new pattern language of restoration is created out of the act of walking, out of dialogue, and, above all, out of listening. It helps us to imagine an active future of new dynamics of cooperation, equity, and care, where a reversal of the global and regional environmental and cultural degradation is possible. The installation, inspired by the rugged Andean–Amazonia landscapes, allows visitors to explore, through a dynamic, audio-visual experience, the obverse and reverse of a reality at once near and far. On a scaffolding system, sixty-four community calendars are unfurled for the first time. Amplified, connected, and transferred on fabric, they become a living textile, connecting dispersed territories. Engaging with an Amazonia inhabited by people with a cultural history enables us to shift our usual ways of seeing, understanding, communicating, and doing, and to readjust modern concepts of conservation and progress constructed in a linear time, with a homogeneous, territorial order severed from reality and knowledge. — Alexia León, Lucho Marcial Participating Countries

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Commissioner José Orrego Curators Alexia León Lucho Marcial Participants Waman Wasi et al. Academic Advisor Grimaldo Rengifo Coordinator Luis Romero Management Zadith Coral and Elizabeth Najar Intercultural Education Jhoselyn Romero and René Arbildo Community Education Girvan Tuanama and Gregorio Sangama Public Outreach Jorge Rengifo and Gabriela Rengifo Research Rosi Cachique In Collaboration with Unidades de Gestión Educativa Local (UGEL) San Martín Carolina Pérez Joisi Sangama Coordinator in Peru Marisol Michilot Exhibition Design leonmarcial arquitectos Gustavo Reyna Alex Cuadra Henry Villalta Sandro Casanova In Collaboration with Vicho Castillo Víctor Checa Valeria Pavlova William Silva Edgar Girón Vered Engelhard Edi Hirose Samuel Chambi Juan Carlos Huincho

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Graphic Design Michael Prado Structural Engineer Carlos Salcedo Prototype Development in Lima Arquitecma Perú Federico Vallejos Ana María Chávez Coordination and Management in Venice eiletz ortigas | architects Production Patronato Cultural del Perú Patronage Fundación Wiese Grupo El Comercio With the Support of Commission for the Promotion of Peruvian Exports and Tourism – PROMPERÚ Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú Hilite with Iluminación ERCO Sasha Cutter Hsu & Aaron Hsu Gisela Zapff Dammert de Carter Rafael Osterling Illusione Tania Jelicic – balkanica Nicole Bernex Weiss Isla Negra Tucan Suites Pumarinri MWF Solutions Luis Zwiebach - Power Technology With the Additional Support of Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Culture Asociación Peruana de Estudios de Arquitectura Universidad de Lima Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería Universidad Privada del Norte Colegio de Arquitectos del Perú

Walkers in Amazonia The Calendar Project 97

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Coloured digital rendering of the bamboo structure, the main component of Tripa de Gallina: Guts of Estuary. © The Architecture Collective – TAC

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Ramp enclosed in a series of hexagons, 2023. Photo Jeanne Severo

Biennale Architettura 2023

Philippines Estuaries, or the esteros, are supposedly the mouth of a river, where freshwater streams meet saltwater tides from the bay. Besides that, history has shown that humans and other non-human entities are in deep dialogue with these river mouths. There has been a natural tendency to seek the establishment of bustling communities along them that prevail through the years. In the case of the longest estuary in Metro Manila that flows to Manila Bay through the Pasig River, communities living alongside, specifically Barangays 739, 750, and 751, have enmeshed with their waterways. However, the enormous putrid sludge amassed by the local people along Tripa de Gallina (Guts of the Rooster) impedes this perceived conversation. The estuary remains silent. The people are stuck. The kinships are now ultimately muddled. Just as murky as the waters are in the estuary, so are the relationships of the settlers. The experience of the pandemic cries out that this persistent complication is reticular. It necessitates a fleshing-out. Tripa de Gallina: Guts of Estuary offers a diagnosis of the water’s condition and a prognosis of the people’s future. In a procedure of modular urban acupuncture materialised by a bamboo structure that serves as a place of gathering and investigation, the pavilion inspects the estuary’s guts: a flawed ecology of humans, waters, and dregs. It serves as a buoy for this mesh to be carefully unravelled and sustainably mended through a gritty collaborative action among these entangled actants, in the name of resilience. The project starts with the idea of a smallscale intervention as a way to mutate the larger urban context of the inhabitants. Along with experts in architecture, natural sciences, social sciences, and the government, the barangays (village units) have created a safe space to assess their situation and speculate on their future well-being. The windows in the installation provide a screen on which moving archival materials play out. The narrative leads to the centre where an immersive audio-visual encounter with the estero lurks day and night. From the groundwork, a lively prospect of the state of the entire ecology is imagined through the structure’s ethnographic projections. This platform wishes for a symbiotic recovery, instead of human superiority over other entities. It presupposes forsaking hostility and inviting hospitality. — Sam Domingo, Choie Y. Funk Participating Countries

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Commissioner Victorino Mapa Manalo Chairman, National Commission for Culture and the Arts [NCCA] Curators Sam Domingo Choie Y. Funk Participants The Architecture Collective – TAC Bien M. Alvarez Matthew S. Gan Lyle D. La Madrid Arnold A. Rañada Cooperating Agencies Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Office of Senator Loren Legarda

Tripa de Gallina: Guts of Estuary 99

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100

Datament Meditations, 2023. Drawing by Anna Barlik. Courtesy Zachęta – National Gallery of Art

Biennale Architettura 2023

Poland

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da ta ment /ˈdeɪ.tə.ment/ n. 1. An infinite amount of known, unknown, measurable, and unmeasurable data that belongs to a person, a group, or a thing. 2. The state of data at a given point in time. 3. The tangible impact of data on life. We are all made of data. The development of civilisation and technology has made our everyday life irreversibly dependent on data production, collection, and processing. Information produced in unimaginable quantities, processed by ever more technologically advanced computations, creates an illusion of truth about the world – the establishment of data that is a starting point for making decisions with very real consequences. This is also true of architecture, urbanism, and planning, where statistical data analysis and algorithmisation are major factors shaping how we live now and will live in the future. However, it is rare that we interact with data in its pure form, that we directly confront the ideas created by its interpretation. The Datament exhibition in the Polish pavilion is an experimental encounter with raw data. Using sculpture as a tool for experiencing space, it presents housing data from different parts of the world. Four overlapping forms show statistically representative homes from four countries, chosen for the amount of data they collect and produce. This kind of physical interaction with an abstract concept, made possible by the installation, emphasises how blurry the world becomes when seen only through the lens of data, which, while allowing us to ask better questions, does not offer any definitive answers. The eponymous neologism, datament, refers to the circumstances in which we live and create, and which we inhabit. To a time when we are sharing our world with data that may lie, though this does not mean it is not true. — Jacek Sosnowski Participating Countries

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Commissioner Janusz Janowski Curator Jacek Sosnowski Participants Anna Barlik (Artist) Marcin Strzała (Architect) Organisation Zachęta – National Gallery of Art Partners Adam Mickiewicz Institute Istituto Polacco di Roma With the Support of Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland

Datament 101

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102

Biennale Architettura 2023

Portugal A vital element for human and non-human species, as well as a metaphorical and emotional element, water is simultaneously political and economic. Fresh water scarcity and management is indisputably a global problem, evident in the Portuguese context. Focusing on seven distinct hydrogeographies, the exhibition presents the outcomes of the work carried out by seven Design Teams, to develop propositional models for a more sustainable, healthy, and equitable tomorrow, in non-hierarchical cooperation between disciplines, generations, and species. Fertile Futures advocates the pertinence of architecture’s role in the design of a decarbonised, decolonised, and collaborative future, through a triad of actions based on the strategic complementarity between practice, theory, and pedagogy in architecture: seven Design Workshops, five Assemblies of Thought, and an International Summer Seminar. Design Teams The seven cases under study exemplify the anthropocentric action on natural and finite water resources: the impact of the Gigabattery in the Bacia do Tâmega; the breach of convention in Douro Internacional; the mining situation in Médio Tejo; the imposition of interests in Albufeira do Alqueva; the anarchy at Rio Mira irrigation perimeter; the eutrophication of the water in Lagoa das Sete Cidades; and the risk of flooding at Ribeiras da Madeira. To establish the continuous relationship among the seven hydrogeographies, a waterline is drawn in the central hall that organises the space and the flow, through a gesture that evokes symbolic and metaphorical dimensions in an immersive and emotional experience. Assemblies of Thought A team of ten advisors and seven specialists enrich the topic under discussion internally, and simultaneously take part in different moments of speculative debate open to the public. The five assemblies of thought for awareness and mediation, representative and multi-situated, between the virtual space and different physical spaces, publicly and openly discuss the global theme: Lisbon, Venice, Braga, Faro, and Porto Santo. International Summer Seminar With the mentoring of architects and the participation of national and international students and professors, selected through an open call, the two-week seminar takes place in July, in Fundão, a municipality which is integrated in the list of eight Portuguese cities included in the European Union Mission for Adaptation to Climate Change. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Américo Rodrigues, Director General, DirectorateGeneral for the Arts Curator Andreia Garcia Participants Space Transcribers Álvaro Domingues Dulcineia Santos João Pedro Matos Fernandes Guida Marques Érica Castanheira Oficina Pedrêz Aurora Carapinha Corpo Atelier Eglantina Monteiro Ilhéu Atelier João Mora Porteiro Ponto Atelier Ana Salgueiro Rodrigues Deputy Curators Ana Neiva Diogo Aguiar Organisation Pedro Adão e Silva, Minister of Culture, Ministry for Culture of Portugal Executive Production and Communication Directorate-General for the Arts Catarina Correia Maria João Ferreira Sofia Isidoro Advisors Team Álvaro Domingues Ana Tostões Andres Lepik Francisco Ferreira Luca Astorri Margarida Waco Marina Otero Patti Anahory Pedro Gadanho Pedro Ignacio Alonso Production Direction João Terras Communication and Edition Patrícia Coelho Visual Identity and Graphic Design And Atelier Video Canal 180

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Website Sara Orsi Exhibition Design Diogo Aguiar Studio Diogo Aguiar, Daniel Mudrák, Claudia Ricciuti On-Site Production João L. Moreira Photography Fernando Guerra Strategic Partners Câmara Municipal do Fundão Casa da Arquitectura Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa Exhibition Sponsors panoramah! O/M Light CIN Valchromat Institutional Partners Instituto Camões Câmara Municipal de Faro Câmara Municipal do Porto Governo Regional da Região Autónoma da Madeira Direção Regional dos Assuntos Culturais – Açores Theatro Circo Fundação Serra Henriques Hosting Partners gnration Porta 33 Editorial Partners Canal 180 E-flux Umbigo Communication Partners ArchDaily RTP Institutional Collaboration Fundação Marques da Silva Specific Support Abreu Decer Sogrape Partners International Summer School Fundão Erasmus+ Universidade da Beira Interior Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Fertile Futures 103

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Henri Coandă archive of the National Technical Museum ‘Prof. Eng. Dimitrie Leonida’, Bucharest, Romania, Detail of desalination system and transformation of saline water into drinking water – inventor Henri Coandă, 1954 Emil Ivănescu, Transport of harvested reeds in the Danube Delta, 2022

Biennale Architettura 2023

Romania Statistics show that by 2050 we will be 10 billion people, more than 70 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas, and we will need to produce 60 percent more food to feed the world’s population. Today, more than a billion people do not have access to drinking water, although, in 1950, a Romanian inventor created a desalination plant which turned seawater into drinking water by using only solar energy. While the invention was a success, producing 1,600 litres of drinking water in 12 hours in an 8-square-metre device, it was blocked in its functional prototype phase for bureaucratic reasons. How would the future have looked like if these solutions had been carried through at the time? Both the future and the present need not only advanced technology, but also a fundamental mentality shift, turning the current consumer into an active player in the transition towards a greener and more democratic society. The Romanian pavilion is a generator of ideas, bringing to the fore the creation journey of innovations or inventions born only as a result of interdisciplinary collaboration. Ideas and objects become the ingredients of a dialogue about the future in which the visitor is invited to participate by exploring the pavilion space. The visitor is invited to interact with four areas of research: Lost Inventions, Lateral Pedagogies, Instant Garden, and the Co-Thinking Installation, all representing a new way of education through research, innovation, and social activation seen as solutions for the future. Original technical artefacts are displayed in the pavilion, including an electric car from the beginning of the twentieth century: the world’s first aerodynamic vehicle with wheels inside the body of the car, upcycled electric cars, a wave energy capture device, social housing prefabrication systems that were laboratories of the future in their time. What can we learn from how these innovations emerged and how can we ensure that our innovations are not lost? The Lateral Pedagogies are projects conducted through research, social activation, and education in Romania, or by Romanian architects closely working with designers and researchers to offer the most effective and creative solutions. Now, Here, There is a pragmatic vision of the present and the future in which everything matters, everything is connected, and everything is inclusive. — Emil Ivănescu, Simina Filat Participating Countries

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Commissioner Attila Kim Curators Emil Ivănescu Simina Filat Participants Emil Ivănescu Simina Filat Cătălin Berescu, Anca Maria Păsărin, National Technical Museum ‘Prof. Eng. Dimitrie Leonida’ Organisers Ministry of Culture Romanian Cultural Institute Ministry of Foreign Affairs Architects Union of Romania Collaborators Laura Maria Albani, Director of the National Technical Museum ‘Prof. Eng. Dimitrie Leonida’ Andreea Căpitănescu Performing Arts Director Ana Maria Zahariade Academic Research Coordinator Robert Zotescu Student coordinator Communication Dăescu Borţun Olteanu Andrei Borţun Maria Besnea Simona Tatu Graphic Design Simina Filat Video Production Andrei Stănescu Video Mapping Petruţ Valeriu Viașu

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Partners National Technical Museum ‘Prof. Eng. Dimitrie Leonida’ Plant Genetic Resources Bank ‘Mihai Cristea’ Department for Emergency Situations – Ministry of Internal Affairs National Museum of Contemporary Art ‘Ion Mincu’ University of Architecture and Urbanism 4Culture Association W.A.S.P. Aiurart Contemporary Art Space Galateca Gallery Aluminum AllBIM Luther Imobiliare Romcim Iulius Company Unicredit Bank Greentek Lighting

Now, Here, There 105

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Vittorio Corsini, Exercise 2, 2012–2023. Paper sketch of a Plexiglas and led structure (200 × 200 × 200 cm); sketch size 30 × 20 cm © Vittorio Corsini

Biennale Architettura 2023

Republic of San Marino

The distinguishing lines between guest and host are rendered porous by time, political and historical circumstances, thresholds of inclusion for different species, and the exigencies of the moment. We are all guests on this Earth and yet we are also all hosts – in the way that we may or may not shelter, sustain, and nourish countless humans and more-thanhumans in the spaces we live in, through the actions we take, and the choices we make. The Republic of San Marino’s pavilion looks to hospitality as an orientation that attends to otherness, an orientation that is immaterial in spirit, embodied in gesture and mediated by objects, structures, and spaces. Hospitality determines how close we allow the other into our spaces and comfort zones, and ultimately how much we allow them to influence who we are and how we live. This raises the crucial question of what kind of guest and host we are, and what kind we wish to aspire to in order to create a society, foster a culture, and nurture an ecology we want to inhabit and that respects and acknowledges the needs and desires of those with whom we share this world. The San Marino pavilion explores the concepts of hospitality – from the immaterial to the material, and from the human to the more-than-human – in the local community of Campo San Lorenzo. As such, the work aims to be immersive, participatory, and in constant dialogue with our hosts – humans, other species, and organisms. The pavilion is made up of two spaces: in the first, sculptor Vittorio Corsini presents three forms of invitation, breathe, move, speak. Consistent with Corsini’s poetics, these new works act as devices and tools for living, for interacting with space, as well as for relating to, and welcoming, otherness. The second space is an experimental ‘guest room’, a fluid space managed by Hospitality Lab, hosting a multitude of thinkers, designers, students, and institutions. Art, architecture, design, biology, gastronomy, theology, and anthropology merge and hybridise with the intention of co-creating new ideas and practices through workshops, discussions, experiments, and installations to be grafted into the local context and co-produced with local inhabitants, human or morethan-human. — Michael Kaethler, Marco Pierini Participating Countries

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Commissioner Riccardo Varini Curators Michael Kaethler Marco Pierini Scientific Committee Shaul Bassi Alessandro Bianchini Massimo Brignoni Elena Brigi Roberto Felicetti Silvia Gasparotto Angela Grosso Ciponte Domenico Luciani Hélène Molinari Ralf Petersen Corrado Petrocelli Massimo Renno Orsetta Rocchetto Vincenzo Rotondo Francesca Salatin Michele Savorgnano Andreas Sicklinger Riccardo Varini Participants Vittorio Corsini Students and professors of: Università degli Studi di San Marino, Design e Storia Università degli Studi di Bologna, Industrial Design Stuttgart Technology University of Applied Sciences Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, Environmental Humanities Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, Basel, Institut Industrial Design Ordine degli Ingegneri e Architetti di San Marino Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Industrial Design Engineering Università IUAV di Venezia, Disegno Industriale Università degli Studi di Ferrara, Design del prodotto industriale Deputy Commissioner Paolo Rondelli Research Group Flaviano Celaschi Michele Zannoni Giorgio Dall’Osso Silvia Gasparotto Diane Ziegler Marta Stacchini

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Filippo Francini Lazzaro Rossini Luca Zanotti Angela Rui Laura Succini Massimo Barbierato Sergio Menichelli Federica Natalia Rosati Orsetta Rocchetto Ilaria Ruggeri Chiara Amatori Stefano Luca Stefano Rovai Raffaele Cafarelli Davide Di Gennaro Francesco Maggiore Francesca Salatin Tommaso Lucinato Emanuele Lumini Emma Bartolini Marco Luitprandi Gaetano Di Gregorio Anna Guerra Marco Scurati Marta Renno Andrea Franceschetti Collaborators Benedetta Borghi Alice Fraccaro Organisers FR ART EVENTS Università degli Studi della Repubblica di San Marino With the Support of D&D Italia C.O.M.A.C. International AM Eco Sider M.G.M. Cilindri Oleodinamici CEFI - Costruzioni Elettromeccaniche Forni Induzione ELENKA Comune di Peccioli Fondazione Giorgio Cini ONLUS Fondazione Dioguardi Pollmeier Massivholz Gmbh & Co Ingenio-Web.It SUMus, Associazione AERES Venezia per l’Altreconomia, Associazione Patronage Commissione Nazionale Sammarinese per l’UNESCO Unità di Coordinamento del sito UNESCO di San Marino

Guest Hosts 107

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Biennale Architettura 2023

Saudi Arabia

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Commissioner Ministry of Culture, Architecture and Design Commission Curators Basma Bouzo Noura Bouzo Participant AlBara Saimaldahar

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Assistant Curators Cyril Zammit Joharah Lou Pabalate

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In response to the Biennale Architettura 2023, the team behind the Saudi pavilion will examine the symbiotic relationship between material (touch, structure, object) and immaterial (auditory, olfactory, gustatory). The cohesion of both informs perception and generates the interpretation and response to the situatedness of a nation’s inhabitants. This interactive journey brings to the surface the narratives embedded within materials – the tangible and intangible qualities which define the character of spaces, places, and things. Earth is used as the focal point of the dialogue, serving as a blank slate on which various discoveries, innovations, and discourses on the future of materiality are built upon. The multi-part exhibition allows the visitor to experience the curatorial brief from multiple perspectives and engage with the vernacular of Saudi architecture through its core building blocks. The intent is to present the empirical as a window into the essential. Allowing visitors to access a raw sensory experience urges them to draw their own introspective conclusions stripped of conscious and unconscious biases. The pavilion will raise and explore multiple questions. Can we use these building blocks to export our stories and our culture? How can we, as a singular nation, be self-sufficient? How can we build an endemic circular economy? And how can these approaches serve as a catalyst to expand and contribute to the geopolitical landscape? The archival attempt here is not merely a means to capture the anthropological and historic but provokes contemplation of how the past and present may already be offering the answers to the conundrums of the future. Participating Countries

IRTH ‫إرث‬ 109

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Atrium of the Eastern Hall, International Trade Fair in Lagos, 2023. Photo Tolulope Fatunbi. Courtesy Tolulope Fatunbi Zoran Bojović, Masterplan o f the International Trade Fair in Lagos, 1970s. Digitised drawing. Courtesy private archive of Architect Ljiljana Bojović

Biennale Architettura 2023

Serbia After the traumatic age of colonial rule, the politics of non-alignment in the 1960s and 1970s profoundly impacted the societies of the independent states of the African continent. The Non-Aligned Movement, as a specific international organisation, promoted a politics that embodied anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, independence, emancipation, and coexistence between countries. As one of the movement’s leaders, Yugoslavia established active cooperation among member states, whose realisation included many construction development projects concerned with modernisation, industrialisation and urbanisation of young multinational countries in Africa. The central feature of the exhibition is the International Trade Fair in Lagos, a project designed and led by architect Zoran Bojović. The Lagos Fair project, which was implemented between 1974 and 1976, involved urbanising 350 hectares of wetlands. The structure itself was a symbol of the newly founded multinational state and represents a reflection of an independent future, leaving the colonial past behind. The Fair in Lagos was once a meeting place for visitors to the World’s Fair. Today, the venue is almost crushed by the weight of the city and its growing demographic structure. Surrounded by unkempt barracks, the fair halls, whose architecture requires re-reading, still stand. The past discussed here has little to do with the social and political circumstances in which the authors of the exhibition live and work, and it does not even belong to them generationally. Therefore, it is on the basis of architecture that the authors travelled to Lagos, to the difficult present of a dynamic megalopolis, with the intention of establishing their own relationship with this architecture through direct experience. Through research, the authors attempt to establish spatial and temporal reflections and, as a result, present a single architectural entity. It should reaffirm the urgency and potential of the present moment in the context of future challenges in which these structures may be identified as a resource. To participate in creating the future, one should understand the value of the present. Thus, the authors see the International Trade Fair in Lagos as a city project, an architectural project, and a human project, the present of which is always relevant. In reflections directs attention to the architecture created through international cooperation, viewing it as both a potential and resource for the future. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Slobodan Jović Scientific Committee Biljana Jotić (President), Dubravka Đukanović, Jelena Ivanović Vojvodić, Miljana Zeković, Snežana Vesnić, Ana Đurić, Jelena Mitrović Participants Iva Njunjić Tihomir Dičić Realisation Museum of Applied Art on behalf of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia With the Support of Union of Architects of Serbia

In reflections 6°27’48.8”N 3°14’49.20”E 111

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Melvin Tan, Adrian Lai, Wong Ker, How, When Is Enough, Enough? The Performance of Measurement, 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

Singapore “A great building, in my opinion, must begin with the unmeasurable, go through measurable means when it is being designed, and in the end must be unmeasurable.” Louis Kahn The same thinking may be applied to great cities – cities that invigorate dreams and nurture connection, that make room even in the margins. In building the city we love, how do we measure the unmeasurable? The act of measurement is a two-fold process that quantifies and imagines. It reveals tensions between extreme positions and envisages the potential spectrums in between. Through the performance of measurement, underlying values and presumptions are also laid bare. The Singapore pavilion foregrounds architects and researchers whose practices aim to elicit agency, attachment, attraction, connection, freedom, inclusion in the city. In examining design processes that work for these six goals, we uncover challenges and contradictions, and bring to light methods of addressing diverse preferences and the conundrums that arise. Architectural and design processes hold the key to understanding our emotional connections with the city. The built environment can make visible the delicate negotiation of different needs in the city. For instance, urban biodiversity havens, such as a forested building façade or rewilded street corner, mean more porous boundaries between human and animal life. Ecologists are studying the edges between urban and nature, while designers are helping us reimagine their distinction. At the pavilion, visitors will find a Values Measurement Machine inviting them to consider the potential trade-offs embedded in the type of world they want to live in. Their preferences will be marked on a giant rolling scroll that moves through the pavilion, a real-time display of consensus and contradiction taking shape over the six months of the Biennale. An equitable society rests upon making sense of counteracting priorities, values, and definitions, especially in our increasingly multicultural and multispecies cities. Our intention is for visitors to imagine the intangible qualities they feel are important where they live, and the stake they play in designing this reality. What measures do we have to take to live by our values? How do we calibrate for different entities, environments, and dreams? When is enough, enough? Participating Countries

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Commissioners Yap Lay Bee, Group Director, Architecture and Urban Design, Urban Redevelopment Authority Dawn Lim Executive Director, DesignSingapore Council Curators Melvin Tan Adrian Lai Wong Ker How Participants Aurelia Chan Elwin Chan Zachary Chan Kar-men Cheng Chew Yunqing Lip Chiong Aaron Choo Calvin Chua Joshua Adam Comaroff Yann Follain Srilalitha Gopalakrishnan Richard Hassell Hwang Yun-Hye Anuj Jain Emi Kiyota Pennie Kwan Bjorn Low Jerome Ng Xin Hao Isabella Ong Ong Ker-Shing Firdaus Sani Thomas Schroepfer Annabelle Tan Wong Chun Sing Mun Summ Wong Organiser Singapore Institute of Architects

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Installation view. © Slovenian pavilion’s team of the Biennale Architettura 2023 Installation view. © Slovenian Pavilion’s team of the Biennale Architettura 2023

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Hearth, Rokavci, Marezige. Photo Boris Orel. Documentation of Slovene Ethnographic Museum ↓↓↓

Biennale Architettura 2023

Over the past decade, ecology has had a significant impact on many disciplines and has become an integral part of their developments. Architecture is no exception. Credit for the purported eco-friendly nature of architecture goes, however, to other engineeringrelated disciplines, with heat pumps, zero-energy house technology, recovery ventilation systems, and other innovations transforming our homes into hightech machines intended to help us manage our energy consumption economically and efficiently. Although ecology, understood by many in architecture as energy efficiency, is an inescapable contextual component of modernity that defines architecture, it is addressed by it rather paradoxically. Instead of critically rearticulating its conceptual starting points, architecture tends to address ecological issues exclusively through applied technology hidden inside walls. Energy efficiency thus appears as an entirely separate component of a building. In contrast to the use of the bureaucratic term energy efficiency, we use the word ecology as a representation of the complex relationships between architecture and its environment. Can we (re)think ecology through architecture? Can ecology be productive for architecture? In the past, ecology generated and was inseparable from architecture itself – a simple architectural concept was always based on the energy requirements of its climatic, material, and topographical context. In other words, vernacular architecture has always been maximally energy efficient. In collaboration with fifty European architects and younger generation creators, we have sought out examples of vernacular buildings that address the issue of ecology holistically. The energy principles of vernacular buildings were divided into categories such as a room within a room, heat cell, dropped ceiling, or extended perimeter. The examples presented also show that energy-related inputs in vernacular architecture did not generally serve as mono-functional elements but had a social and ritual role in addition to their primary function. By addressing issues of heating and cooling, they generated and organised the ways buildings were inhabited, and established specific relations between architecture, users, and the environment. This approach understands vernacular architecture as a living example of energy principles that are relevant to the current era and can be used as a basis for a critical reinterpretation of contemporary architectural production and for thinking about future architecture – architecture for which it is not enough to simply be energy-efficient, but must become ecological. Participating Countries

Republic of Slovenia

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Commissioner Maja Vardjan Curators Jure Grohar Eva Gusel Maša Mertelj Anja Vidic Matic Vrabič Participants Anna Bach, Eugeni Bach A&EB architects Marcello Galiotto, Alessandra Rampazzo AMAA Urban Petranovič, Davor Počivašek Arhitekti Počivašek Petranovič Niklas Fanelsa Atelier Fanelsa Alicja Bielawska, Simone De Iacobis, Aleksandra Kędziorek, Małgorzata Kuciewicz Laura Bonell, Daniel LópezDòriga Bonell+Dòriga Radim Louda, Paul Mouchet CENTRAL offau Velika Ivkovska KOSMOS Aidas Krutejavas KSFA Krutejavas Studio For Architecture Laura Linsi, Roland Reemaa LLRRLLRR Benjamin Lafore, Sébastien Martinez-Barat MBL architectes Ana Victoria Munteanu, Daniel Tudor Munteanu Daniel Norell, Einar Rodhe Norell / Rodhe Søren Pihlmann Pihlmann architect Ambra Fabi, Giovanni Piovene Piovenefabi Matteo Ghidoni Salottobuono Gordon Selbach

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Pablo Canga, Anna Herreros SOLAR Elena Schütz, Julian Schubert and Leonard Streich Something Fantastic Jakob Sellaoui Studio Jakob Sellaoui Hana Mohar, Frane Stančić Studio Ploca Susanne Brorson Studio Susanne Brorson Benjamin Gallegos Gabilondo, Marco Provinciali Supervoid Ana Kreč Svet vmes Janja Šušnjar Mireia Luzárraga, Alejandro Muiño TAKK Léone Drapeaud, Manuel León Fanjul, Johnny Leya Traumnovelle Gaetan Brunet, Chloé Valadié UR Javier García-Germán TAAs Assistant to the Commissioner Nikola Pongrac Pavilion Design Mertelj Vrabič Arhitekti Vidic Grohar Arhitekti Graphic Design Žiga Testen Visualisations Elvis Jerkič Local Architects and Coordinators eiletz ortigas | architects Production MAO, Museum of Architecture and Design With the Support of Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia

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Sechaba Maape, Community of beings. Research-practice drawing

Biennale Architettura 2023

Republic of South Africa

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Scattered over 10,000 square kilometres of grassland in Mpumalanga, about 200 kilometres east of Johannesburg, lie the ruins of a vast civilisation known as the Bokoni. Of particular architectural interest at this site is a large number of low-relief rock carvings depicting building plans. It is widely agreed that the plans were not intended for construction, but constitute a theoretical architectural representation, demonstrating that the Bokoni herding community made drawings of social structures as they are represented by architectural plans. It is with this tradition in mind that the South African pavilion at Biennale Architettura 2023 is themed around the architectural representation of existing and speculative social structures. In our pavilion, we employ these same tools to address contemporary conditions such as climate change and inequality. The inclusion of formerly peripheral value systems relies heavily on the appreciation of pre-colonial values, through the study of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, and their role in the reimagining of our contemporary human settlements, institutions, and communities. This is explored through three exhibitions, the first being The Past Is the Laboratory of the Future, an exploration of the Bokoni site and its various representations, including an augmented reality reconstruction of a Bokoni homestead. Here, a Bokoni rock engraving is displayed, alongside a woven installation in which visitors can have an immersive experience of a digital replica of the original site of the Bokoni. The second exhibition, The Council of (NonHuman) Beings, features research-practice drawings by Sechaba Maape which address the lost core philosophy of African vitality. The drawings point to a future in which non-Western traditions of thought are re-introduced to the epistemological realm of architecture. Political Animals, the third exhibition, features the results of an architectural design competition for South African students. The competition invites students to develop architectural models and artefacts that represent the social structures around them. Six models or artefacts will be exhibited. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Nosipho Nausca-Jean Jezile Curators Sechaba Maape Emmanuel Nkambule Stephen Steyn Participants Kent and Lane, Mmabe Maila, AR – Zamani Project and Tshwane University of Technology, Kyle Brand, Victor Mokhaba, Mpinane Qhobela, Nthomeng Matete, Makanalelo Maapea, Mapotsane Mohale, Moshebi Mohale, Tlhologello Sesana, Lethlogonollo Sesana, Wihan Hendrikz, Luthando Thomas, Kirti Mistry, Carin Smuts, Phadi Mabe, Khalipha Rade, Yamkelwa Sim, Anya Strydom, Jan Truter, Liam Harvey, Tim Presbury, Saskia de Bok, Saleigh Davis, Teegan Isola, Nosipho Ndawonde, Solami Nkabinde, Keyur Moodley, Anna Thomas, Kelly de Gouveia, Rorisang Monanabela, Tammy Ohlson de Fine, Oratile Mothoagae, Emma Skudde, Priyan Moodley, Michael Peneda, Simphiwe Mlambo, Masego Musi, Sesethu Mbonishweni, 2BLN, Spies Architects, Breinstorm Brand Architects, Anita Szentesi, Stephen Wessels

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Amorim Cork. Cork oak processing factory. Porto, Portugal. Credit and © Pedro Pegenaute Biomethanization and composting plant. Pinto, Spain. Credit and © Pedro Pegenaute

Biennale Architettura 2023

Spain Think of your most recent meal. Remember the texture, colours, and flavours of each of its ingredients, which molecules have slowly become your hair, your skin, and even your very soul. Now let’s trace the journey of these ingredients back in time to reveal the places and scenarios through which they passed before arriving on your plate, and to contemplate the architectures and infrastructures that constructed them. Think of the everyday laboratory of your kitchen, where your food is assembled from tiny cans and containers, and also of the social and political centrality that this space holds within our domestic architectures. Next, consider the supermarket where these ingredients were located, strategically placed on ordered shelves to evoke the consumption desire of certain culinary materialisms. Then, move on to the highways, and the anodyne bars and hotels of their rest areas, dispersed urbanisms inhabited by nomadic autonauts who safeguard the climatically mediated route of our food from the automated landscapes of ports and logistic centres. Further back still, visualise the plantations, greenhouses, and slaughterhouses from which these ingredients derive; soft urbanisms designed to instrumentalise entire territories. Contemplate the bodies – human, vegetable, animal, machinic – that are exploited there, as well as the political, technological, and ecological implications of the productive architectures that make this possible. Finally, imagine the soil from which they emerged, and the almost alchemical process that allowed the geological to become biological. Acknowledge photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, microbial metabolisms, and the complex physical and chemical processes necessary to fossilise the sun into an infinite variety of textures and flavours. By eating, we digest territories. FOODSCAPES is a journey through the architectures that feed the world; from the domestic laboratories of our kitchens to the vast operational landscapes that nourish our cities. At a time when energy debates are more pertinent than ever, food remains in the background, yet the way we manufacture, distribute, and consume it shapes our planet more radically than any other energy source. Through five films, an archive in the form of a recipe book, and an open research platform, the exhibition analyses the current landscape of our food system and looks to the future to explore other possible models, capable of feeding the world without devouring the planet. Participating Countries

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Commissioners MITMA Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda AECID Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation AC/E Acción Cultural Española Curators Eduardo Castillo-Vinuesa Manuel Ocaña Participants Aldayjover Architecture and Landscape C+ arquitectas Common Accounts Daniel Ibañez + Vicente Guallart + Manuel Bouzas Dolores Palacios + Federico Soriano Guillermo Fernández-Abascal + Urtzi Grau Institute for Postnatural Studies Iván L. Munuera + Vivian Rotie + Pablo Saiz Lucía Jalón Oyarzun Lucia Tahan Naranjo-Etxeberría Pedro Pegenaute Short Films Elii + María Jerez Gerard Ortín Castellví + Pol Esteve Castelló GRANDEZA + Locument MAIO + Agnes Essonti Luque Marina Otero Verzier + Manuel Correa

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Neighbours, the brick wall of the Swiss pavilion (Bruno Giacometti) is cut open to the neighbouring Venezuelan pavilion (Carlo Scarpa). © Studio Karin Sander ↓↓↓

Biennale Architettura 2023

Switzerland

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The exhibition is conceived by the German artist Karin Sander and the Swiss art historian Philip Ursprung. Instead of being a container for an exhibition, instead of housing a display about something, the pavilion exhibits itself. The topic of the exhibition is ‘neighbours’. It refers to the spatial and formal proximity of the pavilions of Switzerland (1951–1952, Bruno Giacometti) and Venezuela (1954–1956, Carlo Scarpa). Of all pavilions in the Giardini, they are the closest. The patio and entrance area of the Venezuelan pavilion is partially defined by the outer walls of the Swiss pavilion. One brick wall is shared – two walls, namely the concrete wall of the Venezuelan patio and the brick wall of the Swiss sculpture hall, are overlapping. The exhibition is based on the hypothesis that the two befriended architects were in dialogue and that Scarpa conceived the two pavilions as one continuous space. However, the potential connection between the two courtyards has been blocked on the Swiss side by an iron fence since 1952, and on the Venezuelan side with a brick wall that was added sometime between the 1960s and 1980s. The exhibition consists of four interventions. Firstly, a large carpet in the main hall depicts two combined ground plans. Visitors can walk freely on the carpet, read the plan, and imagine the connected spaces. Secondly, a temporary opening, cut into the brick enclosure of the Swiss courtyard, makes visible the connection with the neighbouring pavilion and allows visitors to move between the spaces. Further, the dead plane tree has been cut at a height of about eight metres and the iron fences shutting off the openings of the Swiss pavilion have been temporarily removed. Like all post-war pavilions, the two neighbours incorporate the old plane trees from the alley. For decades they sat under the cool shade of their large crowns. As the tree at the Swiss pavilion has died, a part of the trunk will be left standing for the duration of the exhibition as an architectural reference, and will subsequently be replaced. Does its neighbour tree in front of the Venezuelan pavilion ‘know’ that it has gone? Participating Countries

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Commissioners Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia Sandi Paucic, Project Leader Rachele Giudici Legittimo, Project Manager Participants and Curators Karin Sander Philip Ursprung Steering Committee Pro Helvetia Philippe Bischof (Director) Jérôme Benoit (Deputy Director) Anna Arutyunova (Head of Global Network and International Affairs) Katharina Brandl (Head of Visual Arts) Ines Flammarion (Head of Communication) Assistants to the Commissioners Anita Magni Jacqueline Wolf Collaborators ETH Zurich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Sassa Trülzsch, Managing Curator; Tobias Becker, Project Leader; Berit Seidel, Adam Jasper, Researchers Studio Karin Sander Stefan Alber, Olga Hammermeister, Daniela Ihrig, Johannes Moeller Rebiennale Giulio Grillo Communication Ursula Pfander Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia Benedetta Di Costanzo, Zeynep Seyhun, Caroline Widmer Pickles PR Pavilion Manager and Local Coordinator Tommaso Rava Architectural Consultant Alvise Draghi With the Support of ETH Zurich – Department of Architecture Fondazione Maxxi NEUCO Stepevi

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Special Thanks to Sophie Agata Ambroise Börkur Arnarson Bidi Beck Carla Zhara Buda Pippo Ciorra Michelle Courtens Helga de Alvear Tom Emerson Kurt W. Forster Heiner Franzen Roland Frischknecht Alexander Fritzsch Lisa Gärtner Elisabetta Giordano Stefano Graziani Adi Grüninger Guido Hager Vera Hartmann Moritz Henkel Kristina Hinrichsen Anna Hohler Tobias Hotz Louisa Hutton Rita Illien Adam Kiryk Hubert Klumpner Verena Konrad Stefan Körner Clemens Krümmel Andreas Kuelich Martin Lauffer Chiara Marchegiani Lukas Meyer Selma Neuber Sibylle Novello Jochen Olbert Nicolas Rolle Kai Rosenberg Polina Saante Sabine Sarwa Matthias Sauerbruch Paola Scaramuzza Jörn Schafaff Arno Schlüter Esther Schipper Gül Dilek Schlieker Madeleine Schuppli Rosemarie Schwarzwälder Elisa Silva Holger Terno Andreas Uebele Harry Walter Rob Wilson Florian Wojnar Adela Yawitz and everybody who made this project possible

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Building as a container, as a carrier bag, as a pool that holds the life story of transformations, unpredictability and messiness. © Cem Dinlenmiş

Biennale Architettura 2023

What is ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Architecture’? Elizabeth Fisher argues that, rather than hunting tools, the first cultural device of humans was probably a carrier bag, which let them transport the vegetables they gathered.1 A weapon-wielding man, however, is apparently a more captivating image to depict on the walls of a cave than a food-carrying scene. Ursula K. Le Guin adapted this theory to fiction and managed to tell gripping stories in which unheroic characters make their way through life with all its failures and conflicts.2 The exhibition applies Le Guin’s theory to architectural practice. Architecture requires a fundamental change in the age of crisis. However, whereas Le Guin’s dream finally comes true – those who collect oats into their carrier bags appear on the cave walls instead of those who hunt mammoths with their spears – as architects, can we tolerate such radical change in the images we have inherited, our ossified perceptions of beauty and functionality? What if we listen to and understand the stories of abandoned buildings, rather than focusing on more heroic, successful examples? What is this exhibition about? This exhibition is about transforming the existing structures. It displays the outcome of a collaborative body of research gathered from an open call for abandoned buildings across Türkiye. It also demonstrates how our theory resonates with contemporary architectural practice.

Türkiye

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Commissioner Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) Curators Sevince Bayrak Oral Göktaş Project Team Aysima Akın K. Reyyan Doğan Merve Akdoğan Research Team M. Taylan Tosun Doğu Tonkur Research Assistants Berke Şevketoğlu H. Bahar Çoklar Duygu Saygı Exhibition Design SO? Architecture and Ideas Graphic Design Esen Karol With the Support of Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Foreign Affairs Schüco Turkey VitrA Turkish Airlines

Why is this subject relevant for the Türkiye pavilion? Since construction in Türkiye is triggered by economic growth rather than spatial needs, we have a huge variety of unused buildings. As we were writing this text, two earthquakes, with magnitudes of 7.7 and 7.6, struck south-eastern Türkiye, causing massive damage. In a country with an enormous building stock that has to be reinforced to resist earthquakes, we need to find ways to transform the existing and introduce novel tools and methods to nurture our collective dreams and discussions. As Lesley Lokko puts it, “hope is a powerful currency.” Even in the most devastating times, we need ideas that will keep hope alive. Here, abandoned buildings, as a resource and as the laboratory of the future, new tools of transformation, and theory come together to form a timely expression of optimism. 1

E. Fisher, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Evolution”, in Women’s Creation: Sexual Evolution and the Shaping of Society (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1979).

U. K. Le Guin, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction”, originally published 1986 and now in Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (New York: Grove Press, 1989), 165–170.

Participating Countries

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Biennale Architettura 2023

Ukraine

By telling stories, we have the opportunity to understand each other and share diverse visions of a changing future. Over four hundred days of living at war have shown us that stories cannot be told without defence. Wherever storytelling takes place, there is something and someone that allow that voice to be heard relatively safely. Fortifications can be of natural, other-than-human, human, or hybrid origin. They can be well planned, or haphazard. Under the roof or behind the rampart, we can gather to discuss the most urgent questions before the future. This year’s Ukrainian pavilion is such a protective structure. Ukraine hasn’t been present at the Biennale Architettura for a long time. Now it reappears in a pivotal moment, to tell its stories and to establish closer contact between different communities. In the spirit of Lesley Lokko’s introduction on the shift from exhibition as story to the conditions of its creation, production, and representation, we would like to shape some intense and focused processes during the Biennale, which will themselves unfold as new stories. We will go beyond the site of the pavilion to the paradoxical situation Ukrainian architects now find themselves in. The future potential and possibilities of their actions coexist with the constant destruction of the past and present, its spaces and interactions. Further: new connections have arisen in the rich processes of self-organisation; stories of state defence and the values of freedom; stories which have reforged our common. All these reflections unite us in the long programme inside the pavilion, where even the short-term outcome remains open. Everyone has their untold stories, but events usually foster their revision. As we focus on what is to come, we must not neglect what came before. Here we follow the artistic practice of Kateryna Aliinyk, who adjusts her point of view to the fast-changing landscape: “[...] even if a landscape does not seem to retain traces of tragedy for long, in the end, a closer look usually reveals its presence.” It seems fitting then that in this time of change, while casting a direct eye on the future, our workshop practice does not seek to break new ground, but rather rebuild intangible interactions and connections. — Iryna Miroshnykova, Oleksii Petrov, Borys Filonenko Participating Countries

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Commissioner Mariana Oleskiv State Agency for Tourism Development of Ukraine Curators Iryna Miroshnykova Oleksii Petrov Borys Filonenko Participants Architects, Artists, Writers, Cultural Workers, and Others Collaborators Maria Lanko, Deputy Curator Anna Dobrova, Project Manager Anastasia Zhuravel, Program Coordinator Ilona Schneider, Administrative team Kyrylo Khivrich, Architect / Researcher Elisaveta Perel, Architect / Researcher Iryna Shershakova, Architect / Researcher Kateryna Aliinyk, Artist With the Support of Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine, Charitable Organization Charitable Fund Pavilion Kultury NGO Museum of Contemporary Art

Before the Future 125

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Misfit Assembly, 2023, prototype. Rocks, fallen wooden elements, 3D printed connections. Photo Faysal Tabbarah. Courtesy National Pavilion UAE A dry-stacked wall in Al Hajar Mountains in the United Arab Emirates. Faysal Tabbarah, Aridly Abundant, 2023. Photo Reem Falaknaz. Courtesy National Pavilion UAE

Biennale Architettura 2023

United Arab Emirates

The exhibition works at the intersection between land-based knowledge and contemporary technology. The overarching question for the exhibition asks: What architectural possibilities can emerge when we reimagine arid landscapes as spaces of abundance? Focusing on the relationship between architecture and arid landscapes, the project challenges the perception of arid environments as spaces of scarcity and precarity by uncovering ongoing arid land-based practices that rethink mainstream material practices. Foreground aridity within architectural production and discourse provokes a future built in, with, and for aridity. Despite arid and semi-arid environments making up approximately 32 percent1 of the earth’s surface, the contemporary built environment renders aridity and its conditions invisible to its population; it dislocates people from the reality of food and water scarcity and the knowledge of how these systems support them. Most land in the UAE is semi-arid, arid, and hyper-arid, however, Aridly Abundant explores abundance within the UAE’s desert plateau, wadis, and coastal plains along Al Hajar Mountain range with a methodology that includes experiments in material systems, research into primary and secondary records, and fieldwork. In addition, the project investigates aridity as a historical condition in some regions and a future condition in others, to provoke the production of architectural conditions that are rooted in their material, cultural, and historical contexts. This highlights how earthen materials and practices, currently labelled as unviable by the construction industry, have the potential to suggest an alternative future in which construction is not complicit in climate change. The exhibition transforms the pavilion into an environment that exhibits the spatial, material, and tactical qualities of aridly abundant environments, creating a backdrop for architectural provocations suited for global contemporary and future arid contexts. 1

‘Why Now?’, 2010–2022: UN Decade for Desert and Fight Against Desertification, article available at https://www.un.org/en/events/ desertification_decade/whynow.shtml.

Participating Countries

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Commissioner Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation Curator Faysal Tabbarah Exhibition Design Architecture + Other Things Photography and Sound Reem Falaknaz Collaborator Meitha Almazrooei Graphic Design 40MUSTAQEL, Cairo With the Support of UAE Ministry of Culture and Youth

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Ang Li, Untitled, compressed polystyrene foam, 2023. Courtesy the Artist

Biennale Architettura 2023

United States of America

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Perfected in the United States in the early 1900s, petrochemical polymers known as plastics were embraced as a revolutionary material that protected the natural world and decreased socioeconomic barriers to accessing goods previously only available to the wealthy. Today, despite cultural attitudes towards disposability and evidence of toxicity, plastics are produced at alarmingly exponential rates making clear the urgency to reframe our approach to the overabundance of plastic detritus in our waterways, landfills, and streets. Everlasting Plastics explores the cultural ubiquity of these materials and the ways in which our reliance has shaped a fraught, yet enmeshed, kinship. This group exhibition brings together five artists and designers whose practices focus on examining, salvaging, and upending a global calamity. This project includes site-specific works by Xavi Laida Aguirre, Simon Anton, Ang Li, Norman Teague, and Lauren Yeager. Each work considers our relationship with plastics, encouraging discussion about the ways the material both shapes and erodes contemporary ecologies, economies, and the built environment, while also suggesting potential alternatives and necessary re-imaginings for the ways in which plastics are deployed. Rather than making a value judgment about plastic, the exhibition acknowledges that our toxic interdependency with the material is now a global phenomenon, while also understanding its possibilities as an agent of change. The pavilion invites an architectural perspective to highlight our unseen dependency on plastics; demonstrates the ways in which plasticity has created expectations for the behaviours of other materials; and points to plastic’s unknown, long-term, and indelible impact on our futures. — Lauren Leving, Tizziana Baldenebro Participating Countries

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Commissioner Tizziana Baldenebro, SPACES Curators Tizziana Baldenebro, Executive Director, SPACES Lauren Leving, Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland Participants Xavi Laida Aguirre Simon Anton Ang Li Norman Teague Lauren Yeager Collaborators Paula Volpato, Assistant Curator Chloe Munkenbeck and Faysal Altunbozar, Exhibition Design The Normal Studio, Graphic Design Resnicow and Associates, PR Elizabeth Krasner, PR Consultant Columbia Books on Architecture and the City Case Western Reserve University Kent State University, College of Architecture & Environmental Design Venice Lagoon Plastic Free Chiara Barbieri, Director of Special Projects, Peggy Guggenheim Collection Giacomo di Thiene, Th&Ma Architettura

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With the Support of United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Cleveland Foundation Ford Foundation Nord Family Foundation Alphawood Foundation George Gund Foundation The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts The Joyce Foundation University of Illinois at Chicago School of the Art Institute of Chicago Beyer Family Fund FRONT International Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Ulmer & Berne, LLC Glen-Gery

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Anonymous Dennis & Kathy Barrie Maragare Cohen & Kevin Rahilly Biagio & Lorraine Gagliano Agnes Gund David Novgorodsky John C. Williams, AIA

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Plant nursery in Tacuarembó, Uruguay, 2023. Photo MAPA+INST Planted forest in Tacuarembó, Uruguay, 2023. Photo MAPA+INST

Biennale Architettura 2023

Uruguay

Uruguay, “a country with four cows per inhabitant”, is going through an unprecedented change in its productive matrix. For the first time, cellulose exports will exceed meat exports in 2023 and will lead foreign sales. Since the approval of the Forest Law in 1987, the forested surface has grown more than thirty times. This expansion is expected to continue as the country has prioritised four million hectares for forestry use. It seems that today trees and wood deserve our attention. In this sense, the project understands the Forest Law as an ecosystemic assembly under construction that dialogues with diverse spatialities and territorialities. It is an invitation to discuss and learn together about its implications in the decarbonisation and decolonisation processes and its ability to shape Uruguay as a laboratory for the future of wood. The central piece is a multi-author opera that will transform the Uruguayan pavilion in Venice into a strange theatre hall. An avatar of the law looks in the mirror eager to be attended to and enters into dialogue with visual pieces based on the spatialities of wood in Uruguay and musical irruptions that introduce the visions of a new generation of Afro-Uruguayan artists. The opera will be complemented with other devices and formats: a catalogue that delves into the issues raised and a series of activities in Uruguay aimed at students that will broaden the scope of the debate and look towards the future. We will ask ourselves: can we imagine Uruguay as a fairer and more inclusive laboratory for the future of wood? What spatialities dialogue with the Forest Law? How do they do this? What controversies do they state? Which place does architecture occupy here? And by being part of this assembly, what possible futures can we build together? In turn, the law will ask itself: what possibilities have I enabled? What processes have I allowed or truncated? Why doesn’t anyone talk about me as a major character? Who am I talking to and who am I not? What will the temporal-generational framework of my existence be? Can I dream? What are my nightmares and what are my best dreams? Participating Countries

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Commissioner Facundo de Almeida, National Director of Culture, Ministry of Education and Culture, Uruguay Curators Mauricio López, Matías Carballal, Andrés Gobba, Luciano Andrades Sebastián Lambert INST/MAPA Carlos Casacuberta Participants Rafaella Varela, Fol Cvetreznik, Guzmán Bergereau Exceso Colectivo Matías Rada, Camila Cardozo Nomusa Facundo Balta, Álvaro Silva AVR Viki Style SAK Noé Núñez Research Director Diego Morera With the Support of Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores Agencia Uruguay XXI Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo de la Universidad de la República de Uruguay Facultad de Arquitectura de la Universidad ORT

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Republic of Uzbekistan

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Our response to the theme of the Biennale Architettura 2023, The Laboratory of the Future, can be read as an encounter of different horizons, allowing us to take a cross look at the Uzbek architectural heritage, to delve into its past in order to find the necessary tools for the elaboration of tomorrow’s world. Unbuild Together modernity by questioning the notion of archaism. Participation is above all collaborative, placing the human being at the centre of our approach. Through exchanges between us, architecture students at Ajou University in Tashkent, and local ceramic master and artist Abdulvahid Bukhoriy, a collective proposal will emerge, leaving room for the unexpected. The associated artists adhering to our approach all have a poetic role. A film in the core of the architectural installation by El Mehdi Azzam, disseminating its significance and emotion. A reduced model by Miza Mucciarelli, as a mental comprehension of the lived experience. A photographic work by Emine Gözde Sevim, a sensitive gaze of a shared experience. It is about giving ourselves theoretical and practical tools to achieve this. From the ruins of the ancient qalas to the multiple possibilities that earth offers to build, especially brick. From the mythical figure of the labyrinth to constructed reality. These are the many elements to be reinterpreted in order to create a sensitive and poetic architectural proposal, reflecting a truly contemporary and contextual practice. — Studio KO Participating Countries

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Commissioner Gayane Umerova, Executive Director of the Art and Culture Development Foundation under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan Curators Studio KO Karl Fournier & Olivier Marty Jean Baptiste Carisé Sophia Bengebara Participants El Mehdi Azzam Abdulvahid Bukhoriy Miza Mucciarelli Emine Gözde Sevim Research Contributors Ajou University in Tashkent Head of Project Madina Badalova Art and Culture Development Foundation of the Republic of Uzbekistan Project Managers Boburkhon Mamatkhodjaev, Irina Yan, Laziza Akbarova, Art and Culture Development Foundation of the Republic of Uzbekistan Exhibition Design Studio KO Exhibition Installation We Exhibit With the Support of Saida Mirziyoyeva, Head of the Communications and Information Policy Section of the Administration of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan

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The tower clock under restoration, 2022. 1953, h 25 m. Photo Comisión Presidencial para la recuperación de la Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas

Biennale Architettura 2023

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

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The Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000 and is considered by international critics as the masterpiece of the Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva. He applied the principles of modern architecture to the development needs of our country, adapting architecture to the richness of our climate, our vegetation, and the social development needs of Venezuela at the time. The Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas is a perfectly articulated set of green areas, internal courtyards, covered corridors, and high-quality buildings where architecture is at the service of social development. The Universidad Central de Venezuela represents the materialisation of Master Villanueva’s concept of the “synthesis of the arts”, hosting 108 works of national and international great masters. All this integration of architecture and art results in an ingenious and brilliant interpretation of their concepts, appropriate to our tropics, with open, ventilated, and protected constructions. The exhibition aims to show a reinterpretation and rethinking of architecture starting from Villanueva’s approach, inspiring new generations of architects to conceive the idea of building as an element of social change and development. Because of the importance of the Universidad Central de Venezuela for the world, the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, created on 2 July 2021, the Comisión Presidencial para la Recuperación de la Universidad Central de Venezuela, which after the necessary evaluations and diagnoses began the works for its recovery. We will show, through comparative images, original projects, and current photos, how a Latin American country reappropriates the value of modern architecture, recovering its splendour, its original values, its spaces, and above all the modern utopia of the university city that re-emerges to serve as a guide to the future, in the work of Carlos Raúl Villanueva, one of the masters of world architecture. — Paola Posani Urdaneta Participating Countries

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Commissioner and Curator Paola Posani Urdaneta Participant Comisión Presidencial para la Recuperación de la UCV Deputy Commissioner Reinaldo Landaeta Díaz Collaborators Ricardo Sanz, Museographer Henrique Vera, Researcher Félix Gerardi, Photographer Omar Lamuño and Adriana Puleo, Audiovisual Mary Pemjean, Press Álvaro Arocha Paz Castillo, Graphic Designer Karla Páez and Francesca Ciaralli With the Support of Ministry of People’s Power for Culture Ministry of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs Banco de Desarrollo Económico y Social de Venezuela (Bandes)

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Perspective of the pavilion. Drawing by Marco Marino Interior view of the pavilion. Drawing by Marco Marino

Biennale Architettura 2023

Padiglione Venezia

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The Padiglione Venezia for the Biennale Architettura 2023 is an opportunity to tell the story of how the city of Venice has changed, continues to change, and will change in the near future. The exhibition illustrates over eighty public and private works built since 2015. These works, both at urban and architectural scale, are shown as part of a single overall project, the result of a continuous work that is essential to build the current and evolving image of the city of Venice, understood both as the historical city and the islands of the lagoon and as the consolidated mainland city. The result of the projects that have already been built or are still under construction illustrated in the exhibition gives the overall idea of urban transformations giving value to the project thanks to a broad vision and with a clear idea of the future: the relationship with the University serves to define new horizons and new trajectories for urban transformation, a new working model to build Venezia Città Campus. The curatorial project is by Collettivo Venezia and the technical scientific committee of the Padiglione Venezia is coordinated by Guido Morpurgo. The first part of the set-up includes the contribution of H-FARM, with a mix of experiential and visual content designed by imagining a future that uses technology and digital transformation at the service of human beings and their evolution. The central part and heart of the exhibition will be a large frieze arranged along the entire interior wall of the pavilion, which will be a re-proposition of Venetie MD, Jacopo De Barbari’s 1500 bird’s eye view of the city, with the unprecedented addition of the metropolitan city portion. The great view will also use texts, data, and photographic documentation to illustrate the evolution and transformation of the City of Venice with proposals for the city of the future that will be projected directly onto the great frieze. The final part of the exhibition will present the works of the winner/s of the Artefici del Nostro Tempo award. Participating Countries

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Commissioner Maurizio Carlin Curators Collettivo Venezia: Benno Albrecht, Guido Morpurgo, Marco Marino, Roberto Beraldo, Valentina Fanti, Nicola Picco, Alessandro Pedron Participants H-FARM Comune di Venezia Università IUAV di Venezia General Coordination Comune di Venezia: Marco Mastroianni, Danilo Gerotto, Simone Agrondi Università IUAV di Venezia: Marco Marino Fondaco Italia: Giovanna Zabotti Organisational Secretariat Fondaco Italia Exhibition Design Marco Marino Visual Identity and Graphic Design Stefano Mandato Institutional Partners Fondazione Musei Civici, Venezia Fondazione dell’Ordine degli Architetti PPC, Venezia Fondazione Teatro La Fenice di Venezia Ordine degli Architetti PPC, Venezia Università IUAV di Venezia Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia Ve.La, gruppo AVM Venis With the Support of Brombal Luxury Metal Windows and Doors

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Mercury flying over Venice ‘MML’. Drawing by Marco Marino

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Brombal, study for the new windows: the recovery of the architectural identity of the Venice Pavilion, 2022. Technical data sheet. © Brombal SRL Brombal, study for the new windows: the recovery of the architectural identity of the Venice Pavilion, 2022. Project. © Brombal SRL

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Special Special Special Project Project Project Pavilion of Pavilion of Pavilion of Applied Applied Applied Arts Arts Arts Special Special Special Project Project Project Pavilion of Pavilion of Pavilion of Applied Applied Applied Arts Arts Arts Special Special Special Project Project Project Pavilion of Pavilion of Pavilion of Applied Applied Applied Arts Arts Arts

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Gordon Cullen illustration depicting a school by Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew in ‘The African Experiment’, Architectural Review, May 1953. RIBA Collections. © Gordon Cullen Estate

Biennale Architettura 2023

La Biennale di Venezia with Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Power in West Africa

In the late 1940s, in the context of British West Africa (Gambia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria), Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew developed the tools of Tropical Modernism, adapting an international modernist aesthetic to the hot, humid conditions of the continent. Their distinctive language of climate control – adjustable louvres, wide eaves, and brise-soleils that made only superficial reference to the locality – was propagated through their influential book Tropical Architecture (1956), and the Department of Tropical Architecture they established in 1954 at the Architectural Association in London, where they taught European architects to work in the colonies and trained a new generation of postcolonial architects. Their architectural innovations appeared against the political background of decolonial struggle, which would soon come to fruition. The couple and their peers built numerous schools, universities, community centres, and libraries, paid for by the Colonial Welfare and Development Act’s £200m post-war programme, a cynical initiative designed to offset calls for independence, and to make the colonies better producers for the world market and better buyers for European goods. Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence in 1957, and over the next decade two-thirds of the continent won their freedom. Kwame Nkrumah, the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, had been educated in the United States and England, where he set up the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester. He saw in Tropical Modernism the possibility for an expression of his Pan-African ideology, which sought to Special Project Pavilion of Applied Arts

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Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology students building geodesic and space frame structures in front of the Department of Architecture, 1965. Photo Keith Critchlow

Biennale Architettura 2023

make meaningful links between the continent and diaspora. Nkrumah commissioned architects from Eastern Europe to work alongside Ghanaian architects to create monumental structures that were intended as beacons for a free Africa. In 1963, the Department of Tropical Studies at the AA was invited to form a partnership with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi. Whereas Maxwell Fry had asserted that nothing could be learned from traditional African architecture, the School – intended as an ‘African Bauhaus’ – questioned the colonial assumptions and inspired a new architecture that looked to create a unique African style. Through an analysis of a dozen key buildings, and a series of filmed interviews with surviving participants of this period of collaboration between the AA and KNUST, the exhibition explores the ways in which Tropical Modernism was adapted by new African nations to promote the possibilities of a Pan-African future. Special Project Pavilion of Applied Arts

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Curators Christopher Turner (Lead Curator, V&A) Nana Biamah-Ofosu and Bushra Mohamed (AA) in Collaboration with The Architectural Association (AA), London, and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi 145

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Scotland + Venice Our existence relies on a close relationship with the landscapes that sustain us. Our understanding of the natural world around us is fragile. How can a closer relationship between land and language help architecture be more attuned to the environment in which it operates? Our landscapes are constantly transmitting information if we choose to see and listen. By re-establishing our dialogue with the land, how can we value exchange over extraction and equality over dominance? How can we create a more reciprocal connection with the land? Highlighting cultures and languages that have a close affinity with the landscapes of Scotland, A Fragile Correspondence explores alternative perspectives and new approaches to the challenges of the worldwide climate emergency. From the forests around Loch Ness, the seashore of the Orkney archipelago, and the industrialised remnants of the Ravenscraig steelworks, the project takes us on a journey through three Scottish landscapes: the Highlands, Islands, and Lowlands. Writers, artists, and architects, in correspondence with these landscapes, are exploring issues distinctly rooted in place, but with global relevance to the cultural, ecological, and climatic issues that we face. Language is powerful and shapes how we understand the world around us. Through these creative explorations, and by proposing a new lexicon of terms and definitions, can we begin to imagine alternative ways of doing things? Can we see the potential in futures that sensitively work in correspondence with the land rather than simply upon it? The project is a curatorial collaboration between the Architecture Fringe, -ism magazine, and /other. Their curatorial approach centres on a shared understanding and appreciation of diverse cultural nuance, lived experience, and a close reading of social, political, and environmental contexts. — Architecture Fringe, -ism, and /other

Collateral Events

A Fragile Correspondence Scotland + Venice

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Curators Architecture Fringe -ism /other Participants Dele Adeyemo Donna Heddle Aaron McCarthy Frank McElhinney Mairi McFadyen Hamshya Rajkumar Raghnaid Sandilands Amanda Thomson

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Collaborators Simon Forsythe for Lateral North Ann Louise Kieran for North Lanarkshire Council Designers Architecture Fringe -ism /other Project Co-ordination Architecture and Design Scotland Film Maker Simon Forsythe Production and Technical Management Alberto Lago Nick Millar Press, PR & Digital Architecture and Design Scotland The Corner Shop The project has been commissioned by the Scotland + Venice partnership (Creative Scotland, British Council Scotland, National Galleries of Scotland, Architecture and Design Scotland, V&A Dundee and the Scottish Government) Website www.scotlandandvenice.com 149

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Eva Serrats, Following the Fish – ‘Manteros’ in the Barcelona subway lobby, 2022. Courtesy © Eva Serrats Eva Serrats, Following the Fish – Drawing session at the Top Manta workshop, 2023. Courtesy © Eva Serrats

Biennale Architettura 2023

Catalonia in Venice_Following the Fish Institut Ramon Llull With the complicit desire to bring to light possible spaces of African realities in Europe, Leve Architecture has joined forces with Top Manta. A Barcelona community from Senegal, an Africa built from afar, from the diaspora. Informal street vendors who, singularised by institutional racism, are forced to sell clothes or accessories on sheets (the ‘manta’) spread out on the city streets. In 2015 they founded the Union of Barcelona Street Vendors, and in 2017 they created the Top Manta project in order to produce ethical fashion. This encounter between architecture and the African diaspora has encouraged the creation of alternate stories and architectures to the hegemonic ones, challenging us to think about the city in different ways. Following the Fish is the rehearsal of this joint effort. The fish emerges as the narrator of the ‘manter’ life trajectory. It is fish that Europe extracts on a massive scale from the coasts of West Africa to feed the salmon farms in the North, stealing a basic source of food from local communities. These fish slice through the currents that carry the diaspora caused by such pillaging; they who arrive in Barcelona and uncover a hostile city life that pursue those who have no other option but to work the ‘manta’. However, despite these harsh conditions, they have been able, through political and creative struggles, to offer other ways of living, of repairing what has failed in the cities that (have failed to) receive them. It is at this point that the project becomes a laboratory of the future, calling architecture students to action. A reparations workshop whose goal is to find opportunities for action within actual conditions. Through the critical and constructive perspective of migrant communities, Following the Fish seeks to redefine the places whence architecture is made and the role of architects. If architecture hopes to be part of contemporary socio-political changes, it must foster these collaborative creative practices, overcome all a priori conditioning differences, and position itself in the territories of mutual recognition and shared struggles. A joint effort that compels architecture to get out of ‘its particular places’ and question the transformative capacities of its practices. ‘Manters’, trade unionists and students assemble the stories that are awaiting you to be unveiled at Catalonia in Venice. — Leve – Eva Serrats, Francesc Pla, Daniel Cid Collateral Events

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Curators Leve – Eva Serrats, Francesc Pla, Daniel Cid Participant Top Manta Exhibition Design Leve Projects Exhibition Graphic Design David Torrents / Taller Torrents Exhibition Production Top Manta Taller Torrents Jacqueline Molnár Visual Identity Design Font & Pont & Emerson Audiovisual Production Nebraska Produccions Coordination Pilar Cruz

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Collaborators BAU-UVic, ETSAB-UPC, ETSAV-UPC, ETSA-URV, Arch Urban Engr-POLIMI, Arch -Lund Univ, WSA-University of Southampton, Pla de Barris (Barcelona City Council) With the Support of Architects’ Association of Catalonia (COAC) LAMP La Capell The Institut Ramon Llull is a consortium formed by the Government of Catalonia, the Government of the Balearic Islands and Barcelona City Council. Websites www.fish.llull.cat www.llull.cat 151

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Ahmed El Desoky, Staying Cool Together: Social Adaptation to Extreme Heat in Cairo Desert Cities, 2020. Photo © Collection Ahmed ElDesoky Ceren Sezer, When Science Meets Art For Climate Action at University Campuses, IDEA League Summer School. © Ceren Sezer

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Biennale Architettura 2023

Climate Wunderkammer

RWTH Aachen University Climate change and the accompanying ecological degradation is creating a world unknown to current generations of humans, which requires a mindset of resilience and hope if we are to navigate the challenges ahead. Designers are faced with three of them. The first is to find ways to address the immediate challenges of specific, predictable disasters; the second is a more proactive adaptation of the built environment through measures such as diversity and adaptability to as yet unknown challenges; and the third, more profound is to transform our ways of being and doing so that we can create a better world from the ashes of the old. These three challenges inform the themes around which we structured this project. Our installation Climate Wunderkammer aims to immerse ourselves in a multi-sensory experience of climate change impact while sharing practical solutions to address and adapt to it. It exhibits a collection of narratives from our planet through drawings, videos, and voice recordings, a Wunderkammer of messages in bottles to open and discover. In each story depicting the threat and impact of climate change, we present tentative answers to adapt or address the new condition to inspire places undergoing similar climate trends in the future. We believe that the climate has no borders and that no one can solve this global issue alone on a local scale. This archive of narratives will generate the seed for setting up a global platform for sharing knowledge and mutual learning, especially learning from the most fragile places undergoing the impact of climate change. In addition to an installation, the Climate Wunderkammer offers the Climate Roundtables and the Atlas of Hope Conference during the Biennale Architettura. The roundtables are hybrid dialogues led by the involved institutions in which various participants share and reflect on narratives and practices of response, adaptation, and transformation. The conference offers a platform for sharing knowledge between invited academics, practitioners, and students from all over the world to collaborate on developing narratives of hope through devising possible actions and solutions. — Eugenio Morello, Ceren Sezer, Chrisna du Plessis, Christa Reicher Collateral Events

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Curators Christa Reicher Ceren Sezer Eugenio Morello Francesco Musco Participants Mohamed Assem Cem Ataman Monica Billger Carlo Federico Dall’Omo Andy van den Dobbelsteen Chrisna du Plessis Jan Hugo International Union of Architects Israa Mahmoud Vittorio Negretto Daniele Santucci Maram Tawil Liane Thuvander

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Graphic, Installation and Experience Design PLAM Creative Studio Motion Design Francesco Ulian Digital Archive Design Tan Zhi Sheng Bige Tuncer With the Support of Politecnico di Milano IUAV University of Venice Participating Universities RWTH Aachen University Politecnico di Milano IUAV University of Venice Delft University of Technology Chalmers University of Technology Singapore University of Technology and Design University of Pretoria German Jordanian University Alexandria University International Union of Architects Website www.climatewunderkammer.org 153

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Department of Architecture, Tunghai University, Landscape Document (Sunshade), 2023. Courtesy National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts Tsung-Yen HSIEH , Yi-Chien LEE, Exhibition space, 2023. Courtesy National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

Biennale Architettura 2023

Diachronic Apparatuses of Taiwan Architecture as on-going details within landscape National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

The development of technology presented optimistic confidence that strides forward without nostalgia. After years of optimism, however, we recognise that the future is not all about the progressive movement of the avant-garde. The built forms are caged in a concrete box mired in unconscious planar thinking and blind adherence to regulations. Proper responses to the environment are reduced to mere numerical considerations. We must take a detour and pay attention to the surroundings that were left behind by the confident strides. The project encourages a dialogue between synthetic and real ground. Humankind respected the land with due awe in pre-history time. Gaining confidence with the sophisticated tools, it began to ask for more than survival or comfort. The land becomes its source of creativity. The project presents an inventory of landscapes across different latitudes and altitudes in Taiwan. The world’s climate zones span a distance of ten thousand kilometres, ranging from freezing to tropical zones. The process of adapting to specific environments shapes numerous building forms when people use their knowledge and technology in their efforts to domesticate the environment. Equally abundant is the variation in height across the topography of the Taiwanese landscape, ranging from the tropical zone of the lower lands to the 260 mountains taller than three thousand metres in the frigid zones. The varied topography and evolutionary processes gave birth to rich biodiversity and diverse floral and forestry forms. The far reach of the coastal frontier to the summit of Jade Mountain in the Taiwanese landscape presents fourteen climate zones in a short distance of a hundred kilometres. Therefore, sectional analyses of the island may bear clues to the search for new architecture. And this is also the result that this project attempts to present. — Sheng-Chieh KO, Meng-Tsun SU Collateral Events

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Curator Wei TSENG Department of Architecture, Tunghai University Co-Curators Sheng-Chieh KO Jeong-Der HO Meng-Tsun SU Participants Department of Architecture, Tunghai University: Wei TSENG + Ming-Hao HSIEH, Ding-Che MA, Yung-Yu CHENG, Jeong-Der HO + Yong-Xuan LI, Han ZHENG, Huan-Lun CHEN, Sheng-Chieh KO + Ciao-Ming SHU, Yun-Hsi WU, Ci-Jhen LAI, Cai-Hui LIN, En-Yu JIAN, Tzu-Ching CHEN, Hsuan-Ting CHEN, Yan-Jun LU Tsung-Yen HSIEH Department of Architecture, National Cheng Kung University: Cheng-Luen HSUEH + YenChih CHEN, Ying-Tse WU, Ting-Ta HO, Wei-Lun CHEN, LiSiang HUANG, Pak-Hei WONG Department of Architecture, National Cheng Kung University: Chueh-Chih GUU + Tzu-Yu HUANG School of Architecture, Feng Chia University: Po-Jen CHENG + Yu-Wei KUO, Jr-Jiun WANG, Yi-Hu CHEN

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Exhibition Space Design Tsung-Yen HSIEH Yi-Chien LEE Structure Advisor Ming-Chang LAI With the Support of Department of Music, Tunghai University Department of Architecture, Tunghai University Department of Architecture, National Cheng Kung University Department of Architecture, Chung Yuan Christian University Department of Architecture, Tamkang University School of Architecture, Feng Chia University. Websites www.ntmofa.gov.tw www.arch.thu.edu.tw 155

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EUmies Awards. Young Talent 2023. The Laboratory of Education

Fundació Mies van der Rohe

Young Talent 2023 aims to support the talent of recently graduated architects, urban planners, and landscape architects who will be responsible for transforming our environment in the future. Young Talent emerged from curiosity about and interest in the initial stages in these students’ development and a desire to support their talent as they enter into the professional world. Four winners have been chosen in April 2023 by an international Jury from among twelve finalists, and a group of shortlisted works has also been selected in order to illustrate different ways of working, designing, and communicating architecture. This exhibition – organised by the Fundació Mies van der Rohe – shows the results of this process by presenting models, drawings, and videos of the shortlisted, finalists, and winners. Young Talent 2023 becomes a platform to exchange knowledge on how we all learn architecture and look towards the future: The Laboratory of Education. The fact that many and very different architecture schools participate, and that also representatives from other fields such as politicians and companies related to architecture also support the project, makes it possible to organise an event with young architects and also other stakeholders, cultural managers, policy makers, representatives of companies. Collateral Events

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Curators Ivan Blasi Anna Sala Giralt Participants The authors of the selected projects awarded by the Jury members of the Young Talent in April 2023. These group of projects are from European and guest countries universities.

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Main Collaborator Creative Europe – European Commission Key Institutional Collaborators Architects’ Council of Europe European Association for Architectural Education Strategic Collaboration World Architects Collaborators Jung Jansen Regent Venue Collaboration European Cultural Centre With the Support of USM Alma Website https://eumiesawards.com 157

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Skaters in Place de Brouckère Brussels, 2022. Courtesy New European Bauhaus

Biennale Architettura 2023

Radical yet possible future space solutions New European Bauhaus, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission The New European Bauhaus (NEB) is a movement launched by the European Commission in 2020. It seeks to demonstrate the capacity of culture and art to become enablers of the collective response to environmental challenges. Like the original Bauhaus, the NEB is conceived as a host to new modes of creative experimentation. In line with this NEB mission, this two-day NEB conference has been designed as a radical laboratory of the future to allow speakers, students, and Biennale Architettura visitors to experiment, discover, and design the future with the power of their minds. We provide a space to reflect on radical human actions leading to a better use of spaces and resources. Today, after centuries of greedy exploitations, the delicate balance that once existed between people and nature is on the edge of a dreadful failure. Every day, we find ourselves more and more exposed to extreme challenges. However, as climate change, resource scarcity, and shifting demographics threaten the existential human needs, they also drive individuals and whole societies into daring to explore new ways of living, into overcoming mind-sets that the future of humankind is limited by already existing solutions. Therefore, the discussion might touch upon subjects such as new sources of income, the sharing economy or ‘cities for things/people’, the fifteen-minute city urban concept, the social and environmental impact of data and logistic centres populating rural areas all over the world, and much more. In addition, the conference explores nonexisting but necessary human endeavours including the decarbonisation of human desires or the decolonisation of nature from human needs. The architecture will, as it always has, follow the innovative ways of thinking and reflect the technological and societal changes generated by human minds confronted with new challenges. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission and initiator of the New European Bauhaus, launches this exciting La Biennale–NEB experiment and kicks off the interdisciplinary debates. Collateral Events

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Curators Francesca Bria Hans Joachim Schellnhuber Wael al Awar Participants Shigeru Ban, Francesca Bria, Eszter Dávida, Thïemo Heilbron, Bjarke Ingels, Michela Magas, Pia Maier Schriever, Alexandra Mitsotaki, Orla Murphy, Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, Sheela Patel, Luther Quenum, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Petr Skvaril, José Pedro Sousa, Hubert Trammer, Lorenza Baronecelli, Jose Luis de Vicente, Giulia Foscari, Eva Franch i Gilabert, Clara Latini, Anette Hafner, Rem Koolhaas, Stefano Mancuso, Edgar Pieterse, Xu Tiantian, Markus Reymann, Ursula von der Leyen, Elisa Ferreira, Lesley Lokko, Luigi Brugnaro, Benno Albrecht, Michael Gorman, Kunle Adyani, Prodomos Tsiavos, Aric Chen, Stephan Petermann, Christoph de Jaeger, Benedetta Tagliabue, Gerfried Stocker, Carlo Barbante

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Students as Researchers: Creative Practice and University Education New York Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Design We live in a conjuncture of simultaneous crisis affecting shifting paradigms, and therefore, we have the urgency to act within social, environmental, political, and economic scenarios. Moreover, the correlated crises suggest the need for an extension of the taxonomy of architecture towards more responsible practices conducive to civic engagement. University education represents an opportunity to develop radical visions that can challenge the conventionality of market-oriented societies. The talent and freshness of students can positively contribute to inevitable active and transformational approaches that recognize the need to convert the obsolete metabolism of the city from an energy eater to a power generator without compromising the well-being of our communities. Through the exchange of critical ideas with the students, teaching can become a research instrument if fueled by bi-directional pedagogical models in which teacher and learner can mutually collaborate. Global Mass – Living Mass. Beyond Artificiality: Living Materials is the composite and multimedia installation of the assembly of the work carried out by the students of the participating universities. The collective production of the artifact and the whole creative and realization process is recorded and recomposed into the physical exhibition titled University Dialogs which embodies the creative practices and processes developed in global contexts. The Collateral Event hosts the virtual exhibition section Knowledge Transfer within the platforms CITYX VENICE and METROTOPIA METAVERSE. The platforms feature online lectures, roundtable discussions and workshops that bring together the world’s leading architects, researchers, and educators to showcase the full spectrum of contemporary design innovation, responding to disruptive global patterns and technologies that are transforming architectural practice. Collateral Events

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Curator Maria Perbellini Participants Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Universidad Iberoamericana, Dominican Republic; Luleå University of Technology, Sweden; University of Leeds, United Kingdom; Chandigarh University, India; University of Lincoln, United Kingdom; Politecnico di Milano, Italy; Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy; Politecnico di Torino, Italy; Birmingham City University, United Kingdom; Università della Basilicata, Italy; Gebze Teknik Üniversitesi, Turkey; Università degli Studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, Italy; FHWien, Austria; Università di Bologna, Italy; Università di Cagliari, Italy; Università di Sassari, Italy; Università di Genova, Italy; The Institute of Contemporary Art of Singapore, LASALLE, Singapore, MACCA Campus Peccioli, Italy CITYX VENICE and METROTOPIA METAVERSE by Tom Kovac, Patrik Schumacher and Daniela Ghertovici with the NYIT Curatorial Team: Architectural Association, United Kingdom; Bartlett UCL, United Kingdom; RMIT, Australia; Innsbruck

University, Austria; IE School of Architecture & Design, Spain; SCI-Arc, United States; Harvard GSD, United States; MIT, United States; UPenn Weitzman, United States; Texas A&M, United States; IAAC, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Spain; PRATT Institute, United States; The NEW Centre, United States; New York Institute of Technology, United States; Tongji University, China; Virginia Tech, United States; USC, Los Angeles, United States; Tsinghua University, China; Taubman College, United States; Science Gallery Venice, Italy; MADA, Australia; Curtin University, Australia; Anyone Corp / Log, United States; MAD, OMA, Morphosis, LAVA, Contemporary Architecture Practice, ArchiUnion Architects, NFTism, UNStudio — — — — —

Deputy Curators Marcella Del Signore Sandra Manninger Athina Papadopoulou In Collaboration with Comune di Peccioli, Italy IDC Foundation - USA Website www.nyit.edu/architecture 161

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162

Serge Bloch, 2023

Biennale Architettura 2023

CA’ASI

Tracé Bleu. Que faire en ce lieu, à moins que l’on y songe?

In the face of adversity and overwhelming environmental challenges, what tools do we have to avoid being carried away by the frenzy of hasty solutions or self-fulfilling prophecies? How can we consider what surrounds us no longer as human’s slave resources, but rather as opportunity for creativity? Can we get the actors of ecological transformation involved? How do we engage new imaginations? The Tracé Bleu is simultaneously an approach, a method, and an inquiry, and it is in any case an invitation to transform, inspire, and extend these questions through the gesture. This exhibition proposes a sensitive and active immersion to follow the Tracé Bleu, a collective invitation to reflect on the stakes of the century. Visitors are invited to follow an architectural work of art by the Dutch artist Krijn de Koning that leads them through the different thematic spaces. Video artists Jonathas de Andrade and Joanie Lemercier show the meaningful opposition between a conscientious relationship, respectful of nature and the brutality of an extractive machine. The exhibition is also based on concrete achievements, ‘fragments’ put into images by the French illustrator Serge Bloch, a multitude of elements of urban and architectural projects, built or fictional, which present circular and regenerative uses of resources. Finally, upstairs, visitors are invited to take part in the Tracé Bleu by offering their contributions, their ‘songe’, their thoughts and dreams. They will be collected and presented as part of the exhibition’s future itineraries. Collateral Events

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Curators Architecturestudio Centquatre-Paris Participants Krijn de Koning Joanie Lemercier Jonathas de Andrade Serge Bloch

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Architecturestudio Collaborators Martin Robain, Rodo Tisnado, Jean-François Bonne, Marc Lehmann, René-Henri Arnaud, Laurent-Marc Fischer, Roueïda Ayache, Marie-Caroline Piot, Mariano Efron, Widson Monteiro, Alain Bretagnolle, Romain Boursier, Gaspard Joly, Marion Moustey Centquatre-Paris Collaborators José-Manuel Gonçalvès, Martin Colomer-Diez, Milena Landré, Elise Labernède Website www.ca-asi.com 163

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Unsettled Ground, 2022. Photo Justin Hui

Transformative Hong Kong - Moving Bamboo pavilion, 2023. Courtesy Hiroyuki Shinohara, Tung Hoi Peter Chan ↓↓↓

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Biennale Architettura 2023

Transformative Hong Kong The Hong Kong Institute of Architects Biennale Foundation and Hong Kong Arts Development Council

Hong Kong is on the move, even after significant urban metamorphosis in the last sixty years with an almost three-fold the population growth, the city is on the brink of yet another transformative moment with various territorial scale projects in planning or implementation phases, and new policies driving the next phase of development. Today’s increasingly complex built environment and social needs require multifaceted approaches and architectural practices in the contemporary era are increasingly multidisciplinary in nature covering a diverse range of professional services forming collaboration as integral part of the process. While the 4th Industrial Revolution is having a broad impact and transforms the fabric of our society, many institutions and creative communities in Hong Kong are also evolving and working together while using the city as a ‘laboratory + workshop’ to collaborate and create innovative solutions to meet the challenges of the future. Setting the framework for the exhibition are three contrasting scales: Territorial Transformations; Architectural Transformations; and Public Space Transformations with its respective perspectives and lens. Although the complexity and depth of the subjects extend far beyond the scope of this exhibition – and a fluid transitional phase is often difficult to crystalise or capture – nevertheless the exhibition introduces a unique insight into selected critical urban issues facing Hong Kong in the near future through interactive mixed media representations and visual essays, snapshots of this transformative moment in our city with themes such as Hong Kong’s relationship to China, sustainability, climate change, technology, and energy/resource management. Collateral Events

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Curators Sarah Lee Hendrik Tieben Yutaka Yano Participants Arup Building Narrative with Kris Provoost Photography CUHK Research Lab HIR Studio Justin Hui Tobias Klein and Pok Yin Victor Leung Lead8 The MTR Corporation Rocco Design Architects Associates Studio Ryte Hiroyuki Shinohara and Tung Hoi Peter Chan

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In Collaboration with The Hong Kong Institute of Architects Coordination in Venice PDG Arte Communications With the Support of Create Hong Kong of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Websites www.hkia.net www.hkadc.org.hk 2023.vbexhibitions.hk 165

Index of Participants 2023 Participating Countries & Collateral Events

Albania 6 — Martin Gjoleka Vlorë, Albania, 1992. Lives and works in Karlsruhe, Germany — Era Merkuri Tirana, Albania, 1993. Lives and works in Karlsruhe, Germany — Ani Marku Lushnjë, Albania, 1993. Lives and works in Tirana, Albania — Geraldo Prendushi. Lives and works in Tirana, Albania Argentina 8 — Diego Arraigada Arquitectos Rosario, Argentina Australia 10 — Ali Gumillya Baker Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide), Australia, 1975. Lives and works in Kaurna Yarta, Australia — Anthony Coupe Preston (United Kingdom), 1963. Lives and works in Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide), Australia — Emily Paech Peramangk and Kaurna Yarta (Stirling) [?], Australia, 1986. Lives and works in Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide), Australia — Julian Worrall Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide), Australia, 1969. Lives and works in Lutruwita (Tasmania), Australia — Sarah Rhodes Eora (Sydney), Australia, 1974. Lives and works in Lutruwita (Tasmania), Australia 166

Austria 12 — Hermann Czech Vienna, Austria, 1936. Lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Kingdom of Bahrain 14 — Maryam Aljomairi Manama, Bahrain, 1995. Lives and works in Cambridge, MA, USA — Latifa Alkhayat Muharraq, Bahrain, 1996. Lives and works in Cambridge, MA, USA Belgium 16 — Vinciane Despret Brussels, Belgium, 1959. Lives and works in Liège, Belgium Bento Architecture: — Corentin Dalon Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, France, 1993. Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium — Florian Mahieu Saint-Ghislain, Belgium, 1993. Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium — Charles Palliez Lille, France, 1993. Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium — Corentin Mahieu Saint-Ghislain, Belgium, 1988. Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium — Juliette Salme Liège, Belgium, 1993. Lives and works in Liège, Belgium — Corentin Mullender Brussels, Belgium, 1991. Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium

Brazil 18 — Ana Flávia Magalhães Pinto Planaltina, Brazil, 1979. Lives and works in Brasília, Brazil — Ayrson Heráclito Macaúbas, Brazil, 1968. Lives and works in Salvador and Cachoeira, Brazil — Day Rodrigues Santos, Brazil, 1982. Lives in Mexico City, Mexico, and works in Mexico City, Mexico, and São Paulo, Brazil — Fissura (Diego Crux, João Simões and Juno B.) Brazil — Ilê Axé Iyá Nassô Oká (Casa Branca do Engenho Velho) Salvador, Brazil — Juliana Vicente Campinas, Brazil, 1984. Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — Leandro Vieira Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1983. Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — Mbya-Guarani People Time immemorial, ancestral Guarani Territory, Brazil. Live and work in ancestral Guarani Territory, southern Brazil — Tecelãs do Alaká (terreiro community Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá) Salvador, Brazil — Thierry Oussou Allada, Benin, 1988. Lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands — Tukano, Arawak and Maku Indigenous Peoples Time immemorial, alto Amazonas, Brazil. Live and work in ancestral Tukano, Arawak, and Maku territory, western Amazon, Brazil — Vídeo nas Aldeias Works across Brazil — Vilma Patrícia Santana Silva Nazaré, Brazil, 1983. Lives and works in Salvador, Brazil

Bulgaria 20 — Boris Tikvarski Sofia, Bulgaria, 1986. Lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands — Mariya Gyaurova Sofia, Bulgaria, 1987. Lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands — Bozhidara Valkova Sofia, Bulgaria, 1986. Lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria — Mike Fritsch Luxembourg, 1992. Lives and works in Paris, France — Kostadin Kokalanov Sofia, Bulgaria, 1986. Lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria — Alexander Dumarey Belgium, 1985. Lives and works in Ghent, Belgium — Mihail Novakov Sofia, Bulgaria, 1987. Lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria — Valentin Bansac France, 1991. Lives and works in Paris, France — Alice Loumeau France, 1993. Lives and works in Paris, France — Luca Moscelli Taranto, Italy, 1983. Lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands — Antonina Ilieva Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 1980. Lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria — Antonina Tritakova Varna, Bulgaria, 1991. Lives and works in Karpachevo, Bulgaria — Georgi Sabev Yambol, Bulgaria, 1992. Lives and works in Karpachevo, Bulgaria Canada 22 — Architects Against Housing Alienation (AAHA) Canada Biennale Architettura 2023

Chile 24 — Cristóbal Molina Baeza Santiago, Chile, 1976. Lives and works in Santiago, Chile — Gonzalo Carrasco Purull Viña del Mar, Chile, 1976. Lives and works in Santiago, Chile — Alejandro Beals Vaccaro Santiago, Chile, 1976. Lives and works in Santiago, Chile — Loreto Lyon Nuño Santiago, Chile, 1979. Lives and works in Santiago, Chile — Macarena Calvo Tagle Los Angeles, USA, 1975. Lives and works in Santiago, Chile — Cristóbal Elgueta Marinovic Concepción, Chile, 1975. Lives and works in Santiago, Chile — Belén Salvatierra Meza Santiago, Chile, 1993. Lives and works in Santiago, Chile People’s Republic of China 26 — Ruan Xing Kunming, People’s Republic of China, 1965. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhang Hai’ao Jilin, People’s Republic of China, 1981. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Bo Hongtao Tianjin, People’s Republic of China, 1974. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Cai Chunyan Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China, 1980. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Liu Tao Shandong, People’s Republic of China, 1976. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Cai Yongjie Sichuan, People’s Republic of China, 1964. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Xu Kai Fujian, People’s Republic of China, 1977. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China Index of participants

— Dong Gong Beijing, People’s Republic of China, 1972. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Du Chunlan Qinghai, People’s Republic of China, 1965. Lives and works in Chongqing, People’s Republic of China — Fan Beilei Anhui, People’s Republic of China, 1983. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Kong Rui Chongqing, People’s Republic of China, 1982. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Xue Zhe Shannxi, People’s Republic of China, 1986. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Guo Yuchen Guangdong, People’s Republic of China, 1990. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Yang Siqi Hunan, People’s Republic of China, 1992. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhan Beidi Fujian, People’s Republic of China, 1991. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Jiang Boyuan Beijing, People’s Republic of China, 1990. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Wang Jingwen Beijing, People’s Republic of China, 1992. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China

— Yang Shuo Beijing, People’s Republic of China, 1992. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — He Jianxiang Guangdong, People’s Republic of China, 1972. Lives and works in Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China — Jiang Ying Guangxi, People’s Republic of China, 1976. Lives and works in Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China — He Mengjia Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, 1978. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Huang Huaqing Fujian, People’s Republic of China, 1989. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Huang Yinwu Hubei, People’s Republic of China, 1974. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Kong Yuhang Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China, 1962. Lives and works in Tianjin, People’s Republic of China — Yang Wei Tianjin, People’s Republic of China, 1976. Lives and works in Tianjin, People’s Republic of China — Li Danfeng Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, 1982. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhou Jianjia Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, 1986. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Li Xinggang Hebei, People’s Republic of China, 1969. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Liu Doreen Heng Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China, 1967. Lives and works in Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China

— Liu Kenan Chongqing, People’s Republic of China, 1979. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhang Xu Guangdong, People’s Republic of China, 1978. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Liu Moyan Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China,1985. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Su Peng Shandong, People’s Republic of China,1983. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Ju Anqi Anhui, People’s Republic of China, 1989. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Ying Shijiao Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China,1989. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Li Yuanyuan Hebei, People’s Republic of China,1994. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Song Jiawei Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China,1984. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Liu Yuyang Taiwan, People’s Republic of China, 1969. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Long Ying Jilin, People’s Republic of China, 1980. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Luo Jing Anhui, People’s Republic of China, 1986. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Yu Borou Jilin, People’s Republic of China, 1994. Lives and works in Boston, USA — Ma Qingyun Xi’an, People’s Republic of China, 1965. Lives and works in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Xi’an and Beijing, People’s Republic of China 167

— Meng Fanhao Anhui, People’s Republic of China, 1979. Lives and works in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China — Qian Shiyun Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, 1983. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Ruan Xing Kunming, People’s Republic of China, 1965. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhang Yang Shandong, People’s Republic of China, 1986. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Shui Yanfei Chongqing, People’s Republic of China, 1981. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Song Yehao Shandong, People’s Republic of China, 1970. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Sun Haode Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China, 1990. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Student Team SJTU Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Tang Yu’en Chongqing, People’s Republic of China, 1944. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Shen Xiaoming Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China, 1972. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Cao Yongkang Hubei, People’s Republic of China, 1972. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Tong Ming Nanjing, People’s Republic of China, 1968. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Ren Guang Anyang, People’s Republic of China, 1990. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China 168

— Guo Hongqu Tongliao, People’s Republic of China, 1995. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Wang Dan Hangzhou, Zhe Jiang Province, People’s Republic of China, 1985. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Li Zhibo Shunde, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China, 1992. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, and Paris, France — Wang Qiu’an Hunan, People’s Republic of China, 1980. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Wang Xin People’s Republic of China, 1976. Lives and works in Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China — Sun Yu People’s Republic of China, 1994. Lives and works in Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China — Wang Yan Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, 1978. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Wang Zhuo’er Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, 1986. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Wu Hongde Shandong, People’s Republic of China, 1981. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Huo Jingyi Guangdong, People’s Republic of China, 1986. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

— Du Qian Guangxi, People’s Republic of China, 1986. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Rao Fujie Sichuan, People’s Republic of China, 1989. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Wang Hao Guangxi, People’s Republic of China, 1990. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Xu Xunjun Sichuan, People’s Republic of China, 1971. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhang Xudong Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China, 1984. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Pang Lei Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China, 1983. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Yang Yongliang Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, 1980. Lives and works in New York, USA — Zhang Bin Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, 1968. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhang Hai’ao Jilin, People’s Republic of China, 1981. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Xu Hang Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China, 1988. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Li Di Heilongjiang, People’s Republic of China, 1987. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhang Jiajing Liaoning Province, People’s Republic of China, 1972. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

— Zhang Jie Jinan, People’s Republic of China, 1963. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Zhang Li Beijing, People’s Republic of China, 1970. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Zhao Peng Shenyang, People’s Republic of China, 1977. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Ye Yang Beijing, People’s Republic of China, 1980. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Zhang Ming Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China, 1968. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhang Zi Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, 1969. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Qin Shu Yunnan, People’s Republic of China, 1989. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Su Ting Hunan, People’s Republic of China, 1989. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhang Pengju Hebei, People’s Republic of China, 1963. Lives and works in Hohhot, People’s Republic of China — Zhang Tong Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China, 1969. Lives and works in Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China — Aldo Aymonino Rome, Italy, 1953. Lives and works in Venice, Italy — Zhang Yuxing Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China, 1968. Lives and works in Shenzhen, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China — Han Jing Hubei, People’s Republic of China, 1972. Lives and works in Shenzhen, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China Biennale Architettura 2023

— Zheng Xiaodi Beijing, People’s Republic of China, 1977. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Zhou Wei Heng Yang, Hu Nan Province, People’s Republic of China,1987. Lives and works in Guangzhou and Changsha, People’s Republic of China — Zhu Pei Beijing, People’s Republic of China, 1962. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Zhu Xiaofeng Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, 1972. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhuang Shen Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China,1971. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Ren Hao Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, 1971. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Tang Yu Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China, 1978. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhu Jie Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, 1971. Lives and works in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Zhuang Ziyu Hubei, People’s Republic of China, 1983. Lives and works in Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Atelier Deshaus Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Arcplus Group - ECADI (East China Architectural Design & Research Institute Co./Ltd.) Shanghai, People’s Republic of China — Arcplus Group-Institute of Shanghai Architectural Design & Research (Co./Ltd.) Shanghai, People’s Republic of China Index of participants

— CBC Building Centre Beijing, People’s Republic of China — Chongqing Architectural Design Institute of Chongqing Design Group Chongqing, People’s Republic of China — Shanghai Design Week Shanghai, People’s Republic of China Croatia 28 — Mia Roth Zagreb, Croatia, 1974. Lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia — Tonči Čerina Split, Croatia, 1970. Lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia — Luka Fatović Born in Zadar, Croatia, 1988. Lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia — Vedran Kasap Zagreb, Croatia,1977. Lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia — Ozana Ursić Born in Split (Croatia), in 1989. Lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia — Niko Mihaljević Split, Croatia, 1985. Lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia — Ivica Mitrović Split, Croatia, 1972. Lives and works in Split, Croatia Republic Of Cyprus 30 — Petros Lapithis Nicosia, Cyprus, 1965. Lives and works in Nicosia, Cyprus — Lia Lapithi Nicosia, Cyprus, 1963. Lives and works in Nicosia, Cyprus — Nikos Kouroussis Nicosia, Cyprus, 1937. Lives and works in Nicosia, Cyprus — Ioanna Ioannou Xiari Larnaca, Cyprus, 1980. Lives and works in Larnaca, Cyprus — George Danos Nicosia, Cyprus, 1970. Lives and works in Nicosia, Cyprus — Colm Larkin Galway, Ireland, 1980. Lives and works in Nicosia, Cyprus

Czech Republic 32 — Helena Huber-Doudová Lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic — Eliška Pomyjová Kladruby, Czech Republic, 1992. Lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic — David Neuhäusl Prague, Czech Republic, 1988. Lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic — Jan Netušil Prague, Czech Republic, 1988. Lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic Denmark 34 — Josephine Michau Mulhouse, France, 1977. Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark — Christian Friedländer Copenhagen, Denmark, 1967. Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark — Anna Aslaug Lund Copenhagen, Denmark, 1983. Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark — Rikke Juul Gram Assentoft, Denmark, 1968. Lives and works in Aarhus, Denmark — Peter Albrechtsen Copenhagen, Denmark, 1983.Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark — Iisa Eikaas Åbo, Finland, 1992. Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark — Katrina Wiberg Silkeborg, Denmark, 1973. Lives and works in Aarhus, Denmark — David Garcia Barcelona, Spain, 1970. Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark — Alexandra Wedderkopp Emelianov Aarhus, Denmark, in 1989. Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark — David Drachmann Copenhagen, Denmark, 1973. Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark

Egypt 36 — Marina Tornatora Polistena, Italy, 1970. Lives and works in Reggio Calabria, Italy — Ottavio Amaro Melicucco, Italy, 1959. Lives and works in Reggio Calabria, Italy — Ahmed Sami Abd Elrahman Cairo, Egypt, 1980. Lives and works in Cairo, Egypt — Moataz Samir Cairo, Egypt, 1986. Lives and works in Cairo, Egypt — Ghada Farouk Cairo, Egypt, 1966. Lives and works in Cairo, Egypt Estonia 38 — Aet Ader Tallinn, Estonia, 1985. Lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia — Mari Möldre Tallinn, Estonia, 1992. Lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia — Arvi Anderson Rapla, Tallinn, Estonia, 1992. Lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia Finland 40 — Arja Renell Oulu, Finland, 1975. Lives and works in Helsinki, Finland — Antero Jokinen Helsinki, Finland, 1975. Lives and works in Helsinki, Finland — Emmi Keskisarja Raisio, Finland, 1984. Lives and works in Helsinki, Finland — Barbara Motta Udine, Italy, 1974. Lives and works in Udine, Italy — Eero Renell Kälviä, Finland, 1983. Lives and works in Helsinki, Finland — Janne Teräsvirta Espoo, Finland, 1975. Lives and works in Helsinki, Finland 169

Georgia 44 — Gigi Shukakidze Tbilisi, Georgia, 1985. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Otar Nemsadze Tbilisi, Georgia, 1984. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Tinatin Gurgenidze Tbilisi, Georgia, 1983. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia, and Berlin, Germany — Giorgi Vardiashvili Tbilisi, Georgia, 1995. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Aleksi Soselia Tbilisi, Georgia, 1988. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Stefano Tornieri Arzignano, Italy, 1985. Lives and work in Venice. — Tamar Janashia Tbilisi, Georgia, 1973. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Giorgi Kartvelishvili Tbilisi, Georgia, 2001. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Lado Kandashvili Tbilisi, Georgia, 2001. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Tato Kotetishvili Tbilisi, Georgia, 1987. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Giorgi Kolbaia Zugdidi, Georgia, 1993. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Mariam Elene Gomelauri Tbilisi, Georgia, 1999. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Elene Pasuri Tbilisi, Georgia, 1988. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Tikuna Adeishvili Tbilisi, Georgia, 2000. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Nodar Nozadze Borjomi Georgia, 1989. Lives and works in Tbilisi , Georgia — Gigi Butkhuzi Tbilisi, Georgia, 1989. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia 170

— Andro Barbaqadze Moscow, Russia, 1986. Lives and works in Tbilisi , Georgia — Arsen Kurdgelashvili Tbilisi Georgia, 1986. Lives and works in Tbilisi , Georgia — Aleksandra Aroshvili Tbilisi, Georgia, 1991. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Irakli Macharashvili Tbilisi, Georgia, 1970. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Teona Rekhviashvili Tbilisi, Georgia, 1995. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Nikoloz Tsikaridze Tbilisi, Georgia, 1985. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Giorgi Tsintsadze Tbilisi, Georgia, 1995. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia — Lela Rekhviashvili Tbilisi, Georgia, 1986. Lives and works in Leipzig, Germany — Mamuka Gvilava Tbilisi, Georgia, 1962. Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia Germany 46 — Anne Femmer Oschatz, Germany, 1984. Lives and works in Leipzig, Germany — Franziska Gödicke Altenburg, Germany, 1998. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany — Juliane Greb Düsseldorf, Germany, 1985. Lives and works in Ghent, Belgium — Christian Hiller Gelsenkirchen, Germany, 1975. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany — Petter Krag Trondheim, Norway, 1978. Lives and works in Ghent, Belgium — Melissa Angela Alemaz Makele Mannheim, Germany, 1989. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany — Anh-Linh Ngo Kon Tum, Vietnam, 1974. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany — Florian Summa Cologne, Germany, 1982. Lives and works in Leipzig, Germany

Great Britain 48 — Jayden Ali London, Great Britain, 1988. Lives and works in London, Great Britain — Joseph Henry London, Great Britain, 1990. Lives and works in London, Great Britain — Meneesha Kellay London, Great Britain, 1986. Lives and works in London, Great Britain — Sumitra Upham London, Great Britain, 1986. Lives and works in London, Great Britain

Hungary 56 — Marcel Ferencz Miskolc, Hungary, 1970. Lives and works in Budapest, Hungary — Ferenc Haász Budapest, Hungary, 1969. Lives and works in Budapest, Hungary — Péter Mátrai Budapest, Hungary, 1948. Lives and works in Budapest, Hungary — Judit Z. Halmágyi Budapest, Hungary, 1962. Lives and works in Budapest, Hungary

Greece 50 — Costis Paniyiris Athens, Greece, 1965. Lives and works in Athens, Greece — Andreas Nikolovgenis Athens, Greece, 1988. Lives and works in Athens, Greece

Ireland 58 — Peter Cody Tralee, Co. Kerry, Ireland, 1966. Lives and works in Dublin, Ireland — Peter Carroll Limerick, Co. Limerick, Ireland, 1971. Lives and works in Dublin and Limerick, Ireland — Elizabeth Hatz Lund, Sweden, 1953. Lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden, and Limerick, Ireland — Mary Laheen London, United Kingdom, 1957. Lives and works in Dublin, Ireland — Joseph Mackey Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, 1980. Lives and works in Abbeyleix and Cork, Ireland

Grenada 52 — Stari Ribar, Massimo Marchiori Venice, Italy, 1973. Lives and in works Venice — Alexis Andrews Greece, 1960. Lives and works in Antigua, West Indies Holy See 54 — Mirko Zardini Verona, Italy, 1955. Lives and works in Milan, Italy — Álvaro Siza Matosinhos, Porto, Portugal, 1933. Lives and works in Porto, Portugal — Emanuele Almagioni Milan, Italy, 1965. Lives and works in Milan, Italy — Giacomo Borella Milan, Italy, 1964. Lives and works in Milan, Italy — Francesca Riva Milan, Italy, 1961. Lives and works in Milan, Italy

Israel 60 — Oren Eldar Tel Aviv–Jaffa, Israel, 1984. Lives and works in Tel Aviv– Jaffa, Israel — Edith Kofsky Jerusalem, Israel, 1987. Lives and works in Tel Aviv– Jaffa, Israel — Daniel Meir Haifa, Israel, 1972. Lives and works in Tel Aviv–Jaffa, Israel Biennale Architettura 2023

Japan 68 — Maki Onishi Nagoya, Japan, 1983. Lives and works in Tokyo, Japan — Yuki Hyakuda Hyogo, Japan, 1982. Lives and works in Tokyo, Japan — Tomomi Tada Osaka, Japan, 1980. Lives and works in Osaka, Japan — Yuma Harada Osaka, Japan, 1979. Lives and works in Osaka, Japan — dot architects Osaka, Japan — Akane Moriyama Fukuoka, Japan, 1983. Lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden — Futoshi Mizuno Tokoname, Japan, 1981. Lives and works in Tokoname, Japan Republic of Korea 70 — Yerin Kang, Seoul, South Korea, 1974. Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea — Chi-hoon Lee, Gimhae, South Korea, 1980. Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea — Ahram Chae, Seoul, South Korea, 1991. Lives and works in Daejeon, South Korea — Nahyun Hwang, Seoul, South Korea, 1973. Lives and works in New York, USA — David Moon, Milwaukee, USA, 1974. Lives and works in New York, USA — Yehre Suh, Busan, South Korea, 1973. Lives and works in New York, USA — Jaekyung Jung, Seoul, South Korea, 1975. Lives and works in Seoul and Incheon, South Korea — Sunhee Yang, Seoul, South Korea, 1978. Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea — Chris Ro, Seattle, USA, 1976. Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea Index of participants

Republic of Kosovo 72 — Poliksen Qorri-Dragaj Mitrovicë, Kosovo, 1985. Lives and works in Wörth, Kaiserslautern and Karlsruhe, Germany — Hamdi Qorri Drenas, Kosovo, 1959. Lives and works in Drenas and Prishtina, Kosovo Kuwait 74 — Abdulaziz Almazeedi Kuwait, 1982. Lives and works in Kuwait — Hamad Alkhaleefi Kuwait, 1987. Lives and works in Kuwait — Naser Ashour Kuwait, 1990. Lives and works in Kuwait — Mohammad Kassem Kuwait, 1993. Lives and works in Kuwait — Jassim Alshehab Kuwait, 1980. Lives and works in Kuwait — Rabab Raes Kazem Kuwait, 1989. Lives and works in Kuwait — Batool Ashour Kuwait, 1983. Lives and works in Kuwait — Noor Abdulkhaleq Kuwait, 1996. Lives and works in Kuwait — Abdullah Albusaili Kuwait, 1997. Lives and works in Kuwait — Abdulaziz Bazuhair Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 1991. Lives and works in Dammam, Saudi Arabia — Aliaa Mahdy Kuwait, 2001. Lives and studies in Kuwait — Zahra Hashim Kuwait, 2001. Lives and studies in Kuwait — Jassim Alewani Kuwait, 1988. Lives and works in Kuwait — Qutaiba Buyabes Kuwait, 1996. Lives and works in Kuwait

— Yasmeen Abdal Kuwait, 1998. Lives and works in Kuwait — Sultan Alsamhan Kuwait, 1992. Lives and works in Kuwait — Bader Al Moulah Kuwait, 1993. Lives and works in Kuwait — Sayer Alsayer United States, 1995. Lives and works in Kuwait — Mohammed Khesroh Egypt, 1991. Lives and works in Kuwait — Dana Alrashid Kuwait, 1988. Lives and works in Kuwait — Nour Jafar Kuwait, 1994. Lives and works in Kuwait — Nourah AlAzmi Kuwait, 2001. Lives and studies in Kuwait — Fatima AlFulaij Kuwait, 1995. Lives and works between Los Angeles, USA, and Kuwait — Aziz Motawa Boston, USA, 1995. Lives and works in Kuwait — Malak Al Suwaihel Kuwait, 1990. Lives and works in Kuwait — Maryam Mohammed Kuwait, 1998. Lives and works in Kuwait — Nada Abu-Daqer Kuwait, 1998. Lives and works in Kuwait — Sara Al-zeer Kuwait, 1998. Lives and works in Kuwait — Zahra Al-Mahdi Kuwait, 1989. Lives and works in Kuwait Latvia 76 — Ernests Cerbulis Riga, Latvia, 1991. Lives and works in Riga, Latvia — Ints Menģelis Jelgava, Latvia, 1985. Lives and works in Riga, Latvia — Uldis Jaunzems - Petersons Riga, Latvia, 1978. Lives and work in Talsi, Latvia — Toms Kampars Tukums, Latvia, 1990. Lives and works in Riga, Latvia — Austra Berzina Riga, Latvia, 1985, Lives and works in Riga, Latvia — Kalvis Kidals Madona, Latvia, 1992. Lives and works in Riga, Latvia — Karola Rubene Rheine, Germany, 1993. Lives and works in Riga, Latvia

Lithuania 78 — Aistė Ambrazevičiūtė Kaunas, Lithuania, 1988. Lives and works in Kaunas, Lithuania — Gabrielė Grigorjevaitė Panevėžys, Lithuania, 1992. Lives and works in London, United Kingdom — Laura Garbštienė Vilkija, Lithuania, 1973. Lives and works in Šklėriai, Lithuania — Mantas Peteraitis Klaipėda, Lithuania, 1977. Lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania — Monika Janulevičiūtė Šiauliai, Lithuania, 1990. Lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania — Kristupas Sabolius Vilnius, Lithuania, 1979. Lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania — Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas Born in Kaunas and Vilnius, Lithuania, 1968 and 1966 respectively. Live and work in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Cambridge, MA, USA — Michaela Casková Brno, Czechoslovakia, 1988. Lives and works in between Finland and Czech Republic — Tiina Arjukka Hirvonen Rääkkylä, Finland, 1988. Lives and works in Kainuu, Finland — Riitta (Nyyskä) Nykänen Tampere, Finland, 1958. Lives and works in Puolanka, Finland — Robin Everett Taunton, United Kingdom, 1989. Lives and works in between Bergen, Norway, and Kainuu, Finland. — Nene Tsuboi Osaka, Japan, 197. Lives and works in Helsinki, Finland — Tuomas Toivonen Helsinki, Finland, 1975. Lives and works in Helsinki, Finland — Kornelija Žalpytė Vilnius, Lithuania, 1998. Lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania 171

Grand Duchy of Luxembourg 80 — Francelle Cane Valence, France, 1993. Lives and works in Luxembourg, Luxembourg — Marija Marić Odžaci, Serbia, 1986. Lives and works in Esch-surAlzette, Luxembourg — Armin Linke Milan, Italy, 1966. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany — Lev Bratishenko Moscow, USSR, 1989. Lives and works in Montreal, Canada Mexico 84 — APRDELESP Mexico City, Mexico Mariana Botey — Mexico City, Mexico, 1969. Lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico, and San Diego, USA Montenegro 86 — Duško Miljanić Tivat, Boka Kotorska, Montenegro, 1975. Lives and works in Podgorica — Branislav Strugar Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1949. Lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia — Vukota Tupa Vukotić Cetinje, Montenegro, 1932 – Podgorica, Montenegro, 2002 172

The Netherlands 88 — Jan Jongert Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1971. Lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands — Roosje Klap Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1973. Lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands — Sarah van der Giesen Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1989. Lives in Schiedam, works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands — Carlijn Kingma Zutphen, The Netherlands, 1991. Lives and works in Welsum, The Netherlands — Thomas Petrus Franciscus Bollen Geldrop, The Netherlands, 1984. Lives in Welsum, works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands — Martijn Jeroen van der Linden Hoogeveen, The Netherlands, 1980. Lives in Brussels, Belgium, works in The Hague, the Netherlands. Nordic Countries Sweden – Finland – Norway 92 — Joar Nango Áltá, Sápmi/Norway, 1979. Lives and works in Romsa/ Tromsø, Sápmi/Norway Republic of Panama 94 — Dante Furioso Washington, D.C., USA, 1984. Lives and works in New York City, USA — Joan Flores-Villalobos Maracaibo, Venezuela, 1988. Lives and works in New York City, USA — Danilo Pérez Panama, 1965. Lives and works in Panama City, Republic of Panama — Alejandro Pinto San José, Costa Rica, 1988. Lives and works in Panama City, Republic of Panama — Luis Pulido Ritter Panama, 1961. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany — Marixa Lasso Florence, Italy, 1968. Lives and works in Panama City, Republic of Panama

Philippines 98 — Sam Domingo Taytay, Rizal, Philippines, 1998. Lives and works in Pasig City, Philippines — Choie Y. Funk Manila, Philippines, 1963. Lives and works in Manila, Philippines Poland 100 — Anna Barlik Warsaw, Poland, 1985. Lives and works in Warsaw, Poland — Marcin Strzała Warsaw, Poland, 1985. Lives and works in Warsaw, Poland — Jacek Sosnowski Warsaw, Poland, 1983. Lives and works in Warsaw, Poland Portugal 102 — Andreia Garcia Guimarães, Portugal, 1985. Lives and works in Porto, Portugal. — Ana Neiva Viana do Castelo, Portugal, 1983. Lives and works in Porto, Portugal. — Diogo Aguiar Porto, Portugal 1983. Lives and works in Porto, Portugal. — Space Transcribers Organization directed by Daniel Duarte Pereira and Fernando P. Ferreira, founded in Braga, Portugal, 2015.

— Álvaro Domingues Melgaço, Portugal, 1959. Lives and works in Porto, Portugal. — Dulcineia Santos Studio Architecture studio founded by Dulcineia Neves dos Santos in Porto Portugal, 2018. — João Pedro Matos Fernandes Águeda, Portugal, 1967. Lives and works between Porto and Lisbon, Portugal. — Guida Marques Coimbra, Portugal, 1986. Lives and works in Serra do Açor, Portugal. — Érica Castanheira Coimbra, Portugal, 1980. Lives and works between Arganil, Lousã and Coimbra, Portugal. — Oficina Pedrêz Architectural workshop for applied research in systemic sufficiency, founded by Matilde Cabral and Francisco Fonseca in Porto, Portugal, 2020 — Aurora Carapinha Évora, Portugal, 1955. Lives and works in Évora, Portugal. — Corpo Atelier Architecture and art studio founded by Filipe Paixão, in Faro, Portugal, 2014. — Eglantina Monteiro Porto, Portugal, 1955. Lives and works in Castro Marim, Portugal. — Ilhéu Atelier Architecture studio founded by Rita Sampaio and Afonso Botelho Santos, in São Miguel, Açores, Portugal, 2019. — João Mora Porteiro Horta, Faial, Portugal, 1967. Lives and works in São Miguel, Açores. — Ponto Atelier Architecture studio founded by Ana Pedro Ferreira and Pedro Maria Ribeiro, in Madeira, Portugal, 2016. — Ana Salgueiro Alcobaça, Portugal, 1973. Lives and works in Madeira, Portugal. Biennale Architettura 2023

Serbia 110 — Iva Njunjić Belgrade, Serbia, 1994. Lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia — Tihomir Dičić Belgrade, Serbia, 1993. Lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia

Romania 104 — Emil Ivanescu Curtea de Arges, Romania, 1978. Lives and works in Bucharest, Romania — Simina Filat Tulcea, Romania, 1988. Lives and works in Bucharest, Romania — Catalin Berescu Bucharest, Romania, 1966. Lives and works in Bucharest, Romania — Anca-Maria PasarinFerreira-Garcia De Almeida Bucharest, Romania, 1984. Lives and works in Bucharest, Romania Republic of San Marino 106 — Vittorio Corsini, Cecina, Italy, 1956. Lives and works in Cecina, Italy Saudi Arabia 108 — Noura Bouzo Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1985. Lives and works in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — Basma Bouzo Cannes, France, 1984. Lives and works in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — AlBara Saimaldahar Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1986. Lives and works in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — Cyril Zammit Bondy, France, 1970. Lives and works in Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Jou Pabalate Manila, Philippines, 1986. Lives and works in Riyadh Saudi Arabia Index of participants

Singapore 112 — Isabella Ong Singapore, Singapore, 1992. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — Lip Chiong Singapore, Singapore, 1975. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — Elwin Chan Singapore, Singapore, 1978. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — Kar-men Cheng Singapore, Singapore, 1987. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — Ker-Shing Ong London, United Kingdom, 1975. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — Joshua Comaroff Manchester, United Kingdom, 1973. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — Mun Summ Wong Singapore, Singapore, 1962. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — Richard Hassell Perth, Australia, 1966. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — Thomas Schroepfer Mannheim, Germany, 1966. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — SrilalithaGopalakrishnan Quilon, India, 1977. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — Yun Hye Hwang Seoul, South Korea, 1974. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — Anuj Jain Udaipur, India, 1984. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — Emi Kiyota Kumamoto, Japan, 1970. Lives and works in Singapore, Singapore — Bjorn Low Singapore, Singapore, 1980. Lives and works in Australia

Repubic of Slovenia 114 — Jure Grohar Jesenice, Slovenia, 1983. Lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia — Eva Gusel Maribor, Slovenia, 1996. Lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia — Maša Mertelj Jesenice, Slovenia, 1987. Lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia — Anja Vidic Ljubljana, Slovenia, 1982. Lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia — Matic Vrabič Ljubljana, Slovenia, 1990. Lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia — Vidic Grohar Arhitekti Ljubljana, Slovenia Spain 118 — Ivan L. Munuera Madrid, Spain, 1980. Lives and works in New York, USA — Vivian Rotie La Habana, Cuba, 1988. Lives and works in Barcelona, Spain — Pablo Saiz del Río Bilbao, Spain, 1993. Lives and works in Barcelona, Spain — C+ arquitectas London, Madrid — Federico Soriano Madrid, Spain, 1961. Lives and works in Madrid, Spain — Dolores Palacios Bilbao, Spain, 1960. Lives and works in Madrid, Spain — Lucia Tahan Madrid, Spain, 1989. Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA — Lucía Jalón Oyarzun Madrid, Spain, 1982. Lives and works between Madrid, Spain, and Lausanne, Switzerland — Urtzi Grau Bilbao, Spain, 1976. Lives and works in Sydney, Gadigal Country — The Institute for Postnatural Studies Madrid — aldayjover architecture and landscape Barcelona, New Orleans

— Daniel Ibáñez Madrid, Spain, 1981. Lives and works between Boston, USA, and Barcelona, Spain — Manuel Bouzas Pontevedra, Spain, 1993. Lives and works between Boston, USA, and Galicia, Spain — Vicente Guallart Valencia, Spain, 1963. Lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. — Common Accounts Toronto, Madrid — Guillermo FernándezAbascal Santander, Spain, 1986. Lives and works in Sydney, Gadigal Country — Pedro Pegenaute Pamplona, Spain, 1977. Lives and works in Pamplona, Spain — Black Almanac (Philip Maughan and Andrea Provenzano) Moscow. — Manuel Correa Medellín, Colombia,1991. Lives and works in Madrid, Spain — Marina Otero A Coruña, Spain, Lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands — Gerard Ortín Castellví Barcelona, Spain, 1981. Lives and works in London, United Kingdom — Pol Esteve Castelló Barcelona, Spain, 1981. Lives and works in London, United Kingdom — Grandeza Studio Madrid — elii Madrid — Locument — MAIO Barcelona — María Jerez Madrid, Spain, 1978. Lives and works in Madrid, Spain — Agnes Essonti Luque Town, Country, in 1996. Lives and works in Barcelona, Spain 173

Switzerland 120 — Karin Sander Bensberg, Germany, 1957. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany, and Zurich, Switzerland — Philip Ursprung Baltimore, USA, 1963. Lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland Türkiye 122 — Sevince Bayrak Bursa, Türkiye, 1983. Lives and works in Istanbul, Türkiye — Oral Göktaş Karlsruhe, Germany, 1982. Lives and works in Istanbul, Türkiye United Arab Emirates 126 — Faysal Tabbarah Aleppo, Syria, 1986. Lives and works in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates United States of America 128 — Xavi Aguirre Milford, CT, USA, 1984. Lives and works in Cambridge, MA, USA — Simon Anton Berwyn, IL, USA, 1988. Lives and works in Detroit, MI, USA — Ang Li Luoyang, China, 1986. Lives and works in Boston, MA, USA — Norman Teague Chicago, IL, USA, 1968. Lives and works in Chicago, IL, USA — Lauren Yeager Nashville, TN, USA, 1987. Lives and works in Cleveland, OH, USA 174

Uruguay 130 — Rafaella Varela Montevideo, Uruguay, 1997. Lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay — Fol Cvetreznik Montevideo, Uruguay, 1992. Lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay — Guzmán Bergereau Montevideo, Uruguay, 1993. Lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay — Matías Rada Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1985. Lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay — Camila Cardozo Montevideo, Uruguay, 1998. Lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina — Facundo Balta Montevideo, Uruguay, 2000. Lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay — Álvaro Silva Montevideo, Uruguay, 1995. Lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay — Viki Style Montevideo, Uruguay, 1988. Lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay — Noé Núñez Montevideo, Uruguay, 1982. Lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay Republic of Uzbekistan 132 — Karl Fournier Saint-Raphaël, France, 1970. Lives and work in Paris, France — Olivier Marty Palaiseau, France, 1975. Lives and work in Paris, France Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela 134 — Carlos Raúl Villanueva London, United Kingdom, 1900 – Caracas, Venezuela, 1975

A Fragile Correspondence Scotland + Venice 148 — Dele Adeyemo Kaduna, Nigeria, 1985. Lives and works in London, England — Donna Heddle Kirkcaldy, Scotland, 1965. Lives and works on the Orkney Islands, Scotland — Aaron McCarthy Dundee, Scotland, 1991. Lives and works in Arbroath, Angus, Scotland — Frank McElhinney Motherwell, Scotland, 1964. Lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland — Mairi McFadyen Edinburgh, Scotland, 1985. Lives and works in Abriachan, Inverness, Scotland — Hamshya Rajkumar Glasgow, Scotland, 1993. Lives and works in Carfin, Scotland — Raghnaid Sandilands Inverness, Scotland, 1977. Lives and works in Strathnairn, Scotland — Amanda Thomson 1965. Lives and works in Strathspey and Glasgow, Scotland Catalonia in Venice_ Following the Fish 150 — Top Manta Founded in 2017, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Climate Wunderkammer 152 — Liane Thuvander Magdeburg, Germany, 1970. Lives and works in Gothenburg, Sweden. — Monica Billger Gothenborg, Sweden, 1961. Lives and works in Gothenborg, Sweden — Daniele Santucci Rome, Italy, 1977. Lives and works in Munich, Germany — Israa H. Mahmoud Alexandria, Egypt, 1987. Lives and works in Milan, Italy — Carlo Federico Dall’Omo Venice, Italy, 1992. Lives and works in Venice, Italy — Andy van den Dobbelsteen Tilburg, The Netherlands, 1968. Lives and works in Delft, The Netherlands — Mohamed Hanafi Zurich, Switzerland, 1965. Lives and works in Alexandria, Egypt — Jan Hugo Bloemfontein, South Africa, 1985. Lives and works in Pretoria, South Africa — Chrisna du Plessis Sasolburg, South Africa, 1965. Lives and works in Pretoria, South Africa — Vittorio Negretto Treviso, Italy, 1990. Lives and works in Venice, Italy — Cem Ataman Ankara, Turkey, 1993. Lives and works in Singapore — Bige Tuncer Ankara, Turkey, 1971. Lives and works in Singapore — Maram Tawil Gummersbach, Germany, 1975. Lives and works in Aachen, Germany Biennale Architettura 2023

Diachronic Apparatuses of Taiwan Architecture as on-going details within landscape 154 — Tsung-Yen Hsieh Taipei, Taiwan, 1985. Lives and works in Taichung, Taiwan — Cheng-Luen Hsueh Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 1970. Lives and works in Tainan, Taiwan — Chueh-Chih Guu Taipei, Taiwan, 1968. Lives and works in Taipei City, Taiwan — Po-Jen Cheng Taichung, Taiwan, 1977. Lives and works in Taichung, Taiwan — Hsuan-Cheng Cheng Tainan, Taiwan, 1978. Lives and works in Taichung, Taoyuan and Tainan, Taiwan — (Kerby) Shu-Hsien Chou Taipei, Taiwan, 1976. Lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan EUmies Awards. Young Talent 2023. The Laboratory of Education 156 — Fundació Mies van der Rohe Founded in Barcelona, 1983 Established in Barcelona, Europe

Index of participants

Tracé Bleu. Que faire en ce lieu, à moins que l’on y songe? 162 — Krijn de Koning Amsterdam, The Nederlands, 1963. Lives and works in Amsterdam — Joanie Lemercier France, 1982. Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium — Jonathas de Andrade Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil, 1982. Lives and works in Recife, Brazil — Serge Bloch Colmar, France, 1956. Lives and works in Paris, France Transformative Hong Kong 164 — Arup Hong Kong — Building Narrative with Kris Provoost Photography Hong Kong — CUHK Research Lab Hong Kong — HIR Studio Hong Kong — Justin Hui Hong Kong and New York, USA — Lead8 Hong Kong — The MTR Corporation Hong Kong — Rocco Design Architects Associates Hong Kong — Studio Ryte Hong Kong — Hiroyuki Shinohara and Tung Hoi Peter Chan Hong Kong — Tobias Klein and Pok Yin Victor Leung Hong Kong and Zurich, Switzerland 175

18th International Architecture Exhibition

18. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura The Laboratory of the Future La Biennale di Venezia Editorial Activities and Web Head — Flavia Fossa Margutti Editorial Coordination — Maddalena Pietragnoli Editorial Team — Anna Albano Francesca Dolzani Giulia Gasparato Graphic Design — Fred Swart Editorial Realization — Liberink srls , Padova Coordination — Stefano Turon Layout Livio Cassese Copy editing — Rosanna Alberti Caterina Vettore Translations and English language copy editing — alphaville traduzioni e servizi editoriali — Roberta Prandin Photolithography and Print — Graphicom spa www.graphicom.it viale dell’Industria 67, Vicenza

by SIAE 2023 — Alexander Dumarey — Karin Sander — Eva Serrats

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ISBN 9788898727803 La Biennale di Venezia First Edition May 2023