Grafton Architects Duo to Helm 2018 Venice Biennale

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, which La Biennale di Venezia describes in a statement as "famous for working as a team," established Grafton Architects in 1978 after they both graduated from University College Dublin.

The duo aren't strangers to the Biennale: the firm was represented in the 2002 exhibition, which was directed by Deyan Sudjic; in 2012 they won a Silver Lion for their room-size installation with Paulo Mendes da Rocha documenting the design process of the firm's UTEC project underway at the time in Peru; and last year they were one of the 88 participants in Alejandro Aravena's Reporting from the Front exhibition.

The UTEC project (Universidad de Ingeneria Y Technologia, done with Shell Arquitectos) has garnered its share of attention for the firm since its completion. In November 2016 the building won RIBA's inaugural International Prize and earlier in the year it was a finalist for the 2014-15 MCHAP award.

Of their numerous other awards, most notable is the firm's School of Economics for the Universita Luigi Bocconi in Milan winning the inaugural World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona in 2008.

Biennale president Paolo Baratta said of the appointment of Farrell and MacNamara:

The Exhibition curated by Alejandro Aravena offered visitors a critical overview of the worldwide evolution of architecture and underlined how important it is that a qualified demand on the part of individuals and communities be met by an equally effective response, thereby confirming that architecture is one of civil society’s instruments for organizing the space in which it lives and works.

Along these lines, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara will continue to address the same theme but from the point of view of the quality of the public and private space, of urban space, of the territory and of the landscape as the main ends of architecture. The curators, who are well-known for the refinement of their work, are also known for their intense didactic activity and their ability to involve and fascinate new generations.

The directors of the previous fifteen International Architecture Exhibitions and their themes:

Alejandro Aravena
15th International Architecture Exhibition
Reporting from the Front
2016

Rem Koolhaas
14th International Architecture Exhibition
Elements of Architecture
2014

David Chipperfield
13th International Architecture Exhibition
Common Ground
2012

Kazuyo Sejima
12th International Architecture Exhibition
People Meet in Architecture
2010

Aaron Betsky
11th International Architecture Exhbition
Out There: Architecture Beyond Building
2008

Richard Burdett
10th International Architecture Exhbition
Cities: Architecture and Society
2006

Kurt W. Foster
9th International Architecture Exhbition
Metamorph
2004

Deyan Sudjic
8th International Architecture Exhbition
Next
2002

Massimiliano Fuksas
7th International Architecture Exhbition
Less Aesthetics, More Ethics
2000

Hans Hollein
6th International Architecture Exhbition
Sensing the Future - Architect as Seismograph
1996

Francesco Dal Co
5th International Architecture Exhbition
Forty Architects for the 90s
1991

Aldo Rossi
4th International Architecture Exhbition
Hendrik Petrus Berlage: Drawings
1986

Aldo Rossi
3rd International Architecture Exhbition
The Venice Project
1985

Paolo Portoghesi
2nd International Architecture Exhbition
Architecture in Islamic Countries
1982

Paolo Portoghesi
1st International Architecture Exhbition
The Presence of the Past
1980