2014 Venice Biennale: Collateral Events

See also our coverage of the Elements of Architecture, Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014, and Monditalia components of the 2014 Venice Biennale.

While the collateral events do not need to address the theme of Fundamentals, which Koolhaas determined for the three-part exhibition that we've covered already, each of the three exhibitions covered below addresses it in some manner. Made in Europe, for example, covers architectural production in Europe in the last 25 years, therefore aligning itself as a historical repository with Koolhaas's larger emphasis of history over the contemporary. Time Space Existence takes the idea of fundamentals even further, asking participating architects to consider what the curators consider "the most fundamental concepts for mankind, no matter what your field of interest." Lastly, Grafting Architecture finds a consistent approach to the local context in Catalan architecture in the last 100 years, aligning it with the national pavilions on display in the Giardini and Arsenale.

The exhibition is located on the first floor of the Palazzo Michiel, which overlooks the Grand Canal just a few steps from the Rialto Bridge. The first room atop the steps is the largest room, and it is home to most of the roughly 150 models the Mies Foundation gathered from its archive. One wall of the room (photo below) is devoted to a timeline covering the last 25 years that puts the award in larger political, economic and social contexts.

Just as Andrés Jaque's PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society put the normally hidden objects from Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion on display last year, Made in Europe unearths part of the huge archive of work submitted every two years for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award. The value of making the archive accessible to a larger public is one question we asked prominent architects and curators when in Venice, in interviews that will be posted to the Daily News in the near future. Suffice to say, the assemblage of models, drawings and other materials on display clearly illustrates the quality of architectural production in Europe in the last 25 years, perhaps much better than any similar award or archive could attest.

For architects, the greatest benefit of the exhibition is in seeing so many models of outstanding European architecture up close. Housed in vitrines sitting atop USM modular funiture, the models are easily seen from the vantage of above but also from the sides, where each one is keyed via a number to the drawings that are found in other rooms of the palazzo. The models are also tagged with QR codes (photos below) linked to more information on the collection's website, in effect expanding the exhibition beyond the walls of the palazzo.

In addition to the models, Made In Europe includes three more parts: data (the drawing suspended on fabric sheets from scaffolding), images (photos and reproductions of the buildings shown as a slideshow in one room), and voices (interviews with the winners and emerging architects in each year's prize). Additionally, exhibition curator Celia Marín Vega included a fifth part, "making of," which pays tribute to the hard work of the students from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB) that erected the exhibition by giving them a room to reveal the process and show some of their own work.

In a press conference on the day of the exhibition's opening, Mies Foundation director Giovanna Carnevali announced that the foundation has been selected to run the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture for four more years, or two more awards cycles. Further, she hopes to expand the prize to include international projects, as to date the projects by European architects have been limited to European turf.

World-Architects is proud to be the media partner for the "Made in Europe" exhibition, which is made possible through the support of its partners.

Straddling the Palazzo Michiel are the two venues for Global Art Affairs Foundation's exhibition Time Space Existence, which runs until November 23, 2014. To the south of the Rialto Bridge is Palazzo Bembo, the site of curator Rene Rietmeyer's first foray into an architectural exhibition with the 2012 Traces of Centuries, a collateral event for that year's Biennale. As Rene told us in an interview earlier in the year, the success of the 2012 show necessitated expanding the footprint of the architectural exhibition, so Time Space Existence also takes place in Palazzo Mora, a few steps north of the Made in Europe exhibition that is housed in a palazzo he also overseas.

At Bembo, the exhibition takes up one full floor and one half floor. In many cases each of the numerous small- and medium-sized rooms are a setting for one architect, though in some cases a couple architects are found in one space. One of the larger rooms, the first one encountered on the first floor atop the stairs, is given over to students from the University of Houston, while another good-sized room one floor above shows the work of gmp · Architekten von Gerkan, Marg und Partner (photos above).

Some of the highlights in Palazzo Bembo two years ago were the pieces that were more installation than presentation. Similar architectural interventions continue this year, be it the suspended models of Emmanuelle Moureaux (photo above) or the tentacle-like periscopes of Peter Ebner/Carmen & Urs Greutmann. In the case of the latter, various arms extend from a single window, each one providing an abstract, kaleidoscopic view to the Grand Canal (photos below). Other highlights from Bembo along these lines can be found in our preview from a couple weeks ago.

If there is one "headliner" at Palazzo Bembo, it is Ricardo Bofill, who has taken over one of the medium-sized rooms with a 360-degree, panoramic film that tackles the exhibition's themes of time, space, and existence through the lens of La Fabrica, the old concrete factory converted by Bofill to a residence and atelier. At times overly dramatic, the film is nevertheless a beautifully executed narrative the loops endlessly, just like the surface it is projected across.

Unlike the maze-like layout of Bembo (something that makes exploring that venue quite fun at times), Palazzo Mora is graced by large central halls flanked by smaller rooms on each of the two floors. Large sculptural pieces by Eduardo Souto de Moura (photo below) and others are found in the central hall on the first floor, setting the stage for the rest of the venue.

Like Bembo, many of the highlights in Palazzo Mora are installations that define spaces in unique ways. A narrow space cuts diagonally through a 2.4-meter cube created from suspended spheres in Bekkering Adams's installation (photo below). Further, colored lights projected on the installation changes the effect of the ethereal cube, inviting us to walk through it and sense the changing space around us.

The large central hall on the second floor has been taken over by Swiss architects Andreas Fuhrimann and Gabrielle Hächler, who have modeled in concrete various piazzas in Venice. The models, such as Piazza San Marco in the foreground of the below photo, sit atop wood boxes that double as crates for transporting the heavy objects before and after the show. The exhibition-within-an-exhibition makes solid what is usually empty, asking visitors to reconsider how they "see" the spaces of Venice.

The attic space in Palazzo Mora is not typically part of the exhibitions held there, but it's worth pointing out the ongoing work by Florencia Costa, the architect responsible for the renovation of the floor below for exhibitions. Pictured below is part of the attic project's early phase, which Costa describes as exploring "how to act on a historical building’s neglected areas and 'urbanize the roof top as a residence for artists." It's hoped that prototypes like the below room are completed across the entire floor.

For other highlights from Palazzo Mora, see our preview from a couple weeks ago.

While most of the collateral events are at quite a physical remove from the main Biennale exhibition, Catalonia's contribution, Grafting Architecture, is situated on an island about halfway between the Giardini and Arsenale. The exhibition, curated by Josep Torrents i Alegre with associate curators Guillem Carabí and Jordi Ribas Boldú, presents 16 projects from 1913 to 2013 that share an approach to context where new and existing elements are blended, akin to the way cuttings are grafted to a tree. The starting point is Josep Maria Jujol's restoration of Casa Bofarull (1913-1933), though a dozen of the projects are from the 21st century.

Fittingly the exhibition grafts itself onto the outside and inside of the shed-like space near San Pietro di Castello. Gridded wire is an armature for displays of signage, but the many models are found on tables and also mounted to boxes that are framed by rods extending from the floor to the trusses. Like Made in Europe, the high quality of the architecture is best seen in these models, though some of the projects also have filmed footage (some of it streaming, also available on the exhibition's website) that is particularly valuable. While not overtly intentional, Grafting Architecture makes a small but strong argument for the creation of a Catalonian national pavilion at the Biennale, making it more than just a collateral event.

See also our coverage of the Elements of Architecture, Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014, and Monditalia components of the 2014 Venice Biennale.