Worlds Beyond Architecture

The 11th Architecture Biennale, "Beyond Architecture", draws to a close this month. What of it?
News coverage is generally limited to the pavilion of the newspaper's country. So here in Australia
we might read a little about the Australian pavilion, a room painted bright yellow and packed full of
tiny unlabelled models from a bevy of architects. A lot to look at but what is it saying? – “we have a
lot of architects making good models”. The other countries had similar difficulties expressing their
country-ness. Whatever the approach, the appointed curator is bound to run into trouble back home.
It is a time to be reminded that the architectural discussion is international – that certain Sydney
architects might have a closer affinity to work in Tokyo than they do to work in Melbourne.

Poland's effort to express itself was memorable, and won the award for “best national participation”.
"Hotel Polonia: The Afterlife of buildings" developed a simple concept into an impressive result.
What is a hotel, but a place to stay in, then leave and forget, perhaps stealing the shampoo. Hotel
Polonia is entered through its 'reception', which led into a large 'foyer' with photos hung around it.
The photos were in pairs, about a metre high. The before shots were of gleaming recent buildings,
mostly designed by architects staying in hotels (if they even visited Poland). Freed of context by the
photograph, these buildings are grandly generic anywhere buildings - a Foster here, an S.O.M.
there. The curators postulated that these buildings might not be as permanent as they might suggest.

The building might last, but would its function endure? How could the buildings be recycled? Using
exquisite photoshopping, an office building becomes a slum tenement, a church becomes an aquatic
amusement park complete with waterslides, an airport becomes a farm. The buildings are
repossessed in their obsolescence, and made Polish.

Link: http://www.labiennale.art.pl/
The Russians took a similar approach. Videos of mediocre but massive developments were
accompanied by text stating matter of fact that they had no idea how to respond to the "beyond
architecture" brief as ideas are a bit thin on the ground in Russian architecture - everyone is too
busy working on this crap. Next was a red room filled with large scale models of the same
buildings, sitting on a giant chess board (Moscow).The names of the international architects
responsible were stencilled around the edge of the room.

The Italians had their exhibition over behind the Arsenale, along with the pavilion-less countries
like China and Montenegro. This freed up the massive Italian Pavilion for an exhibition of
“experimental architecture” by practices the world over. This was the heart of the Biennale – over
60 architects given space to express what they made of the brief, without having to sell wares or
represent unwieldy countries. As Biennale curator Aaron Betsky writes, this is utopian architecture
“unshackled from the tomb of building”.

This was a who's who pavilion, a Herzog and de Meuron installation here, a Koolhaas video there, a
Hadid painting over there. Between the stars lurked lesser known entities, with some interesting
propositions. The architects could be very loosely grouped into three fields of design research. One
we could call “digital form”, the next “very green city”, and the other “politics and society”. To
concentrate on the last two interrelated and overlapping areas of experiment.
Very Green City
The work of these younger multi-disciplinary practices was literally very green. It is sometimes
hard to spot the buildings for the foliage. Demountable, regenerating, and hardly touching the earth
at all. Metabolism is alive and well in these attempts to push the envelope on sustainability. The
buildings are permeable, damp planter boxes, frameworks and scaffolds containing mixed uses and
spilling with life. Cows and sheep share urban gardens with locals, landscape is privileged over
built form.

Ecosistema Urbano: “Rather than an architect who leaves his indelible stamp on the city, we opt for
the architect who intervenes with a strategic vision, preferring criteria to sensibility when making a
decision, a real manager of energy and materials. We understand that we must act first as citizens
and then as architects.”

Examples to look up:

Avatar Archittetura, Italy: www.avatar-architettura.it
Coloco, France: www.coloco.org
Ecosistema Urbano, Spain: www.ecosistemaurbano.com
Field Operations, U.S.A.: www.fieldoperations.net
Husos, Colombia: www.husos.info
Julien de Smedt Architects, Denmark: www.jdsarchitects.com
Lot-ek, U.S.A.: www.lo-tek.com
Mao/Emmeazero, Italy: www.ma0.it
Millegomme/Refunc, The Netherlands: www.millegomme.com
Politics and Society
While the above examples are often assuming radical changes to society's power structures in order
to happen, these ones look a little closer at how this might happen. The results are harder to
characterise as they doesn't always end up in designed buildings - their similarities are more in
process. This is bottom up architecture that engages with a public, or at least observes and learns
from it. These architects are not afraid to get into squabbles with territorial authorities, questioning
assumptions about public and private space, in order to attempt urban interventions that might serve
as models to us all.

Teddy Cruz: “The work has evolved from the design of buildings or environments as ends in
themselves (the normative task of architectural practice) into a more meaningful creative process
that transforms them into social systems.”

Examples to look up:

2A+P Archittetura, Italy: www.dueapiup.it
Elemental, Chile: www.elementalchile.cl
Estudio Teddy Cruz, Mexico: www.politicalequator.org
Fantastic Norway: www.fantasticnorway.no
Fast, The Netherlands: www.seamlessterritory.org
Hilal, Petti and Weizman, Palestine and U.K.: www.decolonizing.ps
International Festival, Sweden: www.international-festival.org
RaumLabor, Germany: www.raumlabor-berlin.de
Rebar Group, U.S.A (Parking Day): www.rebargroup.org
Recetas Urbanas, Spain: www.recetasurbanas.net
Stalker/Osservatorio Nomade, Italy: www.stalkerlab.org , www.osservationomade.net
Urban Think Tank, Venezuala www.u-tt.com

The “Beyond Architecture” Biennale was an exhausting but very stimulating three day trek through
the ideas of architects from around the planet. Well, there was a tendency to show the work of
European and American (North and South) architects. I'm sure there is work of similar interest
happening in Africa, Asia, and Australasia. Do we just need to find it and tell them. Or are we
thinking too much within architecture not enough beyond it?

Peter Johns
Architects for Peace, November 2008

=============================
Attached images:
DSC02700.jpg Inside the Australian Pavilion. Peter Johns
DSC02800.jpg A Bearded Fiat in a yurt at the Biennale. Peter Johns
DSC02858.jpg Mao/Emmeazero, Footprints - fields, 2008
DSC02857.jpg Fast, One Land Two Systems, 2008