Best of the National Pavilions: Recurring Qualities Explored at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale

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Responding to “How will we live together” in 115 different ways, the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale welcomed, physically, the large public, on May 22nd, 2021. Opening up furthermore to the world, the timeless yet context-sensitive theme engendered a collective imaginary, highlighting a world that would rather come together than stay apart. Building an architectural narrative of the present that reflects on a resilient future, the interrogation, first asked in 2019, gained more relevance with the pandemic that paused the world for a while. With a lot of optimism and love for the craft, the architectural exhibition opened its doors to a longing public and revealed recurring qualities in the showcased interventions.

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Considering that “the pandemic will come and go, but issues like climate change, mass migration, inequalities, etc. will not disappear if not tackled”, Hashim Sarkis, the curator of the 17th edition of La Biennale Architettura 2021 explains the need for new spatial contracts today, in order to reach a better tomorrow. Exploring new means to convey the architectural experience, national pavilions, invited architects and collateral events took the challenge and introduced innovative projects, overlapping scales, and fields. Uncovering similar approaches, Sarkis in his opening speech, noticed that these recurring ideas can be divided into 3 main categories: the first investigates horizontality and similar levels, the second tackles the in-between and our nomadic existence and the third is more related to framing.