Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam has inaugurated the ‘Water Cities Rotterdam. By Kunlé Adeyemi,’ a cultural project comprising of exhibitions along with several floating pontoons and artist installations that present the Nigerian-Dutch architect Kunlé Adeyemi’s waterfront designs in the Netherlands. The exhibition brings a seven-meter-high floating wooden pavilion on the institute’s outdoor ponds. Inside the pavilion, landscape architect and artist Thijs de Zeeuw has created an artwork to allow visitors to experience the pavilion from the perspective of nature while contemplating the consequences of building and living on the water for the surrounding ecology and biodiversity. The entire exhibition is on display at the Nieuwe Instituut until 22 October 2023.
The Croatian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 celebrates the harmonious coexistence of the wild and domesticated, natural and man-made, and inanimate and living elements. Modeled after the Lonja Wetlands in Croatia, where communities that have adapted to the continuously shifting landscape have coexisted harmoniously for generations to create a dynamic habitat, the Pavilion is a hub for ongoing research into potential futures through educational experimentation and practice. The exhibition was curated by Mia Roth and Tonči Čerina, in collaboration with their design team: Luka Fatović, Vedran Kasap, Ozana Ursić, Niko Mihaljević, and Ivica Mitrović .“Same As It Ever Was” places a focus on the connections among actors from various backgrounds around the world.
Photo by Kate Joyce, Ross Barney Architects Chicago Riverwalk. Image Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial
The fifth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial just announced its list of participants. Under the artistic direction of Floating Museum, a collective of artists, designers, poets, and educators focused on building connections between art, community, architecture, infrastructure, and public institutions, CAB 5 will be presented at multiple sites throughout the city. "This is a Rehearsal" will focus on the community and process-related aspects of architecture, emphasizing how it helps to improve urban life and foster communal responsibility. The participants, chosen by Floating Museum, will look at global environmental, political, and economic challenges while addressing local circumstances. The goal of CAB 5's more than 100 activations, including installations and performances, is to get people to think about how society is impacted by physical infrastructure, societal history, aesthetic, and spatial design.
The Chicago Architecture Biennial is a nonprofit organization that aims to bring together people from around the world to explore innovative ideas and collectively imagine and shape the future of design. The exhibition will open on September 21, 2023, and will be on view until January 2, 2024, spanning various locations across the Chicago metropolitan area. Over 70 creative practitioners, including artists, architects, designers, and performers, will be featured in this citywide exhibition.
Installation at La Biennale di Venezia. Image Courtesy of NiLab
Along the longest river in the world, the Nile River, various landscapes and natural environments have been negatively impacted by interventions that do not consider the context or respect local cultures. In response, NiLab the Egyptian Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, aims to revisit these places and highlight the value of architectural design in promoting more sustainable and culturally aware development along the river. The exhibition titled "NiLab: Nile as Laboratory", recognizes the Nile's exceptional geographical size, historical significance, and impact on natural and human landscapes, making it an ideal backdrop for reflection on contemporary issues.
The Office for Political Innovation, led by Andrés Jaque, collaborated with a network of activists and community representatives from Xholobeni (South Africa), experts in seismographs and transduction from Poland, researchers, sound editors, and prop makers to bring a research-based installation at the Arsenale of the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale. Titled ‘XHOLOBENI YARDS. Titanium and the Planetary Making of SHININESS / DUSTINESS,’ the intervention addresses architecture’s problematic fascination with shininess.
On Thursday, May 18, the Government of Mexico, through the Secretariat of Culture, celebrated the inauguration of the Mexican Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale 2023, with the proposal "Utopian Infrastructure: The Campesino Basketball Court". The pavilion, which had an investment of 9,059,600 pesos, aims to invite dialogue and play to engage in conversations about the topics that concern the world of architecture in relation to various aspects of social, cultural, and political life.
Taking a broader perspective on architecture, the exhibition shifts its focus towards the discipline rather than just the profession. It’s not “about building buildings per se”, explains the curator to ArchDaily. Instead, it seeks to question our conventional understanding of architecture, and with that, architectural exhibitions. The 2023 Biennale is a laboratory in every sense of the word, a global platform of experimentation, and a space to explore new ideas in the absence of spaces that allow us to do so. "It borrows its structure and format from art exhibitions, but it differs from art in critical ways which often go unnoticed", states Lesley Lokko in her initial statement.
Architectural model of the new KNMA New Delhi. Image Courtesy of Adjaye Associates and KNMA
The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) has revealed an architectural model of its new building during the 18th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, as part of the Curator’s Special Projects, titled Mnemonic, presented at the Arsenale - Artiglierie in Venice. The building, designed by Ghanian-British architect Sir David Adjaye in collaboration with S. Ghosh & Associates as the local architect of record, is set to become India’s largest cultural center. The project is scheduled to open in Delhi in 2026.
As one of the most important and visited contemporary architecture exhibitions worldwide, the Venice Architecture Biennale extends beyond the grounds of the Giardini and the Arsenale, and at Forte Marghera to engage the whole city in discussing relevant issues, challenges, and opportunities of the architectural profession. To explore more diverse perspectives of the overarching theme, “Africa: The Laboratory of the Future,” 9 collateral events have been officially announced as part of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.
The events, which are admitted by curator Lesley Lokko and promoted by non-profit national and international bodies and institutions, take place in several locations scattered around the city. They offer a wide range of contributions and participations that contribute to the diversity of voices represented at the exhibition in Venice.
House of the Flying Beds . Image Courtesy of Al Borde
The 2023 Sharjah Architecture Triennial (SAT) will take place from November 11th, 2023 to March 10th, 2024, under the theme "The Beauty of Impermanence: An Architecture of Adaptability". Focusing on how scarcity in the Global South has led to a culture of re-use, re-appropriation, innovation, collaboration, and adaptation, the second edition of the architectural exhibition, curated by Tosin Oshinowo, aims to shift global conversations towards creating a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable future.
Organized and hosted by the European Cultural Centre (ECC), a non-profit organization committed to promoting culture through international exchanges, the sixth edition of the Time Space Existence exhibition "will draw attention to the emerging expressions of sustainability in its numerous forms, ranging from a focus on the environment and urban landscape to the unfolding conversations on innovation, reuse, community, and inclusion.".
Architects, designers, artists, academics, and photographers, from 52 different countries will come together to explore and contemplate the philosophical concepts of Time, Space, and Existence, through different mediums and from diverse perspectives. Highlighting a total of 217 projects, the exhibition will run from the 20th of May until the 26th of November, 2023, at Palazzo Bembo, Palazzo Mora, and the Marinaressa Gardens, in Venice, during the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. Throughout the six months of opening, the show will be complemented by a program of talks, conferences, and workshops.
Temporary pavilions and installations, such as those used in events, exhibitions, or festivals, present themselves as a great challenge when addressing the circular economy in architecture due to their ephemeral condition. It seems contradictory to address resource management and try to extract the maximum value from the materials and minimize waste and pollution while designing a structure that is meant to be used for a limited period of time. However, there are several strategies to rethink the way we are designing these structures in order to promote circularity.
The National Pavilion of Serbia, curated by Iva Njunjić and Tihomir Dičić, has just announced its exhibition at the 2023 Venice Biennale, which explores architecture's futures, presents, and pasts through the lens of an international Trade Fair in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1977. The trade fair was a product of non-aligned cooperation between Yugoslavia and Nigeria.
The First Islamic Arts Biennale, artistically directed by Sumayya Vally, opened on January 2023 and is still ongoing until May 23, 2023, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The inaugural event was commissioned and produced by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation and was curated by Vally alongside Dr. Julian Raby, Dr. Omniya Abdel Barr, and Dr. Saad Al-Rashid. The biennale re-imagines the Western Hajj Terminal at King Abdulaziz Airport, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and winner of the 1983 Aga Khan Award, as a cultural space to redefine Islamic Arts from "within, in a way, that connects some of these art forms and forms of artistic expression to the experience and rituals" of those that live it.
Sumayya Vally is a South African architect, founder, and director of the Johannesburg-based collaborative architectural studio Counterspace. Designer of the Serpentine Pavilion in 2020/2021, she was the youngest architect to get this commission. Part of Time’s 100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future, in 2021, the only architect to make the list at that time, Sumayya started her career as a curator and teacher, and recently she was appointed as artistic director of the first Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah. ArchDaily had the chance to talk with Vally about her contribution to this biennale, her vision of the exhibition, the venue, the scenography, and the participating architects. Sumayya also shared some exclusive info about her entry for the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, starting on May 20th, in Venice, Italy.
The Belgian Pavilion has announced its display for this year’s international architecture exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Curated by Bento and Venciane Despret, “In Vivo” concentrates on investigating the architect's new relationship with resources. The display challenges our extractivist production system by identifying and designing architectural alternatives using components obtained from live organisms and the imagery that goes along with them.
