Biennale Breakdown 1: The Boys are Back in Town

The 18th
Venice Architecture Biennale was one with “no architecture,” some critics have alleged, but there was no shortage of consequential exhibition. Shaking off jetlag and whiplash from the contrasts on hand, Greg and Dan attempt to unpack their initial impressions of “The Laboratory of the Future.”

Intro/Outro: “The Boys are Back in Town,” by Thin Lizzy

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Discussed:

Olalekon Jeyifous – winner
of the Silver Lion for “The African Conservation Effort”

Killing Architects + Buzzfeed + local Chinese journalists: “Investigating Xinjiang’s Network of Detention Camps”

Wilson, Yoon, Howeler, Begley, Han – Unknown Unknown: A Space of Memory

Albanian Pavilion: Untimely Meditations

Looty

Liam Young – The Great Endeavour

Big Shovel – Daniel Yergin

Robots of Brixton – Kibwe Tavares

Forensic Architecture – The Nebelivka Hypothesis

The Dawn of Everything – David Graeber & David Wengrow

Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari

The Economy of Cities – Jane Jacobs

Sweet Water Foundation – “chaord”

DAAR – winner of the Golden Lion for “Ente di Decolonizzazione — Borgo Rizza”

Black City Astrolabe – J. Yolande Daniels

Saudi Arabia – “Irth”

UAE – Aridly Abundant

Bahrain – Sweating Assets

NEOM <> Zero-Gravity Urbanism

–     Opening talk with Sir Peter Cook – Archigram

-      What the Biennale criticizes is what NEOM is built on…

-      Parallel: Brasilia – 50 years of progress in 5

-      Contrast: V & A’s exhibition on Tropical Modernism

-      Edifice Complex / The Myth of Tabula Rasa:   You can’t build your way out of a lack of institutions – it leads to disastrous consequences.

- Contrast with Canada Pavilion’s “Not for Sale!”

Rating the Tote Bag Designs:

No. 5 – Saudi Arabia

No. 4 -- Hungary

No. 3 – UAE

No. 2 – Switzerland (“Neighbors” with Venezuela)

No. 1 – Canada – AAHA!

Oliver Wainwright’s review for the Guardian