The Laboratory of the Future

Aug 31

Venice Architecture Biennale 2023

During the summer, Oltmans van Niekerk visited the Venice Architecture Biennale. Contemporary architectural plans involve long-term research, as residential homes have a life expectancy of around 65 to 70 years. Beyond creating structures, shapes, materials and designs, it is the capacity of architecture to reshape our perception of the world that stands out.

Titled ‘The Laboratory of the Future,’ the 2023 Architecture Biennale centres around celebrating Africa’s vibrant creative scene. In this year’s edition, the Biennale brings participants from Africa and the African diaspora to the forefront, showcasing the dynamic and intertwined culture of individuals with African heritage spread across the globe. Historically, representation of African designers at the Venice Architecture Biennale has been scarce. Curator Lesley Lokko, a Ghanaian-Scottish academic and novelist, intends to move away from a “singular, exclusive narrative” that has often disregarded significant portions of humanity.

The Biennale unfolds like a surge of African designers, posing a significant challenge to Western architectural norms. The main themes are ‘Decarbonization’ and ‘Decolonization,’ emphasizing approaches to construction that are less exploitative towards both people and the environment compared to the past or that require minimal construction efforts for accessibility.

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter
another.”

— Anatole France

You can download the PDF of the report here

Paradigm Shift

Some Biennale pavilions showcase the potential of the current energy shift. They examine extractivist, colonial, and capitalist myths that exploited the Earth. Architecture is no longer seen as separate from nature but as a living entity. The focus is on crafting lightweight shelters using methods like weaving, earth construction, and leveraging existing structures. The theme explores architects creating new relationships with resources via alternative methods, using materials from living organisms like raw earth and mycelium.

Left to right Japanese pavilion curated by Maki Onishi, Italian pavilion curated by Fosbury Architecture, In Vivio, Belgian pavilion curated by Bento Architecture and Vinciane Despret , Mnemonic-Letters from the Landscape by Craig McClenaghan Architecture

Revisiting the Past

Architecture transcends the creation of structures; it encapsulates the interplay between individuals and their spatial surroundings. When architecture intertwines with memories and narratives, embodying experiences and events, it takes on a broader meaning. Within the Biennale, artefacts and drawings serve as vessels for the history of architecture, identity, colonization, and the cultural impacts of the African diaspora. The buildings, sketches, and objects reflect the challenges African communities face in accessing water while also symbolizing the cyclical nature of history and the unity within African societies. The extractive, colonial, and capitalist practices that have historically shaped this region become tangible through installations made from gold and gold threads.

Left to right Pilbara Interregnum: Seven Political Allegories by Grandeza Studio, Aequare: the Future that Never Was by Twenty Nine Studio, ‘Threads’ by Kate Otten Architects

A New Building Culture

The Biennale delves into decarbonization, ecological exploration, and using resources like materials, water, and energy. Limiting material pleasure through industrialization, westernization, liberalism, and reparations of past colonial exploitations is the first step in our reconciliation with nature. Within this context, a fresh building ethos becomes conceivable by regarding energy efficiency as an integral and interconnected facet of construction. Additionally, alternative approaches to materials can be embraced, involving strategies like reutilizing or refurbishing existing resources as part of a sustainable maintenance framework.

Left to right 2086: Together How? : The Pavilion of Korea curated by curated by Soik Jung and Kyong Park, +/- 1 °C: In Search of Well-Tempered Architecture: The Pavilion of Slovenia, Open for Maintanace, The Pavilion of Germany, “The Great Endeavor” by Liam Young, workwear from repurposed oil rig coveralls and shirts by Ane Crabtree

Technological Futures

New technologies may not provide ready-made solutions, but they can help to ask better questions and envision and visualize new futures in response to the world’s most pressing environmental and urban challenges. It can help with a radical and progressive approach to new cities and buildings with a sharper view on balancing nature, quality of life, history and human progress. Computer applications can be used to weave cultural conversations into the composition of new buildings and the surrounding urban landscape.

Left to right Reziduum, The Frequency of Architecture” curated by Mária Kondor-Szilágyi, The Pavilion of Hungary, Datament, a dialogue between artist Anna Barlik and architect Marcin Strzała, The Polish Pavilion, Zero Gravity Urbanism by Neom, Exploration of the Technological Cloud of Data Centers, The Israel Pavilion

The Future of the Past

During the exhibition, the visitor is challenged to think about and imagine the potential of the new types of built environments. Small communities can function as a case study for location-specific future scenarios, localism can reshape globalism. Heritage research is part of the exploration for instance how to deal with the declining urban centers and villages in the countryside as a result of centuries of uneven capitalist development thinking. Abandoned houses and buildings can be revived, architecture of the past can be linked to the future.

Left to right In Reflections, The Pavilion of Serbia, curated by Iva Njunjic and Tihomir Dicic, 2086: Together How?: The Pavilion of Korea curated by curated by Soik Jung and Kyong Park, Reziduum, The Frequency of Architecture” curated by Mária Kondor-Szilágyi, Through Time and Terra: Mining the Abyssinian Cyber Vernaculus. Miriam Hillawi Abraham

Poetic Protest

Many of the installations express the relationship between material erasure and historical forgetting about the roots of colonial capitalism, land rights, environmental extraction and exploitative labour practices. These installations are an act of poetic protest and raise awareness of current erased and interrupted histories. They function as a platform for marginalized people, allowing them to define and express their own stories.

Left to right Drawing memory into being by Office 24-7 Architecture and Lemon Pebble Architects, Debris of History, Matters of Memo by Gloria Cabral and Sammy Baloji with Cécile Fromont, Surfacing/ The Civilised Agroecological Forests of Amazonia’ by Estudio A0

Emotional Sensitivity

Not only do people have memories of a place, buildings and environments are also full of memories of the lives of people who live or have been there. To be sensitive to the memories in buildings and in people is a future vision that builds on the past. Unfinished drawings, models and films, documents incorporating doubts and reflections, can promote an exchange of ideas, it can be the start of a conversation to shape a new vision. Existing structures can be transformed into emotional spaces inspired by the customs of indigenous peoples.

Left to right Emotional Heritage by Flores and Prats, the pavilion of the Scandinavian countries curated by the architect and artist Joar Nango

Black Females in Architecture

The Biennale’s choice to select an equal number of female and male practitioners is an invitation to equality from a cultural and disciplinary perspective and between the sexes. Women make up 49.58% of the world’s population, and groups labelled as minorities make up the majority. Women from all minority groups are underrepresented in most fields, and architecture is no exception. Textiles are used to advocate for diversity and race and gender equity across all sectors of the built environment as a soft reminder of how spaces and architecture are subject to change.

Left to right Obroni Wa’awu: Cross-Continental Clothescapes’ by Lauren-Loïs Duah, A voice for the 450 Plus, video on a textile screen by Black Females in Architecture , The BLACK City Astrolabe: A Constellation of African Diasporic Women’ by J. Yolande Daniels for Gender and Geography, Ghebbi by Ad-Wo

A Supermarket of Ideas

The Latvian Pavilion was based on the idea of a supermarket containing 506 unique products from the last ten exhibitions of the Architecture Biennale. The pavilion explores the relationship between the Biennale (the ‘supermarket’) and the national pavilions (the ‘products’). The exhibition allows visitors to interact with the “products” by participating in a voting system to reevaluate the importance and impact of past editions. It’s not the products that are important; it’s your decisions that matter. Overwhelming amounts of ideas may be draining, but what if decision-making could be fun?

Left to right The Latvian Pavilion curated by Uldis Jaunzems-Petersons