Venice Architecture Biennale British Pavilion 2012, Villa Frankenstein, Exhibit, Images, Design

Venice Biennale British Pavilion : Architecture

International Architectural Exhibition, Italy – La Biennale di Venezia, Italia

28 + 27 Aug 2012

British Pavilion Venice Biennale

BRITAIN PLAYS LEADING ROLE IN WORLD’S MOST IMPORTANT ARCHITECTURE EVENT

BRITISH PAVILION INAUGURATED BY TONY HALL

Leading British architects gathered in Venice for the official inauguration today (Monday 27 August) of the British Pavilion at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale ahead of its opening to the public from 29 August – 25 November 2012.

Lord Hall, Chair of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House, officially inaugurated the British Pavilion in the presence of leading figures from the fields of architecture, design and the wider cultural community, gathered in Venice for the Biennale.

Venice Biennale British Pavilion in 2010:

photo © Adrian Welch

The Venice Architecture Biennale is the biggest and most prestigious architectural gathering in the world. Each participating country holds an exhibition in its national pavilion in the famous Biennale Giardini, alongside a major exhibition spread across the spectacular Biennale sites in the Arsenale, The Corderia and the Giardini, which this year is curated by the internationally acclaimed British architect, David Chipperfield.

Scott Sutherland Students Exhibit at the Venice Biennale – Ross Anderson and Anna Gibb, amongst contributors such as Lord Foster:

photos from Alan Dunlop

The British Pavilion, presented by the British Council, features Venice Takeaway: Ideas to Change British Architecture. Co-curated by Vicky Richardson, Commissioner of the British Pavilion and Director of Architecture, Art and Design at the British Council, and Vanessa Norwood, Head of Exhibitions at the Architectural Association, the exhibition, designed by Born Design, focuses on a group of exciting architectural talents, selected in open competition across the UK. The British Pavilion is infused with fresh ideas, taking direct inspiration from research in ten countries across the world: Argentina, Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Nigeria, Russia, Thailand and the USA.

The featured projects in the British Pavilion are by:

Aberrant architecture
Smout Allen and BLDGBLOG
Ross Anderson and Anna Gibb
Darryl Chen
dRMM
Forum for Alternative Belfast
Public works, Urban Projects Bureau and Owen Pritchard
Elias Redstone
Liam Ross and Tolulope Onabolu
Takero Shimazaki/Toh Shimazaki Architecture

Vicky Richardson, Commissioner of the British Pavilion and Director of Architecture, Design and Fashion at the British Council, said: “This is an exciting moment in British architecture, in which the British Council is playing its part to bring ideas from our leading architects and designers to the international stage, extending the dialogue about architecture across nations.”

Lord Hall, Chair of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House, said: “The British Council plays a vital role in ensuring the legacy of creative thinking in the UK is spread round the world. Architecture is one of our great creative industries. I am proud to be able to be in Venice for this important occasion and to officially inaugurate the British Pavilion.”

Scott Sutherland Students Exhibit at the Venice Biennale – Ross Anderson and Anna Gibb:

photos from Alan Dunlop

Among those attending the opening were: Sir David Chipperfield, Dame Zaha Hadid, Lord Norman Foster, Sir Nicholas Serota, Julia Peyton Jones list to be added to on Monday.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of online publications, with information and images available at www.venicetakeaway.com.

Venice Biennale British Pavilion : main page with current information

17 + 11 Aug 2012

Venice Biennale British Pavilion

BRITISH PAVILION AT THE 13th INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE EXHIBITION, VENICE

BRITISH PAVILION SHOW IN VENICE WILL TRANSFER TO LONDON

London, August 2012 – Venice Takeaway : Ideas to Change British Architecture, presented by the British Council, will go on show in London at the RIBA Gallery from 25 February – 27 April 2013. The London showing will follow its opening in the British Pavilion at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, from 29 August to 25 November 2012.

This will be the first time that the exhibition in the British Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale has transferred to London.

Venice Takeaway, curated by Vicky Richardson, Director of Architecture, Design and Fashion at the British Council and Vanessa Norwood, Head of Exhibitions at the Architectural Association, aims not simply to showcase talent from the UK, but to provoke a debate about the path that British architecture has taken during a time of flux. The ten research proposals in the exhibition are all fuelled by the desire for the architect’s role to be strengthened and for the profession to play a more proactive role in the future cultural and economic shape of Britain.

The exhibition will be staged in a specially designed installation created by graphic and 3d designers, Born Design.

The featured projects are:

aberrant architecture, who travelled to Rio de Janeiro to investigate CIEPs, a radical education programme and a series of prefabricated primary schools designed by Oscar Niemeyer.

The Sambódromo in Rio de Janeiro:

photo : aberrant architecture

Smout Allen and BLDGBLOG, whose research focused on the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Los Angeles, an institution dedicated to the diffusion of knowledge about land use.

Ross Anderson and Anna Gibb, who went to Moscow to investigate the ‘Paper Architects’, a loose collective formed in the 1980s in response to state restrictions on their ability to build.
Ross Anderson and Anna Gibb:

photo : Valerie Bennett

Moscow, drawing by Gibb, 2012:

image : Anna Gibb

Darryl Chen, who looked at parallels between the UK and China via a study of a pocket of informality, Caochangdi, a village on Beijing’s Fifth Road.

dRMM who studied IJburg, a floating community that has thrived under an advanced culture of planning, procurement and design, to the east of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

photo : Valerie Bennett

Swan swimming amongst waterhouses, IJburg, Waterbuurt West, Amsterdam:

photo : dRMM

Forum for Alternative Belfast who went to Berlin to investigate the International Bauausstellung 1987 (IBA 1987), an ambitious and visionary urban renewal project involving international architects.

public works, Urban Projects Bureau and Owen Pritchard who formed a team to develop an ongoing discussion on the role and image of the architect through a new open charter.

Elias Redstone who investigated Fideicomiso in Argentina, a legal trust which enables architects to fund their own projects.

Liam Ross and Tolulope Onabolu, who travelled to Lagos to embark on a comparative study of risk and regulation and their impact on design.

Takero Shimazaki / Toh Shimazaki Architecture whose investigation focuses on the work of Itsuko Hasegawa in several locations around Japan, and explores the way her architecture combines a belief in people with abstraction.

photo : Valerie Bennett

Rooftop garden, Shonandai Cultural Centre:

photo : Toh Shimazaki Architecture

Reflecting the theme of this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale ‘Common Ground’ set by Director David Chipperfield, Venice Takeaway aims to demonstrate the potential of sharing ideas across borders; and find new ways to respond to the challenges of the relationships, policies and structures that surround architecture. More information is available online at www.venicetakeaway.com

The catalogue Venice Takeaway: Ideas to Change British Architecture brings together the research of ten architectural teams exhibiting in the British Pavilion at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale. Charting a course that takes in Argentina, Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Russia, Thailand and the USA, the catalogue presents images and essays by the teams who travelled the world to seek imaginative responses to universal issues and explore the common ground of architecture. In addition, the book features texts by Patrik Schumacher, the show’s curators Vanessa Norwood and Vicky Richardson and a foreword by Brett Steele. Published by the Architectural Association, it is available to buy online at www.aaschool.ac.uk/publications

The British Council’s Architecture, Design, Fashion team works with the best of British creative talent to develop innovative events and collaborations that link designers and cultural institutions around the world. The British Council’s commitment to the Venice Architecture Biennale illustrates the powerful contribution that the creative industries make to cultural relations. The British Council is responsible for the British Pavilion in Venice; showing British artists at the longest-running, most prestigious international art Biennial in the world: the Venice Biennale of Art. From 1991 the British Pavilion has also been home to architecture exhibitions in the alternate years to the art Biennale. For more information visit http://backoftheenvelope.britishcouncil.org

British Pavilion Venice Biennale 2012 images / information from the British Council