In a video on the Venice architecture biennale by the magazine Monocle, the exhibition curated by the Pritzker Prize-winner Alejandro Aravena is one of the most socially loaded exhibitions yet.
The title of the exhibition is “Reporting from the Front” and investigates seeking new perspectives. According to Aravena it often is difficult for projects to deviate from their conventional uses. The participants to the exhibition were invited because they all succeeded to bring this change with their work in the living conditions of poor people who experience hardships because of their difficult circumstances. This tipping point is investigated here.
“How bigger the problem,” Aravena says, “how bigger the need for synthesis. And if there is power in architecture, it is in the power of synthesis.” He also says that architecture is influenced by various elements – e.g. political, economic, ecological, aesthetic etc. The architect must therefore make sure that he/she understands the powers at play, and to make the representatives of those forces work together.
The 88 participants from 37 countries were chosen because they showcase projects where inventiveness can or have made a positive change to people’s quality of live.
“Architecture gives form the places where people live – it is not more complicated than this, and it also is not more simple.”