[B] A Virtual Tour of the National Pavilions at the Venice Biennale 2014

06/06/2014. National Participations. Venice Biennale 2014. [VEN] Italy
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA

Second part of our a virtual tour of the Venice Biennale 2014. Check out each of the national pavilions currently on display for Rem Koolhaas‘ chosen theme "Absorbing Modernity, 1914-2014."

KOSOVO, Republic of Visibility (imposed modernity). Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

KOSOVO, Republic of Visibility (imposed modernity). Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

KOREA, Republic of Crow’s Eye View: The Korean Peninsula. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

KUWAIT. Acquiring ModernityKUWAIT. Acquiring Modernity. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

LATVIA. Unwritten. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

MACEDONIA, Former Yugoslavian Republic of Findings. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

MALAYSIA. Sufficiency. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

MEXICO …condenados a ser modernos. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

MOROCCO Fundamental(ism)s. MARRUECOS. Fundamental(ismo)s. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

NETHERLANDS, The Open: A Bakema Celebration. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

NORDIC PAVILION (NORWAY, FINLAND, SWEDEN) Forms of Freedom. African Independence and Nordic Models. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

PERU. In/ formal Urban Encounters For The Next 100. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

POLAND. Impossible Objects. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

PORTUGAL HOMELAND. NEWS FROM PORTUGAL. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

SERBIA. 14-14. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

SOUTH AFRICA. South-Africa 1914-2014:modernism and its doubles. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

SWITZERLAND. Lucius Burckhardt and Cedric Price. A stroll through a fun palace. Photography © Andrea Avezzù.

THAILAND. Spirituality - freedom and creativity, a fundamental in Thai Architecture. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

TURKEY Places of Memory. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. Lest We Forget: Structures of Memory in the United Arab Emirates. Photography © Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

“Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014. In 1914, it made sense to talk about a “Chinese” architecture, a “Swiss” architecture, an “Indian” architecture… One hundred years later, under the influence of wars, diverse political regimes, different states of development, national and international architectural movements, individual talents, friendships, random personal trajectories, and technological developments, architectures that were once specific and local have become seemingly interchangeable and global. Has national identity been sacrificed to modernity?

Participating countries will engage a single theme – Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014 – and will show, each in their own way, the process of the erasure of national characteristics in favor of the almost universal adoption of a single modern language and a single repertoire of typologies. But the transition to what seems like a universal architectural language is a more complex process than we typically recognize, involving significant encounters between cultures, technical inventions, and hidden ways of remaining “national.” In a time of ubiquitous google research and the flattening of cultural memory, it is crucial for the future of architecture to resurrect and expose these narratives.

By telling the history of the last 100 years cumulatively, the exhibitions in the National Pavilions will generate a global overview of architecture’s evolution into a single, modern aesthetic, and at the same time uncover within globalization the survival of unique national features and mentalities that continue to exist and flourish even as international collaboration and exchange intensify…”

Rem Koolhaas. Curator of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition.