The Corte Del Forte project came about after an invitation to Rintala Eggertsson Architects from curators Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara to participate in the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale.
It is not the first time that Rintala Eggertsson Architects makes a pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, however in this case it has been special to leave the typical environment of the exhibition and was located out of Venice, in Mestre. The idea of the curators was to offer a pavilion that would allow to citizens to  related with the visitors of the biennial.
 

Description of project by Rintala Eggertsson Architects

We were asked to do a special project at Forte Maghera, a closed down fortress in the Mestre part of Venice. As a gesture towards the local population the curators decided to take the FREESPACE theme of the biennale out of the ordinary exhibition venues and build a pavilion for social activities in the mainland township of Mestre, thus establishing a better contact between the biennale visitors and the general public. The choice of the site by the curatorial team was obvious; together with the adjacent San Giuliano park, Forte Maghera serves as the main recreational area for the local population in Venice.

With dance as one of the main organized activities in Forte Maghera, it became a logical function for the pavilion. Although the pavilion is mainly a functional space for dance performances, musical events and larger concerts, it should also aspire to arbitrary happenings and serve as a hangout for the numerous visitors to the area and become a free space in the broadest sense of the word. To us this was an important aspect as it underlines the core elements in our conceptual statement to the biennale; democracy and freedom from economic and political restraints:

Architecture, whether a home or a public space, that supports life with meaning will empower people to take better care of themselves, each other and their surroundings, as a contradiction to construction that symbolizes the mere ideas of power and wealth. It is our role as architects to establish a freespace in which to enact for the benefit of mankind. With the the rise of global trade and surge towards nationalism in the world, we see mainly two areas where our lives are being challenged:

Economic landscape:
Freespace is contrary to something you must pay for: Market forcing amalgam architecture that fills the space with a contract to consume instead of one to communicate. More than ever we need spaces that are free to be visited, affordable for everyone. A space that is empty, not because it lacks something, but remains so just until it is filled with the free thinking and action of the visitors.

Political landscape:
To counteract and balance power-structures one needs a freespace to think freely. A space that allows counter-thinking, critical views, pluralism, even anarchism. Every healthy sustainable civilization has this in their blue-print, or it fails.

In our Corte Del Forte installation we want to emphasize the social function of architecture with a small dance pavilion in a setting which is a manifestation of former political, economical and military landscapes and simultaneously a representation of the transition towards demilitarization, openness and democracy.

 

ORGANISATION OF THE PROJECT

The architectonic organization of the Corte Del Forte project is based on a 2,1 meter wide walkway surrounding a square courtyard with two functional spaces; the stage and the bar projecting towards the outside. Two other spaces; one intimate and the other more exposed were added to the outside perimeter to stimulate to a more varied experience of the surroundings. The inside was kept as simple and regular as possible to maximize the visual connection between the four sides of the courtyard and create a sense of unity for the visitors. The courtyard typology is common in southern climates offering shelter from the burning heat of the sun with air and shadow. To increase the functionality this gives, we have covered the courtyard with a textile canopy, woven into a pattern which highlights the directionality of the space. The checkered pattern is also used for the lattice walls which are the only vertical space dividers in the pavilion.

Read more
Read less

More information

Label
Architects
Text
Rintala Eggertsson Architects.- Vibeke Jenssen (partner), Sami Rintala (partner), Dagur Eggertsson (partner) and Mads Øiern
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Venue
Text
Forte Maghera. Via Forte Marghera, 30, 30173 Mestre, Venezia VE, Italy
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Consultants
Text
Engineer Stefano Caldart. Project management.- Alice Clancy og Sebastiano Giannesini
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Area
Text
190.0 m²
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Dates
Text
2018
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Building leader
Text
Joern Brandmeyer

+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Contractor
Text
Rebiennale
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Sponsors
Text
Norwegian Foreign Office / Design and Architecture Norway, Europlac / Nordlamell, Artemide, Essve Norway, Hansen Protection and Bezzi Legnami
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Rintala Eggertsson Architects. A Norway architecture studio, based in Oslo, founded by  Sami Rintala and Dagur Eggertsson, in 2007, which bases its activities around furniture design, public art, architecture and urban planning. In 2008 Eggertsson and Rintala were joined by Vibeke Jenssen who is now a full partner in the company. All three studied under Juhani Pallasmaa in Helsinki, and are informed by his phenomenological and cross-disciplinary thinking. Since its establishment, Rintala Eggertsson Architects have developed projects around the world and their work has been exhibited at the Maxxi Museum in Rome, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the National Art Museum of China and with the special project “Corte Del Forte” at the 2018 Venice Biennale.

The company has received prestigious awards over the years such as The Global award for Sustainable Architecture, the Wan 21 for 21 Award, Architizer A+Award, Travel & Leisure Award, American Architecture Award, and the International Architecture Award. Their projects and texts have been published in architecture magazines such as Abitare, Area, METALOCUS, Architectural Review, A+U, L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, D'A Magazine, AMC architecture, Detail, Domus, Topos, and Wallpaper as well as New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

Eggertsson and Rintala have taught architecture in Europe, Australia, and North America and in 2019 as Gensler Visiting Professors at Cornell University in New York.
Read more

Sami Rintala was born in 1969.He is an architect and an artist, with a long merit list after finishing his architect studies in Helsinki Finland 1999. He established architect office Casagrande & Rintala 1998, which produced a series of acknowledged architectural installations around the world during the next five years until 2003. These works combine architecture with critical thinking of society, nature and the real tasks of an architect, all within a cross-over art field using space, light, materials and human body as tools of expression.

Rintala had his first wider recognition in 1999 with the project Landescape, three abandoned wooden barns were raised on 10 meter high.

In Venice Biennale 2000 Sixty Minute Man was realized; A ship sailed to Arsenal with a garden inside. The park was planted on sixty minutes of human waste from the city of Venice, becoming together with the old boat a three dimensional collage.

In 2008, Rintala started a new architect office with Icelandic architect Dagur Eggertsson, called Rintala Eggertsson Architects. The office is based in Oslo, South Norway and Bodø, North Norway.

Important part of Rintala’s work is teaching and lecturing in various art and architecture universities. Teaching takes place usually in form of workshops where the students often are challenged to participate the shaping of human environment on a realistic 1:1 situation.
 

Read more

Dagur Eggertsson was born in 1965.He is an architect with a professional background from a number of the most prominent offices in Oslo.  After his professional degree from the Oslo School of Architecture in 1992, he started his collaboration with architect Vibeke Jenssen, as NOIS architects.  In 1996 he finished a post-professional master’s degree at the Helsinki University of Technology, where he started experimentation with building full scale architectonic objects, under the supervision of Professor Juhani Pallasmaa.

Along with his professional practice, Eggertsson has taught architecture in Norway, Iceland and Sweden.  He is currently a project examinator at the Oslo School of Architecture.

In 2007, Eggertsson started collaboration with architect Sami Rintala, which resulted in establishment of the office Rintala Eggertsson Architects. The office is based in Oslo and Bodø, Norway.


 

Read more

Vibeke Jenssen borns 1964 is an architect with a long experience from housing and planning. She received her professional degree in 1993 from the Oslo School of Architecture, whereafter she started her collaboration with architect Dagur Eggertsson, as NOIS architects with a focus on small scale architectural public art.

In 2009, she joined Rintala Eggertsson Architects as a full time member of the team and from 2012 also as a partner.

Read more
Published on: June 14, 2018
Cite: "Corte del Forte, dance pavilion by Rintala Eggertsson Architects " METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/corte-del-forte-dance-pavilion-rintala-eggertsson-architects> ISSN 1139-6415
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...