Issues such as the importance of the kitchen in our daily life or the future of the processes that take place in there are some of those addressed by MVRDV Dutch architects, who make is debut in the space of the Venice Biennale with this exhibition. Can an absolute transparency aesthetic to change the way we eat and cook?

MVRDV have designed a fully transparent kitchen. The installation is part of the Kitchen Home Project which looks to explore the future of the living and the home environment, the project was initiated by Weng Ling of the Beijing Centre for the Arts (BCA), and was undertaken together with architect Kengo Kuma and media artist Au Yeung Ying Chai. The Infinity Kitchen looks to consider the next stage for kitchen design through envisioning a cooking environment made entirely out of glass. It hopes to develop better cuisine by making the processes that go on in our kitchens physically transparent; whether it be food choice, food care, kitchen care, waste choices or the preparation of food itself. The exhibition opened today and will be open to the public until 30th September 2016 in Università IUAV di Venezia Ca’tron.

MVRDV have designed a fully transparent kitchen as part of a satellite event for the Venice Biennale. The installation takes the typical modern day modular kitchen and looks at progressing the typology to improving the culinary experience and challenging the immense, yet generic, kitchen industry. The Infinity Kitchen wants to make better cuisine, better food preparation practices and it wants raise awareness for the one room that we all rely so heavily on, and the processes that go on inside of it. How much food do we have hidden away? How much waste is really been created? Is the kitchen really as clean as we like to think it is? But it also wants to do one main thing, celebrate food and cooking.
 
“If we imagine everything is transparent clear and clean, doesn’t it mean that the only thing that is colourful and visible is our food,” describes MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas. “Doesn’t it then imply that we are encouraged to love the food, in that way, and that maybe it even becomes more healthy, if not sexy?”

Transparent surfaces, shelves, cupboards, taps and utensils come together to give a new insight into food production, storage, and the processes that go on in our kitchens. Instead of hiding both the ugly and beautiful sides of food preparation, the Infinity Kitchen exposes all in a way to give more control to the user who can now monitor everything. MVRDV’s design aims to act as a showcase to test the individual elements in the kitchen, visitors to the exhibition will be able to see how, through their invisibility, the entire kitchen catalogue functions. 
 
“I see this as part of a wider dream, this kitchen. It is part of an environment, if not a city, that is transparent and therefore accessible.” Says Winy Maas, “Imagine if not only our kitchens were transparent, but the walls through to the neighbour and the next neighbour even. This would create infinite perspectives in our cities. It would make within our claustrophobic environments possibly a view, into the direction of the mountains or the sea.”

MVRDV’s push for this vision has already materialised in recent projects such as Crystal Houses, a traditional façade built entirely from glass in Amsterdam, and an office with all glass interiors, furniture and equipment in Hong Kong which will be opened on the 1st June 2016.

The Kitchen Home Project is an initiative which looks to imagine the next step of our living environments, taking the accepted norms of today and pushing these to find new and better solutions. MVRDV worked closely with Weng Ling from the Beijing Centre for the Arts and are participating in the event as part of their commitment to both Asian and European architecture. MVRDV and the BCA have had a long collaboration since 2002, focusing on urban environment and culture. Aside from the Infinity Kitchen, the exhibition also includes installations from Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, and Hong Kong based media artist Au Yeung Ying Cha.
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Dello Spezier st, 30135 Venice, Italy
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Until September 30th 2016
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MVRDV was founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The practice engages globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues. A highly collaborative, research-based design method involves clients, stakeholders and experts from a wide range of fields from early on in the creative process. The results are exemplary, outspoken projects, which enable our cities and landscapes to develop towards a better future.

The products of MVRDV’s unique approach to design vary, ranging from buildings of all types and sizes, to urban plans and visions, numerous publications, installations and exhibitions. Built projects include the Netherlands Pavilion for the World EXPO 2000 in Hannover; the Market Hall, a combination of housing and retail in Rotterdam; the Pushed Slab, a sustainable office building in Paris’ first eco-district; Flight Forum, an innovative business park in Eindhoven; the Silodam Housing complex in Amsterdam; the Matsudai Cultural Centre in Japan; the Unterföhring office campus near Munich; the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam; the Ypenburg housing and urban plan in The Hague; the Didden Village rooftop housing extension in Rotterdam; the music centre De Effenaar in Eindhoven; the Gyre boutique shopping center in Tokyo; a public library in Spijkenisse; an international bank headquarters in Oslo, Norway; and the iconic Mirador and Celosia housing in Madrid.

Current projects include a variety of housing projects in the Netherlands, France, China, India, and other countries; a community centre in Copenhagen and a cultural complex in Roskilde, Denmark, a public art depot in Rotterdam, the transformation of a mixed use building in central Paris, an office complex in Shanghai, and a commercial centre in Beijing, and the renovation of an office building in Hong Kong. MVRDV is also working on large scale urban masterplans in Bordeaux and Caen, France and the masterplan for an eco-city in Logroño, Spain. Larger scale visions for the future of greater Paris, greater Oslo, and the doubling in size of the Dutch new town Almere are also in development.

MVRDV first published a manifesto of its work and ideas in FARMAX (1998), followed by MetaCity/Datatown (1999), Costa Iberica (2000), Regionmaker (2002), 5 Minutes City (2003), KM3 (2005), Spacefighter (2007) and Skycar City (2007), and more recently The Vertical Village (with The Why Factory, 2012) and the firm’s first monograph of built works MVRDV Buildings (2013). MVRDV deals with issues ranging from global sustainability in large scale studies such as Pig City, to small, pragmatic architectural solutions for devastated areas such as New Orleans.

The work of MVRDV is exhibited and published worldwide and has received numerous international awards. One hundred architects, designers and urbanists develop projects in a multi-disciplinary, collaborative design process which involves rigorous technical and creative investigation. MVRDV works with BIM and has official in-house BREEAM and LEED assessors.

Together with Delft University of Technology, MVRDV runs The Why Factory, an independent think tank and research institute providing an agenda for architecture and urbanism by envisioning the city of the future.

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Published on: July 26, 2016
Cite: "The Infinity Kitchen of MVRDV at Venice Biennale 2016" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/infinity-kitchen-mvrdv-venice-biennale-2016> ISSN 1139-6415
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