Rem Koolhaas: "reconstruct its current situation, and speculate on the future"

Rem Koolhaas has released more details of the Venice Architecture Biennale he is curating this year and revealed his aim to disconnect the exhibition from the current state of architecture, which he says "is not in good health".

Koolhaas said his intention as director of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale is for the exhibition, to "sever all connections with contemporary architecture which, in spite of many impressive manifestations, is not in good health" and to focus instead on the progression of global architecture over the last 100 years.

Fundamentals, will examine the essential elements of architecture and chart the emergence of a global architectural style. This theme  will be exhibiting in the historic pavilions of the  65 National Participations at  the Giardini, the Arsenale, and the city of Venice.

"After several architecture biennales dedicated to the celebration of the contemporary, Fundamentals will look at histories, try to reconstruct how architecture finds itself in its current situation, and speculate on the future," said Koolhaas.

“With Rem Koolhaas, our aim is to create an exceptional, research-centred Architecture Biennale, Paolo Baratta states. It will be significantly innovative as Rem has conceived a project that involves the entire Biennale, which fully exploits its potential.

Rem Koolhaas states:

“Fundamentals consists of three interlocking exhibitions – Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014, Elements of Architecture and Monditalia – that together illuminate the past, present and future of our discipline. After several architecture Biennales dedicated to the celebration of the contemporary, Fundamentals will look at histories, attempt to reconstruct how architecture finds itself in its current situation, and speculate on its future.

“Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014 is an invitation to the national pavilions to show, each in their own way, the process of the erasure of national characteristics in architecture in favor of the almost universal adoption of a single modern language and a single repertoire of typologies – a more complex process than we typically recognize, involving significant encounters between cultures, technical inventions, and hidden ways of remaining “national”.

“Elements of Architecture, in the Central Pavilion, will pay close attention to the fundamentals of our buildings, used by any architect, anywhere, anytime: the floor, the wall, the ceiling, the roof, the door, the window, the façade, the balcony, the corridor, the fireplace, the toilet, the stair, the escalator, the elevator, the ramp…

“Monditalia dedicates the Arsenale to a single theme – Italy – with exhibitions, events, and theatrical productions engaging architecture, politics, economics, religion, technology, industry. The other festivals of la Biennale di Venezia – film, dance, theatre, and music – will be mobilized to contribute to a comprehensive portrait of the host country.

The exhibition will move away from "presenting objects and presenting architects", and will instead show the original research carried out over the last year. He also claims it will express the life and humour of architecture.

"What we hope to do with this biennale is to lift the pressure of constant seriousness of the profession of architecture," he said. "I think architecture is written about as if it is a dead serious discipline, but I think there is life in architecture."

The inauguration and awards ceremony of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition will be held on Saturday, June 7, at the Giardini, with the conferral of the official awards assigned by the international Jury.