Venesia

I spent this October 1st at the architectural biennale in Venice (or Venesia, as the place is called in venetian). The trip was loads of fun, we went with some friends, made a day of it, went on a boat (hell yeah!), and saw a bunch of stuff.. These biennales (biennali?) seem to be getting softer every year (or every other year, rather). They used to be a full-day test of endurance & stamina, as there was waaaay more stuff to do than could possibly be done in a single day. And yet, they seem to be getting more comfortable every time? Last time we briskly skimmed over everything, after attending Piran days the day before. And yet survived to tell the tale without even so much as a blister...

The team.. a bit of sitting down sure feels good after a full day of Architecture.
Actually there were 6 of us there that day, but that's another story...

This year we even managed to explore some never-before-seen pavillions (and, to be honest it doesn't look like I've been missing too much up to now...), and the Cypriot exhibition next door was nothing if not fun. After that we even managed to take a stroll through some of the less-visited islands in the lagoon. We found a couple of dead-ends we weren't looking for, and what we were actually looking for remains to be found. But we even managed to squeeze in an majestic afternoon pint with a delicious view (or was it the other way around?).

The Belgian carpet and Ito's Taichung opera house

As for the exhibitions themselves... The lack of exhaustion doesn't correlate to the lack of inspiration. For one, the Belgian (I think?) exhibition was downright hilarious. They touched up on a subject that has been passively entertaining me for some time now - actual lives of architectural elements. By taking used carpets, wall panels and such and displaying them in their soiled true form. Along with the grime, footsteps, sweat and all the rest that accumulates in architectures. But somehow makes it nicer than the swankiest rendering. Like a good, worn-in Chesterfield in the corner of a dimly-lit bar can't really ever be replaced by a plasticky shell (okay, to be honest, if they made ones that actually fit taller people properly, the choice wouldn't be quite as easy).

On the other hand, projections of future carpets were quite nicely summed up with Ito's opera house. It will probably hopefully become an excellent (not to forget mammoth) proof-of-concept. Although the magic of generated / naturesque(!) geometries is surely lost at this scale, the architectural endeavour is not not-praiseworthy. Keywords such as self-supporting, permeating, featherlight, optimized, etc... just don't work at this scale. Very much like a wing just won't carry a plane once it hits a certain size. Despite looking like a sponge from a fictional helicopter three football fields away, it really is just another building. At it will be having soiled carpets at some point. (But they will have been soiled by glossy shoes! :) )

 Scandinavia's best and an architectural oasis

Going back to basics, I'm blown away by the Scandinavian pavilion every single time. The volume, the light, the proportions... the ceiling.. the ludicrous windows.. the not-irrelevant-but-still-fun (this time with free beer, apparently!) exhibitions.. the tree... And, at another part of the whole affair, a slice of pure architecture. A constructed oasis, of course.. Not without predecessors, the oasis could be read in one of many ways. Of course, such architecture is not without political and sociological implications, but who wouldn't want an exodus and become a voluntary prisoner therein? ;-)


However alongside the architectural bewilderment, there was an experiment underway. Having been recently tainted with film making, I've decided to switch my camera settings to 30 fps rather than the usual 0.01, and look around for nice stuff. I still find the ratio of time spent compared to final product length fascinating. In the past I've spent weeks trying to get a single rendering together, but that somehow made sense.. But tying frames, time, synchronisation, colours, motion, a story and random events together is just something else...
But you only get better by trying, so here it is...

Venesia

 

:)