The 15th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale has officially opened the doors to the public on May 28. More than 500 participants have attended the first Meeting on Architecture, entitled "Infrastructure". Joan Clos, Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, Andrew Makin, Grupo EPM are just few of the invited lecturers at the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale. These meetings are part of the rich program of events on the main themes of the exhibition, present during the entire period (28 May-27 November), which is going to include the participation of the architects, that are the stars of “Reporting From The Front” curated by the Pritzker Prize 2016, Alejandro Aravena.
The next meeting, entitled “Periferie” (Suburbs), will be held on 11 June and will give space to the architectural visions of Mexico Project, BeL Sozietät für Architektur, Assemble and Al Borde.
Moreover, the official awards of the International Jury have been bestowed. This jury includes Hashim Sarkis (Chief Judge, Lebanon, USA), Pippo Ciorra (Italy), Sergio Fajardo (Colombia), Marisa Moreira Salles (Brazil), Karen Stein (USA).
The winner of the Golden Lion for Best National Participation is Spain: Unfinished, developed by Carnicero + Quintans, for its careful selection of emerging architects whose work demonstrates how commitment and creativity can overcome material and contextual limitations.
There are also other two special mentions bestowed to National Participations. The first recognized to Japan, with En: art of nexus, curated by Yoshiyuki Yamana, for the conversion of density into a poetic occasion producing social bonds and alternative models of collective life.
The second honorable mention has been given to the Pavilion of Peru, Our Amazon Frontline, developed by Sandra Barclay and Jean Pierre Crousse, for bringing architecture in a remote corner of the world, making it a place for education and a means of protecting the Amazonian culture.
Besides the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement bestowed to the architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, there are the Golden Lion for the best participant - bestowed to Gabinete de Arquitectura (Solano Benítez, Gloria Cabral - Paraguay) for putting together raw materials, structural simplicity and non-qualified work, to bring the quality of architecture in communities that were excluded - and the Silver Lion given to a promising young participant NLE (Kunlé Adeyemi- Netherlands), for having powerfully proved that architecture, iconic and pragmatic at the same time, is a way to amplify the significance of education, in Lagos as well as in Venice.
Finally, special mention to the participant of 15th REPORTING FROM THE FRONT exhibition was assigned to Maria Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo (Italy), for the determination in using the discipline entirety to turn the usual into architectural projects that can go beyond their time.
* * *
Here below you can find the board collecting the photos taken by MaterialiCasa.com for its readers, published live on its own social networks during the press preview of the 27th of May.
