14th International Architecture Exhibition

Venice 2014

Rem Koolhaas
Proposal: May 2013

Fundamentals

Central Pavilion
Elements of Architecture

National Pavilions
1914–2014
Absorbing Modernity

Arsenale
Monditalia
 Fundamentals

Architecture, not architects...

An umbrella theme for the national pavilions: from national

to universal...

The Arsenale as performance space...

x x
A new kind of Venice Architecture Biennale...

The 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale – called Fundamentals – will

consist of three main components:

Elements of Architecture – a research-based exhibition in the Central

Pavilion exploring the often overlooked but universally familiar elements
of architecture: the floor, the door, the wall, the ceiling, the toilet...

Absorbing Modernity – the national pavilions of the Giardini and

elsewhere will share a single theme: stories of their national architectural
from 1914 till 2014. To enhance the coherence between the national
presentations, for the first time, there is an invitation to the pavilions to
communicate with the director about the theme.

Monditalia – providing the staging in the Arsenale for the first

collaboration between the Architecture and Dance, Theatre, Music
Biennials and the Film Festival.

Together, these exhibitions and events perform an “audit” of architecture,

asking: What do we have? How did we get here? What are our
possibilities, and where do we go from here?

Rem Koolhaas
May 2014
Central Pavilion
Elements of Architecture

Elements of Architecture: What buildings are (still) made of

Exhibition of work in progress by Harvard GSD students, Rotterdam,
November 2012.
 Central Pavilion Elements of Architecture
A window is not a window is not a window any more.
– after Gertrude Stein

From the Renaissance onwards, the discourse on architecture was

largely based on the definition and analysis of architectural
elements. Alberti’s six elements (locality, area, compartition, wall,
roof, and opening; 1452), Gottfried Semper’s four elements (hearth,
roof, enclosure, mound; 1851) and Le Corbusier’s Five Points of
FLOOR
Architecture (pilotis, free facade, open plan, long window, roof gar-
EILING
CEILING
den; 1928) were all, in varying degrees, efforts to analyse the his-
tory of buildings. But since the globalization of modern architecture
in the second half of the 20th century, the possibility of an elemental
ESCALATOR/
SCALAT
C INTERIOR/
INTER
ELEVATOR
LE
LEVATO PARTITION
ENVELOPE
OPE
OP
P (FA
(FAÇADE)
(FAÇ systematization of architecture has been largely ignored.
WALL

BALCONY
ALCONY “Elements of Architecture” in the Central Pavilion will be an attempt
75m DOOR
OOR
OO
O

RAMP
A to trace the history of architecture’s universally recognizable –
ROOF though infinitely varied – basic elements. Each room will be devoted
INTRODUCTION
NTROD N

LIGHT to an individual component (stair, door, window, floor, corridor etc.).

STAIR
STA BATH (TOILET)
H ((TOIL
IL
L

HEARTH Elements that used to be the speciality of architects – the ceiling

(CHIMNEY/HEATING)
(CHIM
CHI
CHI EY/HEA
EY/HE
EY/H
HEEA
A 4
CORRIDOR
OR
ORRID
and the window, but also even the façade – have become devices
HISTORY
STORY
ST
TOR
TO
OR
WINDOW
and ceded to more advanced technological domains. But despite
LOBBY
LOB
the attempts of parametric architecture to merge formerly distinct
categories like roof, wall, and window into a continuous architectur-
al surface, the fundamental elements of architecture endure, albeit
in sometimes radically different forms…

68m
By looking at the evolution of architectural elements that are com-
mon to all cultures, fundamentals will avoid the Eurocentrism that
20m
still characterises architectural discourse.
Central Pavilion Elements of Architecture
Test for exhibtion-as-hanging-book,
Rotterdam December, 2012

Elements of Architecture: What

buildings are (still) made of
Research by Harvard GSD students,
Rotterdam, November 2012.
 Central Pavilion Elements of Architecture
The door in treatises: revealing the signifi-
cance and architectural variations of the door
across eras and regions...

CHINA INDIA ITALY UNITED STATES

1105 AD 12th CENTURY 1551 2008

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CORNICE
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Chinese treatise
1000 A.D.
Depicted by Yao Chenzu following the Western practice of architec-
tural treatises or building guides, written in 1929, published in 1959
:HVW,QGLDQWH[WRQHRIWKH9ùVWXyùVWUDV Italy
LATE 12th - EARLY 13th CENTURY
Based on Sanskrit descriptions, the Uttunga torana as depicted
in The Torana In Indian And Southeast Asian Architecture by
Parul Pandya Dhar, 2010
Sebastiano Serlio, 1551
“The desire came into my mind to form in a visible design several
gateways in the Rustic styles, but which were mixed with different
Orders, that is, Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite...
And I advanced so far as to make a total of XXX, almost carried
away by an architectural frenzy...for the common benefit not only of
this fine Kingdom of France...but also for the benefit of all inhabited
countries...”
From Door: Stretched Threshold, by Beth Eckels in Elements of Architecture,
Harvard GSD Rotterdam Studio 2012.
United States
Francis D. K. Ching, 2008
“Doors and doorways provide access from the outside into the interior
of a building as well as passage between interior spaces. Doorways
should therefore be large enough to move through easily and accom-
modate the moving of furnishings and equipment. They should be
located so that the patterns of movement they create between and
within spaces are appropriate to the uses and activities housed by the
spaces... From an exterior point of view, doors and windows are im-
portant compositional elements in the design of building facades. The
manner in which they punctuate or divide exterior wall surfaces affects
the massing, visual weight, scale, and articulation of the building form.”
Central Pavilion Elements of Architecture

NL MAX. SLOPE BEFORE

RAILING IS REQUIRED

Staircase in Oscar Niemeyer’s Itamaray Palace, Brasilia, 1970... ...updated to current standards
NL MAX. HEIGHT
BETWEEN LANDINGS:
4 M (13’-0 1/8”)

USA MAX. HEIGHT

BETWEEN LANDINGS:
3.66 M (12’-0”)

IRELAND UK NETHERLANDS PERU USA CHINA METERS

From Stair: Dangerous and Endangered, by Jenny Hong

International staircase guidelines. in Elements of Architecture, Harvard GSD Rotterdam
Studio 2012.
National Pavilions
“Absorbing Modernity” is an attempt to mobilize the individual
1914–2014: Absorbing Modernity histories of the nations represented at the biennale to create an
1984 overview of how, since 1914, the national characteristics of each
1932
country’s architecture have seemingly evolved into a single, global
1932
aesthetic.

1964
1932 Under the influence of wars, diverse political systems, different
states of development, national and international architectural
2000 1932
movements, various educational philosophies, individual
1953 1956 1952 architectural talents, networks, and technological developments,
1958 1934 architectures that 100 years ago were identifiably “French” or
1930 1988
1997 “Indian” or “Chinese” have become seemingly interchangeable.
1926 National identity has been sacrificed to modernity.
1912
1952 1960 1962 2010

1909 Each nation will, in its own way, illustrate how their country’s
1952 1954
1922 1956 architecture absorbed modernity over the last 100 years. Is it
1958
1995 1939
still meaningful to talk about a Belgian architecture, a Swiss
architecture, a Brazilian architecture...? The architecture of the
pavilions themselves could play a crucial role in each exhibition.

2003 2009

2012

Construction / last modification of national pavilions

NATIONAL PAVILIONS - 1914

GERMANY CHINA SWITZERLAND ITALY

FRANCE NETHERLANDS MIDDLE EAST RUSSIA

INDONESIA JAPAN NIGERIA UNITED KINGDOM

NATIONAL PAVILIONS - 2014

What happened in between?

What remains of national styles today?

GERMANY CHINA SWITZERLAND ITALY

FRANCE NETHERLANDS MIDDLE EAST RUSSIA

INDONESIA JAPAN NIGERIA UNITED KINGDOM

Arsenale
Because the length of the Arsenale typically creates a sequence
Monditalia of individual episodes that typically do not connect to form a single
narrative, we propose to dedicate it to a single theme – the state of
Italy – and to mobilize fields not typically present in the architectural
biennale to represent all aspects of Europe’s most crucial country in
a form that comes close to entertainment, a Brechtian revue that will
take place in a single Italy “set,” based on the Cinecitta tradition of
theatrical transformation.

Map of Italian Peninsula from the Tabula Peutingeriana

(5th Century) superimposed on the Arsenale (1106-)...

e vidila mirabilmente oscura. ...I beheld it marvellously dark.

Quale ne l’arzanà de’ Viniziani As in the Arsenal of the Venetians

bolle l’inverno la tenace pece Boils in the winter the tenacious pitch
a rimpalmare i legni lor non sani, To smear their unsound vessels o’er again,

ché navicar non ponnoóin quella vece10 For sail they cannot; and instead thereof
chi fa suo legno novo e chi ristoppa One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks
le coste a quel che più vïaggi fece; The ribs of that which many a voyage has made;

chi ribatte da proda e chi da poppa; One hammers at the prow, one at the stern,
altri fa remi e altri volge sarte; This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists,
chi terzeruolo e artimon rintoppaó Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen

Dante, The Inferno, Canto xxi

 The Trauma of Italy, or Exodus Reversed
Arsenale Mondlitalia
Arsenale Mondlitalia
 Spoglitalia
Arsenale Mondlitalia
Inspirations for a theatrical colonization
of the Arsenale...

Alighiero Boetti - Cartoline Astratte

1987, MADGRE

Wunderkammer Forte, Ricci/Forte Sergio Scena, Romeo Castelucci

Set design by Dante Ferretti

On the Concept of the Face, Regarding the Son of God, Romeo Castelucci

Vitta Mia, Emma Dante

Lagos Business Angels, Rimini Prtokoll

Set design, Dante Ferretti Roberto Saviano The Divine Comedy, Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio

Il Divo, Paolo Sorentino

Cinecitta

Marco Paolini Parsifal, Romeo Castelucci

Zhan Wang, Urban Landscapes, The Consequences of Love, Paolo Sorentino Cinecitta, Rome Dante Ferretti and Pasolini
Biennale as urban site

It would be interesting to look at further

development potential for the two bien-
nale sites...
?