16 th Venice Biennale - FREESPACE - SWAG - Olufemi HINSON YOVO

FREESPACE 16th Venice Architecture Biennale Olufèmi Hinson Yovo What is free space? Is architecture free space? Is it a place of liberty, social, economic, cultural freedom?

In 2018, it was the question addressed at the16th architecture Biennale. Curated by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, affluent british architects, the theme FREESPACE is said to be ‘‘a generosity of spirit and a sense of humanity at the core of architecture’s agenda, focusing on the quality of space itself.’’ 1 The Venice Biennale is one of the most prestigious cultural institution in the world. Launched in May every two years, the Biennale promotes pioneering avant-garde research and contemporary arts including architecture. The first Art exhibition took place in 1895. Others cultural events followed and the first architectural biennale took place in 1980. It is a platform dedicated to showcase contemporary cutting edge projects and processes. A curator, often a prominent architect and a theme are chosen and given to national participants. Several countries have built a national pavilion over the years. Nowadays, the exhibition is structured around three pillars, the National Pavilions exhibitions, the International Exhibition, led by the Biennale curator, and Collateral Events.

Although there was 2 distinctive pillars ,Close encounter and Practice of teaching, I could regroup the exhibitions under three categories. This is a non exhaustive review of the pavillions. First was the empty pavilions, filled with a single elements. Often they surprise you in their display, putting you at lost about their true purpose. Although those pavilion of emptiness address contemporary matters, the exhibition i call contemporary challenges and educational are more pedagogical. They are every rich, leaving one with an acquired tangible knowledge.

Pavilions of emptiness Those national pavilions, often provided opportunity to emphasizes on a single elements of nature.

They are a voyage of the senses, smell, hearing, touch, smell and finally sight. In the manner of Duchamps’s Fountain, they explores conceptual art and the possibility of introducing everyday life elements into an art gallery. Designed by architect Sverre Fehn, nordic pavilion is a unique sample of modernism and Nordic vernacular. The pavilion was filled with air and water imprisoned in large plastic breathing membrane breathing in manner of amorphous organism. Foggy and animated they stood on the ground, lighted with colorful neons.

Likewise Australian Pavilion aimed to Repair with an installation of grassland brashly lit by white neons.

The attempt in both case is understandable as a desire to reintroduce nature in our antrhopocène epoch, where technology and human needs prevail. Questioning relationship between humans, building ecology, the environment and organism, both pavilion heightens the approach of narrow angle. The debate has been sparked yet too little solutions are given. I personally felt lost.. The medium was are so far removed from the urgencies of my environemnt. Only an a culture who had already delt with urgencies of faultless water sanitation and decent sidewalk could now discuss elements in such a way. Indeed the process of dedicating space to single elements such as grass and air put emphasis on the chosen element but this approach tend to remove it from the intricacies of its environment.

Another Generosity.Picture by Andrea Ferro on Dezeen.24 March 2019.<https://www.dezeen.com/2018/05/25/ nordic-pavilion-venice-architecture-biennale-inflatable/>

1 FREESPACE Manifesto. Yvonne Farrell + Shelley McNamara.23 March 2019.<https://static.labiennale.org/files/architettura/Documenti/brochure-freespace-910.pdf>

Alongside being filled with, grass, mirrors like the Austrian pavilion, the British pavilion was centered on one element. The historic structure was covered with scaffolding leading upstairs to an Island, title of the exhibition. In the midst of the empty pavilion, laid a pile of gathered papers filled with excerpts of seminal texts notably “Be not afread; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not”2. On top of the scaffolding was a new public space, where English tea was served. The pavilion itself is open to the public but empty. It becomes a free space of expression. The two spaces host events, architectural debates poetry performance, film. It is disconcerting at first until we realize this free space is the given opportunity to socialize debate on contemporary challenges and construct the future.

In the same manner, the Belgian Pavilion was an empty place dedicated to debating. Ironically named Eurotopie, a blue agora was an invitation to gather around and discuss political and civic issues. The setting was peculiar: circular blue stalls with strange scaled intersected with the existing building. Visitors attention was easily lead, given the literal title. The simplicity of the display spoke of Europe’s contemporary deficiencies in democratic and citizen initiatives .The intervention is metaphorical yet literal in a sense. It leave one questioning Europe as a political ideal in a time when those interrogations are ever more so present.

To finish Swiss exhibition was a joyful play. They took us in a voyage, back in childhood, to an Alice in Wonderland post modern house. It was housing dissected in its element, in uncanny scales. Small windows, huge staircases one could not undertake, half size doors, and triple scaled door handles. Svizzera 240, echoes with the 2014 German Pavilion. A house within a house, a play of scale, organization and function. But where does the play stop and reality kicks in? What does it bring to the architectural debate to spend budget on a play house?

Practicing in Ivory coast since 2 years now, I am starting to understand the intricacies of architecture. It is about creating space in a given social, cultural, economical system. For me, building are equally about their plasticity as about successful daily use. The empty pavilions, often literally, responded to the theme of FREESPACE, igniting debates but unfortunately took too little action. I am happy to be entertained, but I often long for practical solutions. West Africa is facing so much social and ecological challenges, whom I do not see here addressed.

Contemporary challenges In the central pavillion, where several participants who showed progressive work. As part of the exhibition, BIG U of Bjarke Ingels took the Earth as client and proposed a project to protect Lower Manhattan from floodwater, storms. By providing locally-needed community amenities in the manner of a necklace around flooded area, BIG U offered new public park to add protection. Climate changes are often dismissed in West African politics, but we could benefit from experienced partnership, given challenges are understood on our side.

The French Pavillion, through its exhibition entitled Infinites Places, sought to exhibit renovated building re-purposed to house innovative social experiments. Images and objects covered inclined walls and ceiling. It was an immersive experience designed for one to dissect the layered lives of the buildings. The process aimed to address contemporary challenges of making new places from old buildings. Those places, now consist in space of social freedom at the disposal of citizen appropriation. Buildings included Les Grand Voisins, former hospital Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in the heart of Paris, housing since 2015 homeless, associations, startups, artists .Those temporary uses currently cohabit with ongoing construction for a new mixed use development. It is indeed a progressive process: to demonstrate social action and urban development can sometimes work together. While the french pavilion chose to offer tangible exemple of renovation and uban restructurations, the Czech pavillion offered a new life. Depopulation of historic center is common in Europe. Two towns undergoing this fate are Český Krumlov, in the Czech Republic, and Venice, Italy. Several buildings and flat remain empty. The Unesco, invested the Czech pavillion and offered people a job: To live an ordinary life.

Those intervention of highly relevant topics didn’t relate to me. I live in West Africa, a context where colonial past has rendered our relationship to heritage complicated. Often people hurry in building on historic demolished sites. The exhibition brought attention to historic heritage preservation, but on the contrary it sparkled in me question of its prime definition, its relevance and safe keeping. For monument and renovation is a practice of the West. But what is it for us in Africa and what do we decide it to be?

When entering the Egyptian pavilion, one is welcomed in darkness lit by hanging objets. Those are everyday life object, pots, casseroles, bassinets, horns, trumpets shining in the dark .They drawn one’s attention onto the busy street life which is later depicted on the walls filled with black and white large drawing. Daily experiences of informal life were explained in it most simple trivialities. Inviting poufs called in visitors, facing a screening.

Indeed, the souk is no longer confined in historic areas. It nowadays spread into the urban fabric. Often dismissed by governance those informal markets are strategic spaces. For the first time, a topic close to heart was discussed. This theme resonates with narrative of west Africans cities. Large portions of business remain in the realm of informality. Cotonou, Lomé, Abidjan, Accra are dominated by streets vendors pushing trivialities to customers.

2 William Shakespeare, The Tempest (3.2) in la biennale.Great Britain Pavilion.18 March 2019.< https://www. labiennale.org/en/architecture/2018/national-participations/great-britain>

The display was highly informative. The subjet is so vast and important I could imagine a biennial in Africa, Dakar for example solely discussing informality, like freespace was here being discussed.

Educational Exhibitions Spain pavilion, alongside Philippine,Slovenia, Japan, were the most informative. Bright neons letters ascribing the word Becoming allured visitors in. Once inside, a large perspective opened with high walls plastered with iconography, and informations about spanish current architecture discourses. The exhibition was enriched with students’ work, through a national open call. It was colourful, chaotic, refreshing and aggressively filled with informations purposely left to the visitor to dissect.

Like the British or Belgian pavilion, Turkey also offered a full program of public events. Vardiya (shift) was an open space for roundatble discussions. The official text quotes ‘‘The organization of the program puts students of architecture into front line by an international open call. Among five hundred applicants responding to the questions “Why does La Biennale exist? What does La Biennale do? For whom does La Biennale exist?”3. I wonder if the biennial exist for me? How many of African students and architects have the opportunity to visit and learn from such a stimulating environment? Giving free hand to becoming architects is necessary and student work should be exhibited. All those pavilion had bet on their students work like I once in 2014, when I came with my french school Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture de Paris. We exhibited large drawings in the Arsenale on the theme Extrapolation Metropolitane with tutor Reza Azard.

In the same manner Finland’s representation at the biennial was on education. It was a study of Finnish public learning environments. It transformed the Alvar Aalto Pavilion into a temporary library space. Several libraries were exhibited and studied in their architectural and historic context. Reversely, for a West African eye to witness such an exhibition on libraries, remind one of the benefit of public learning space, so long disdained on our continent. Libraries are indeed places of intellectual, social, economic and cultural freedom and can only benefit to a country development. It left me with a bitter feeling, on our limited architecture education, and limited libraries .

Tangible case studies were also explored. Participant architects displayed their work and research. The Peter Zhumtor exhibition in the central pavillion engaged in an exploration of genius loci, so long diffused in his architectural language. For the first time the prominent architect display the entire body of work to visitors.

It offered large scale models on a raised platform limited to only 20 visitor at the time. It consisted in several buildings such as Les thermes de Vals. One could truly contemplate large models in various natural settings, comprehend his paramount approach to integrating fundamental location based features into his quintessential work.

Andra Martin, Elevation in the Arsenale, decided to take us on journey in vernacular Indonesian architecture. A woven screen invited the visitor in a tour of traditional buildings. Throughout the archipelago, traditional constructions have been researched and accepted as contemporary way to respond to local constraints of climate, social norms and available materials. His research of local architecture emphasizes the relationship with traditions and a tropical climate, demonstrating human inventive skills in this age of modernity. Lessons have to be learned from his process. West African vernacular architecture has often been reduced to mud and earth. On this side of the continent, we failed, architect and users to understand the relationship of fundamental elements. Culture, history, tradition, politics, materials and building techniques are all intertwined in the act of erecting a building. We should search of ways to value and merge tradition and modern systems.

Simultaneously, Francis Kéré is a great example of utilizing local building techniques into modern form of architecture. His process achieve a synthesis of traditional craft and local needs. He has extensively build community based facilities in rural settings of Burkina Faso. He has achieved a perfect merger of local features and temporary systems. In his exhibition at the Arsenal he chose to offer a refugee center for asylum seekers. The adaptable structure is set in the former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin and then transported to Venice. Those small box made in wood are modular units aimed at enclosing space or opening outward for social interaction.

Finally, there was notable examples of architecture finding solutions of merging tradition and modernity and social constructs: Case Design’s Avasara Academy in India, Tezuka architects and the circular Fuji kindergarten, RMA Architecture, Alejandro Aravena’s revolutionary half houses, and finally Vo Trong Nghia Bamboo Stalactite on the shores of the Arsenale, echoing Kunlé Adeyemi’s Makoko School in 2016 on the Venice Canale.

3 La biennale: Turkey Pavilion Description. 23 March 2019<https://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/2018/national-participations/turkey>

Looking back now, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, one is very keen to be entertained when attending such international events. It is an incredible occasion to discover avant-garde architecture, mingle with like minded people and hang out in Venice. On the other hand, the biennial should feed us with remarkable solutions for the built environment. There is too little of Africa in the biennial, almost no national pavilions, other than those of the Magrheb. This reflect the lack of numerous prominent architect based in Africa, let alone the quality of architecture teaching in West Africa. Koffi et Diabaté architect should have already bult Ivory Coast pavillion.

Most importantly it reflect our lack of ability to first construct a great educational system and secondly to structure into solids institutions or biennals. There should be one in Dakar soon.

I came to Venice, with my school in 2014. We attended Rem Koolhas, Fundamentals Its was a comprehensive exhibition of architecture elements. It left me with a sense of hope I came with to this 2018 biennial, Freespace. Aravena’s 2016 Reporting from the front was about widening issues addressed in architecture and gathering pioneering solutions to be shared with a broader audience. It seem to have been very inclusive but I couldn’t attend. Five years later, I am now a practicing architect at Koffi et Diabaté Architects. I look at architecture differently, understanding social and economical challenges. Showing glittering displays are beautiful but adequate solutions are needed for our cities. On concluding i can only retain this: in Africa, we are fighting incledible battles, most of them been already faught in other parts of the world. It is for us to be inventive in learning from others while crafting our own solutions.With my naive eyes of then, I traveled from Ivory Coast to Venice, looking for answers on architecture in Europe, when they lie in the environment I live in, West Africa.

Andra Martin. Elevation.22 March 2019 .<https://www.dezeen.com/2018/06/08/venice-architecture-biennale-freespace-exhibition-installations-roundup/>