Venice Biennale – Projecting the City

Invited by the 10th Venice Architecture Biennale, Cities, Architecture and Society, curated by Richard Burdett, the Berlage Institute showcases its distinctive approach to contemporary architecture through an exhibit in the Italian Pavilion of the Giardini from 10 September to 17 November.

Visitors assume a privileged view of four research studios focused on actual conditions and their unconventional strategies toward urbanization close and far from home. An evocative video installation showcases the studio professors’ various expertises and opens the Berlage’s ongoing debate and discussion to a wider public, in line with the nature of the Institute’s freely available lectures, presentations and gallery exhibitions. In addition, seven poster-books of the research reports have been printed especially for the exhibition, along with an oversized Biennale hunch magazine including the Berlage Menu for Research, manifestos on the city and the prospectus.

The impetus of the exhibit is the Berlage Institute’s project on the city; not merely a project of research, but an attempt to project the city. The desire to go beyond the attitude of “just mapping” our existing urbanity in order to seek its reinvention drives this endeavor. The exhibition Beyond Mapping: Projecting the City illustrates this pro-active tactic through the presentation of four, of many, architectural expertises: Associativity, Representation, Scripting and Negotiation. Via this specific architectural knowledge, and the inherent ideology contained within each expertise, alternative projects re-envision six paradigmatic urban conditions: Madrid, Moscow, Tirana, Brussels, Ljubljana and unknown urbanity in China.

Location: Venice Biennale
Curation: Jennifer Sigler, Roemer van Toorn
Exhibition Team: Berlage Institute, SMAK Projects, Zuis, NL Ontwerp
Project (one of four): Light Capital: Urban Scripts for Ljubljana
Tutors: Markus Schaefer (Hosoya Schaefer Architects), Marijn Spoelstra (Mountainworks)
Team: Tina Jelenc, Jung Bin Kim, Ryuuta Oohori, Yoko Sano, Changho Yeo