FOR THE 13th International Architecture Exhibition Biennale di Venezia that will be held in Venice between August 29 and November 25, an expert jury chose a project entitled ‘Asking Architecture’ to be the joint Slovak-Czech pavilion, one of 29 pavilions from countries around the world. This design, selected from among 30 competing projects, is the work of a group led by Slovak architect Ján Pernecký.
The Asking Architecture exhibition will be developed in cooperation with the Slovak National Gallery with assistance from the culture ministries of Slovakia and the Czech Republic as well as more than 20 smaller organisations and individual architects.
A press release announcing the selection noted that more and more kinds of people are interacting with architecture and not all of them are professional architects.
The website of Asking Architecture states that the pavilion in Venice has the ambition to engage in bi-directional communication with a worldwide public and by using cutting-edge technologies will present dozens of parallel virtual exhibitions.
“The virtual exposition will consist of original projects by nearly 20 Slovak and Czech architects, artists and groups that have been treating architecture and urbanism in a critical way,” states the website. The pavilion will seek to get visitors to interact and react to the exhibition and be a catalyst for a dialogue between visitors and the current world of architecture.
Biennale di Venezia has been held every other year since 1895 and is one of the most prestigious events of its type in the world, promoting new artistic trends and organising contemporary art events. The main curator of this year’s Biennale di Venezia is British architect David Chipperfield, who entitled this year’s exhibition Common Ground – focusing “on what people have in common and reasserting the existence of an architectural culture made up of not just singular talents but a rich continuity of diverse ideas united in a common history, common ambitions, common predicaments and common ideals”, according to the website. More information can be found at www.askingarchitecture.org.
