The British Pavilion at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, commissioned by Vicky Richardson, Director of Architecture, Design, Fashion at the British Council and opens to the public on Sunday 29 August 2010.
The Pavilion is ironically named Villa Frankenstein, making direct reference to the ideas of the British Victorian social critic and historian of Venetian architecture John Ruskin. It has been conceived by architects muf as a stage for an exchange of ideas between Venice and the UK. The centrepiece of the Pavilion, represented as a ‘Stadium of Close Looking’, will be a 1/10 scale model of a section of the Olympic Stadium for London 2012, reinterpreted by muf with Atelier One engineers, and built by Venetian carpenters Spazio Legno. This hybrid structure will act as a platform for drawing, discussion and scientific enquiry. Following its use at the Pavilion, it will be reconstructed on another site in Venice as a lasting legacy of the project.
The ‘Made in Venice’ theme is continued through a series of separate installations in the Pavilion including a 15 square metre ecologically functioning slice of salt marsh showing a close-up view of the native floral and fauna of the Venice Lagoon. Other exhibits include a new project by Wolfgang Scheppe drawing on both Ruskin’s original notebooks and a series of historical photographs of Venice taken by local residents, Alvio and Gabriella Gavagnin. Seven of Ruskin’s Venetian Notebooks (1849-50) are being lent by the Ruskin Foundation from the Ruskin Library at Lancaster University, and there will be inter-active electronic access to his research in Venice.
Debates, workshops, drawing classes and scientific discussions will take place during the three months of the Biennale, which will lead to a catalogue, edited by Adrian Dannatt, to be published in three chapters across the period of the Biennale, acting as a further creative platform to inform thinking for London as it moves towards 2012.
British Council Blog: LINK
Venice Biennale: LINK
