Closing thoughts: from Venice to London to..
As the Venice Takeaway exhibition draws to an end, we look at the responses and changes it has taken during its lifespan from the British Pavilion in Venice to London’s RIBA on Portland Place, and where we can expect to find the fruition of the ideas exhibited after this exhibition’s lifespan.
Few people have the chance - or desire for that matter - to see a travelling exhibition twice in its different environs. However, given the development of ideas which Venice Takeaway: Ideas to Change British Architecture is based and the shift in the exhibition's time and place, it has necessarily and interestingly required new material, a fresh curation and a general re-thinking since its initial opening in Venice last autumn. An obvious aspect of any architecture exhibition is how best to represent a non-present building within another building. Regarding a touring architecture exhibition, then, it is interesting to note its change in location and therefore in its own space, light, and the preconceived ideas and expectations of its visitors.
Venice Takeaway represents the travels and collated ideas of 10 individual British architectural groups who sought out inspiration from different areas of the world in hopes of bringing something back to the UK to re-invigorate our architectural practices, and also with the hopes of being able to see the architectural problems we face today from a fresh perspective.
Whilst on showcase in Venice, walking into a national pavilion in the Giardini one cannot blame visitors to be looking for the traditional parading and branding of what that particular nation’s architecture was, is or hopes to be. Embracing the Biennale’s theme of “common ground”, in 2012 the curators of the British pavilion courageously flipped this historical showcase dynamic to instead look outward to the rest of the world to find a true international common ground. Few pavilions take the somewhat general, open-ended themes of the biennale seriously, which in turn inevitably calls for general themes to be selected each year. The layers of a common ground are manifold, and one could say the British pavilion found a definition that the biennale itself seeks to find – an international dialogue of architectural or artistic ideas. But another reversal is evident. Being an exhibition on ideas and therefore a display of the often unseen initial research of the architectural process itself, the material in the exhibition is vast, varied (from travel journals, filmed interviews and skype sessions, prototypes and artworks including a traditionally made Chinese scroll depicting a possible British village), but most relevant for us here the ideas included into the exhibition are subject to change during its lifespan.
In Venice, the very space of the pavilion held its challenges. Where a research emporium filled the entrance and the subsequent exhibition filled the side and back rooms, the visitor's attention span and memory was stretched to connect information ingested from this initial text-based space to the following rooms which held the represented material, such as prototypes for a potential British Exploratory Land Archive. On an intellectual scale visitors imaginations were also slightly stretched to take ideas of architecture from 10 different countries in the world and convert them to how best to understand and enjoy British architecture, without perhaps a previous understanding of what ‘British architecture’ is or what challenges it faces in order to change.
Now on show at the Royal Institute of British Architecture in London, at the heart of the UK where these ideas have the intention to be implemented, the exhibition picks up a new meaning. What is considerable is the change in point of view of the visitor, who necessarily already holds some knowledge of British architecture and a real lived-in sense of how we relate to spaces and buildings here, and how these have changed in history. One only needs to walk down Portland Place for such an education. The street is lined with historically important facades representing the height of English heritage (for example the grandiose Victorian Langham Hotel). Many of these buildings have now undergone a cultural shift, if not externally then in terms of utility, by housing the embassies and representative offices of many different nations around the world; directly opposite the RIBA lies the Chinese embassy, a renowned site of contestation and protests. Within RIBA then - a self-titled British institution building amongst these foreign offices - it is comforting to discover an exhibition based on a ‘looking outward’ to various nations for inspiration to change our own architectural landscape, culturally but also in other disciplines which cross over with architecture (in mind is the political case of Daryl Chen’s New Socialist Working Village). Even historically the exhibition seems to fit rather suitably - designed by George Grey Wornum, RIBA was built to be a building for British architects by the best of British architects, the plans having won a competition from hundreds of entries. However what few people may not know is that Wornum’s inspiration for the design of the building came from his own travels to Sweden and the photographs and drawings which he made there and brought back to Britain and into his own work.
Ideas being living things, the exhibition at RIBA has necessarily grown to show how these ideas have shifted, developed and come to fruition since last fall. To effectively show this, a timeline has been displayed for each project that maps out these developments from initial idea, to travel expeditions, to presentation at the biennale, to future events and plans for further developments. Ascending to the second level, Gallery 2 extends also ideologically from the original ideas presented in Venice (in the lower Gallery 1) and documents events which occurred between the two exhibitions, and what was learnt from these sessions in these short few months. Aleksander Brodsky’s and Ilya Utkin’s original A Glass Tower is a particular special addition which did not feature at the Venice exhibit, as are the floor-to-ceiling photographic panels which give the light filled gallery space of the RIBA a colourful and enticing entrance and an extension of a sense of scale and actual place.
Not only does Venice Takeaway’s focus and documentation on the methodology and research of an architect’s work allow for a certain freedom in material selection, but it also begs for discussion and debate. In the last few months, weekly talks and events held at the RIBA and the AA have not only drawn British architects to engage with the exhibitions contents but also with many of the international personalities who were visited by the 10 groups, to give their first-hand knowledge of the projects and to provide insights to their experiences and how they were/are similar/dissimilar to Britain. At the Paper Salon for example, Yuri Avvakumov gave an overview of the restrictions he felt as a young architect and what inspired him to begin the Paper Architects in Soviet Russia during the 1980's. Other talks have included architects such as Jan Kleihues, an Internationale Bauaustellung expert from Berlin, Washington Fajardo from the Rio City Secretary of Heritage, Architecture and Design who spoke about the compatibility of architecture with Oscar Niemeyer’s standardised school design, and Sebastian Adamo from Buenos Aires who focused on Argentina’s response to financial crisis in 2001 and the protective legal trust system which was put in place for architects, investors, lawyers and accountants. That said, conversations have not been limited to planned events, and with the increased space and relaxed open plan and café atmosphere of RIBA it has been really enjoyable to be able to personally welcome people into the space and discuss the exhibited ideas with visitors - a nice change from the flurry and excitement of the Giardini and thousands of people pouring into the Pavilion daily.
As the exhibition Venice Takeaway closes today, we nevertheless look forward to the future developments of its ideas and watching them blossom. Given recent events in Britain, these seem to be inevitable. Mark Hackett and Declan Hill will open an exhibition in Belfast in a matter of weeks to showcase how they plan to take Berlin’s IBA building competition idea to tackle the similar problem of empty and vacant sites within the city through meaningful spatial planning. Their exhibition also marks the 400th anniversary of Belfast receiving its town charter. There have been talks of continuing the Paper+ Salon events into the future – maybe even a summer school - based on the success rate of the previous one, as it inspired young architects and artists to think outside the box and regulations (and perhaps most importantly design programmes) to incorporate a fresh creativity into their work (see http://blog.britishcouncil.org/2013/04/22/paper-architecture/ or previous blog entry by Isabel Moseley on this site). And DRMM’s study of a floating community close to Amsterdam becomes more of a reality with London’s Royal Albert Docks currently being targeted for redevelopment in the news, with mayor Boris Johnson initiating an international competition for developers to design a 15-acre floating community there (see http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/boris-seeks-backers-for-stilt-city-riviera-in-the-miserable-lagoon-of-londons-royal-docks/8644077.article ). On a more somber note, Oscar Niemeyer’s passing in December last year turned Aberrant Architecture’s investigation into his standardized school implementation throughout Rio de Janeiro’s suburbs not only as a model for UK’s current re-evaluation of school building, (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/mar/15/flatpack-flexible-oscar-niemeyer-schools) but also as UK’s homage to one of the great architects of our time.
The effect of an exhibition based on research rather than the traditional architectural models and drawn designs is meaningful. Here, not only is the cultural significance of a building analysed within its own cultural context and compared with Britain, but the exhibition also opens a dialogue and demonstrates the processes of architectural research and design, as well as the building, as a cultural act. The future actions of these ideas will undoubtedly continue to unfold into architectural practices and future discussions and planning, despite the original seed of these ideas no longer being on display in an exhibition space.
On behalf of all the Venice Takeaway stewards, thank you for following the travels of our architects, the exhibition and also us. See you in Venice in 2015!
Lauren Buckley