Marina Miceli
Europe Press Office,London
Our teams worldwide have provided multidisciplinary input to a number of pavilions at the recently-opened 15th International Architecture Exhibition “Reporting from the front”, curated by Alejandro Aravena.
This year’s exhibition includes Stefano Recalcati’s participation as the curator of “Reporting from Marghera and Other Waterfronts”; a voyage through the most significant urban regeneration projects for industrial ports that proposes a wide cross reflection about how to tackle the complex productive reconversion of Porto Marghera – an industrial port area on the main land adjacent to Venice. This section of the exhibition includes examples like Santander Waterfront, a 60ha area that Arup helped to transform into the new coastline of Santander´s South Bay.
The “Reporting from the front” exhibition, located at the Giardini and Arsenale venues until 27 November, also included our contribution by providing expert advice in different installations and pavilions from Australia, United Kingdom and the United States.
Christopher Sims, an acoustician at Arup in Sydney helped to refine and realise the design for The Pool installation within the new Australian pavilion, a multi-sensory exhibition where visitors are transported poolside and drawn through the space. Through his collaboration with the design team, a unique audio concept was developed to carefully interweave an atmospheric soundscape creating a series of perceptual illusions that bring to Venice a suggestion of a particular Australian architectural condition.
In The British Pavilion, we provided structural advice on the largest installation – the ‘Totem’; as well as advice on lighting, manufacturing, logistics, acoustics, overall loading plans, material selection and robustness review of all the other installations at this pavilion.
Finally, in the US Pavilion, we supported Pita & Bloom and Zago Architecture installations by providing structural, sustainability and acoustics advice. We also gave structural and lighting advice to the “Infinity” installation from Platform for Architecture and Jennifer Marmon for the Global Art Affairs Foundation’s exhibition "Time Space Existence".
The Venice Biennale is one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world. Ever since its foundation, it has been at the forefront of the research and promotion of new artistic and architectural trends.
“The Venice Biennale of Architecture is the most important opportunity on earth to show the work of major protagonists of contemporary architectural and their legacy, as in the case of Zaha Hadid’s retrospective. For anyone interested in the current state of play of architecture, and its future direction, I truly recommend a visit to Venice.Tristram Carfrae, Chairman of Arup University Council