Edited by: Riccardo Del Fabbro
Event: 14th Biennale of Architecture
Where: Venice, Italy
Proofreading: Bianca Baroni
A principle, a law, something that is at the basis of an idea or a system.
That’s the meaning of FUNDAMENTALS.
But it is also the theme of the 14th edition of the Biennale of Architecture in Venice, which starts on Saturday, 7th june.
It seems that fundamentals is trying to tell us something different from the last Biennale’s edition, fundamentals doesn’t want to celebrate contemporary architecture, or at least not completely, but focuses on the past, on the architectural history, especially on one architectural period that has radically changed all the rules of this discipline: modernism.
In fact, the national pavilions of the Giardini will talk about this, wondering about the identity of each architecture in relation to its nationality, as explained by Rem Koolhaas: ” In 1914, it made sense to talk about a “Chinese” architecture, a “Swiss” architecture, an “Indian” architecture… One hundred years later, under the influence of wars, diverse political regimes, different states of development, national and international architectural movements, individual talents, friendships, random personal trajectories, and technological developments, architectures that were once specific and local have become seemingly interchangeable and global. Has national identity been sacrificed to modernity?”
“ABSORBING MODERNITY 1914-2014” must be able to make us understand how the current global identity should again be enriched by those peculiarities, strengths, weaknesses of the different national architectures, those architectures that are not interchangeable.
Through the analysis of this period, it will be possibleto understand the mistakes made at the architectural level, urban planning but also the negative effects that this hystorical period produced on everyday life.
Thanks to an historical research of an important period like the modernism, it is easier to analyze the current state of architecture.
Fundamentals must analyze the negative issues that have come with modern architecture, trying to re-activate the specialty, what is unique, what can’t be reproduced, it must re-activate the diversity that the architectures of the various participating nations have, in favor of an improvement of the architectural discipline.
It seems that this Biennale could become a real watershed in the architectural evolution.
FUNDAMENTALS must produce rules.
Rules that allow to have new principles, new keywords as a basisof the architectural profession, new words that allow to talk about architecture.
By studying modernism and asking the right questions about what worked and what did not, were extracted words that describe thatkind of architecture.
This Biennale has to ensure that these words that speak ofarchitecture can be replaced by new words, after realizing that the past, the history of influenceon the present, the current status, it must be remembered but not glorified, can and should always think about the future discipline’s evolution.
FUNDAMENTALS must produce NEW FUNDAMENTALS.
