VENICE BIENNALE
Venice Architecture Biennale
PRESENTING AUSTRALIAN ARCHITECTURE To THE
WORLD SINCE 2006
We raise the international profile of Australian architecture through active participation in global events such as the Venice Architecture Biennale – the world’s most prestigious celebration of the practice.
Through the Biennale, we present Australia’s contribution to world architecture before an international audience of influential architects, designers, urban planners and critics. In turn, we also encourage the local and international professional community to continue finding ways to develop a more efficient and sustainable built environment for the future.
JOURNEY TO VENICE 2020
NETWORK VENICE
Support Australia in Venice and be a part of something big as we seek to advance architecture through international dialogue, answering the call – How will we live together?
Network, build connections and engage with the local and global architecture and design community and be recognised as a leader with acknowledgement of support throughout Australia’s marketing campaign and on the ground in Venice.
Join Network Venice now and maximise your benefits with VIP attendance at the upcoming Creative Director Reveal events being held in Melbourne and Sydney this October.
Download a print friendly version of the Network Venice brochure.
View the Network Venice sponsorship terms and conditions.
2020 Australian Exhibition
IN | BETWEEN: BUILDING CULTURAL CONNECTIONS THROUGH ARCHITECTURE
Architecture has the power to build connections and understanding between First Nations cultures in Australia, the Pacific region and beyond. This is the compelling concept behind In | between, the Australian exhibition of the 2020 Venice International Architecture Biennale.
Creative Directors Tristan Wong and Jefa Greenaway, along with Tim Ross, Elizabeth Grant, Aaron Puls and Jordyn Milliken, will demonstrate the potency of design collaboration to create culturally appropriate and meaningful architecture, while also highlighting the connections between First Nations people across the Australasian region.
Embracing Australia’s diversity, its rich Indigenous heritage and multiplicity of languages, In | between will showcase a collection of architectural projects from Australia and the Pacific region and explore how design can be a powerful form of communication that can evocatively represent Indigenous and non-Indigenous narratives.
Venice 2020
BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA 2020
The 17th International Architecture Exhibition, running from 23 May to 29 November 2020, will be curated by architect and scholar Hashim Sarkis with the theme How will we live together?
‘The world is putting new challenges in front of architecture. I look forward to working with participating architects from around the world to imagine together how we are going to rise to these challenges.’ – Hashim Sarkis
Australian Exhibition 2018
REPAIR: THE AUSTRALIAN PAVILION BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA 2018
Mauro Baracco and Louise Wright of Baracco+Wright Architects with Linda Tegg
Repair focused on Australian architecture that integrates built and natural systems to effect repair of the environment, and in so doing, mend or improve other societal, economic and cultural conditions.
On entering the Pavilion, visitors found over 10,000 native Australian grassland plants arranged inside and outside of the Pavilion’s granite structure. This field of vegetation, titled Grasslands, allowed visitors to enter a physical dialogue between architecture and the endangered plant community – with just one per cent of these threatened species left in their native Australian environment.
Past Exhibitions
2016 - The Pool
Amelia Holliday, Isabelle Toland (Aileen Sage) and Michelle Tabet
Using the pool as a lens through which to explore Australian cultural identity, the Australian Pavilion was transformed through the use of light, scent, sound, reflection and perspective to create a series of perceptual illusions within a designed landscape.
Eight prominent cultural leaders from various fields were selected to share their personal stories, using the device of the pool as a platform to explore the relationship between architecture and Australian cultural identity. These included Olympic gold medal winning swimmers Ian Thorpe and Shane Gould, environmentalist and 2007 Australian of the Year Tim Flannery, fashion designers Romance Was Born, writer of best-selling book The Slap Christos Tsiolkas, winner of the 2012 Miles Franklin Prize Anna Funder, Indigenous art curator Hetti Perkins and Australian rock-musician Paul Kelly.
The aim of the exhibition was to step outside the architect-to-architect discourse to show how a familiar, common object, the pool, is in fact pregnant with cultural significance, it is both artefact and catalyst of change. The Pool is about public space as a vital component to society and shows the many ways in which its public character is interpreted and occupied.
2014 - Augmented Australia: 1914 - 2014
felix._Giles_Anderson+Goad
Augmented Australia provided a virtual journey through 23 of Australia’s most intriguing unbuilt projects through the use of a dedicated app.
Augmented Australia’s virtual experience began under a temporary Cloud Space, where display images of each project automatically triggered three-dimensional (3D) augmented models, animations and interviews when viewed through the app. Including a 1:1 scale virtual model of the new Australian Pavilion by Denton Corker Marshall overlaid on its construction site.
The exhibition then extended beyond the Giardini with real-world scale augmented models of each unbuilt project geographically positioned in various locations around Venice, marking the largest exhibition of its kind ever seen.
2012 - Formations: New practices in Australian Architecture
Anthony Burke, Gerard Reinmuth with TOKO Concept Design
Featuring installations that ranged from robotically-fabricated sculptures to a live roaming radio show, Formations moved beyond the physical parameters of the Australian Pavilion building to emphasise the actions and processes behind contemporary architectural practice.
As new economic, social and cultural challenges present themselves, Formations was a catalyst for discussion and debate around the changing role of architects and the ways in which they influence the world around them. The exhibition showcased six innovative architectural groups through a range of installations that challenged traditional perceptions of what it is to be an architect.
2010 - Now and When
John Gollings and Ivan Rijavec
Now and When explored the challenges facing our cities, engaging in timely issues that included sustainability, urban sprawl and density.
The ‘NOW’ component featured aerial views of Australian urban landscapes, including Melbourne, Sydney and Surfers Paradise, contrasted with giant mining pits at Kalgoorlie and Mt Newman by renowned architectural photographer John Gollings. The ‘WHEN’ component, overseen by Ivan Rijavec and produced by FloodSlicer, featured a sequence of ideas from 17 architectural collaborations of possible future urban spaces, including floating or submerged cities, or desert spaces.
Now and When exhibited on a completely new form of 3D stereoscopic technology, which goes beyond the latest cinematic release. Visitors were able to move around these urban scenes and experience the urbanised worlds from different perspectives.
2008 - Abundant
Neil Durbach, Vince Frost, Wendy Lewin, Kerstin Thompson and Gary Warner
Abundant Australia explored the astonishing ability of Australian architects to blend new influences, dramatic landscapes and Australia’s unique multicultural society. Featuring over 140 architectural models of both domestic and commercial buildings from prominent Australian architects, including Ashton Raggatt McDougall, Denton Corker Marshall and Iredale Pedersen Hook, the exhibition revealed an architecture that is distinctly Australian.
2006 - Micro Macro City
Shane Murray and Nigel Bertram
Micro Macro City looked closely and carefully at the actual conditions of our urban environment, focusing on its specificity and differences. The creative team considered the contemporary Australian urban condition to be a matrix of inter-relationships between urban cores, suburban sprawl, regional centres and rural hinterland.
The exhibition presented a sequence of illuminating case studies which have the potential to reveal a more precise understanding of our actual urban inhabitations and to consider how such an understanding can contribute clues and insights into how we might develop these urban realms into the future. Entwined with each of these case studies the creative team presented contemporary works of urban architecture from a range of scales, types and uses.
Australian Pavilion
Our National Pavilion
Australia is one of 29 countries to be granted a permanent exhibition site within the Giardini della Biennale. In 2015, the Australia Council for the Arts unveiled Australia’s new permanent pavilion designed by Denton Corker Marshall. This new pavilion replaced a temporary exhibition space designed by Philip Cox in 1988, in use until 2013.
We gratefully acknowledge the Australia Council for the Arts for the use of the Australian Pavilion during the biennial architecture exhibition.
Venice Biennale partners
The Australian Institute of Architects gratefully acknowledges the support given by the Australian Council of the Arts.
Principal Event Partner
Supporting Event Partners
Supporting Media Partner
Network Venice Platinum Partners
Network Venice Gold Partners
Network Venice Silver Partners
Anita Belgiorno-Nettis AM
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis AM
Network Venice Bronze Partners
Aileen Sage Architects
Allen Jack+Cottier
Architectus
ARM Architecture
Chamberlain Architects
McBride Charles Ryan
Moloney Architects
Public Realm Lab
The University of Queensland
University of Sydney