Idea competition for the exhibition of the 15th International Architecture Biennale in Venice

The Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava announces an ideational competition for the selection of an exhibition project and subsequent implementation of the exposition for the 15th International Biennale of Architecture in Venice 2016, which will take place from May 28 to November 27, 2016 (opening on May 26 and 27, 2016) in the pavilion of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic in Venice.

The selection process is announced as non-anonymous intended for theorists of art and architecture, architects, and collaborating professions, including historians and theorists of architecture and art. Individual or competing groups/initiatives are not restricted by age, gender, nationality, or citizenship, as long as the submitted project and implementation in any way relate to architecture in Slovakia, its practice, history, and theory, or its relationship to the international architectural environment.

The competition is two-stage, and the commission meeting for project selection is scheduled for one day. In the first round, the commission (composed of professional staff from the SNG, representatives of architects and historians from Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic) will select projects to proceed to the second round in the morning. Authors and representatives of groups will have the opportunity in the afternoon to personally present their projects to the jury and answer questions. If they are unable to take advantage of this opportunity for various reasons, it does not mean that the project will be excluded from the second round. It will be evaluated along with the others. The date of the project selection committee meeting will be communicated to the applicants in advance; it is anticipated that the meeting will take place in the week of December 14 to 18, 2015.

La Biennale di Venezia and the exposition of the Czech and Slovak Republics

The exposition in the pavilion of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic is part of the La Biennale di Venezia 2016 project. The curator of the international architecture exposition is the Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena (*1967). Alejandro Aravena is a graduate in architecture from the Catholic University of Chile (1992), who studied History and Theory at IUAV in Venice in 1993 and graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. He was a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (HGSD) in the USA (2000-05), where he founded a social housing initiative called Elemental with engineer Andres Iacobelli (see Elemental Chile. A handbook on progressive housing, Actar, 2000; also see Incremental Housing and Participatory Design Manual, Berlin, 2012). He is a member of the jury for the Pritzker Prize in Architecture.

La Biennale di Venezia // Architecture 2016

The theme of the international exhibition is Reporting from the Front. Alejandro Aravena said about the Biennale 2016: “Many battles must be won and many boundaries pushed to improve the quality of the built environment and thus the quality of life for people. We would like those who come to the 15th International Biennale of Architecture in Venice to see: successful stories worth telling; exemplary cases worth sharing, where architecture has caused, causes, and will cause change in these struggles and boundaries.”

Biennale President Paolo Baratta: “After a significant experimental biennale designed by Rem Koolhaas, which was entirely dedicated to curatorial research, we believe we must continue to the biennale that invites architects and will focus on exploring new boundaries – horizons, showcasing the vitality of architecture, the boundaries that stretch across diverse parts of the world, and highlighting architecture that provides specific answers to specific demands. This biennale aims to respond again to the gap between architecture and civil society, which in recent years has turned architecture into a spectacular display on one hand and led society to feel it can do without it on the other. We believe that from the new generation of architects, Alejandro Aravena is the one who will provide the most timely description of this reality and highlight its vitality.”

For more information, see: www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/news/18-07.html

Content form of the submitted project for the Pavilion of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic

– completed APPLICATION;
– librettos/ideational proposals/intents/concepts of the project (length 1-3 pages);
– proposal for spatial solutions (length 1-5 sheets);
– supplements at one’s discretion (max. 2 sheets) optional;
– approximate budget (SNG anticipates a contribution of 50 thousand euros; if the projected project costs exceed this budget, the authors must commit to co-financing the project, for example by seeking and obtaining their own sponsors);
– the project must respect the spatial and technical conditions of the Pavilion of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.

Note: the application, materials (floor plans, sections), information about the technical and economic conditions for preparing the exposition are also available on the SNG website:
www.sng.sk/sk/uvod/navsteva-sng/aktuality/sutaz-bienale-architektury-v-benatkach-2016

Formal form of submitted projects and their submission

– digitally in .pdf and .ppt format to [email protected] or on CD at the SNG office, Hurban Barracks, Kollárovo nám. 10, Bratislava
– submission deadline: December 4, 2015

Documentation submitted after the deadline or in incomplete form will not be evaluated.

Project coordinator for SNG: Monika Palčová, [email protected]