1. Biomimicry & The Future
For some, the resolution of societal ills will always be found in new technologies: they are, after all, simpler to achieve than social transformation. The Israeli Pavilion, titled “LifeObject: Merging Architecture and Biology,” will be comprised of a large-scale sculptural installation and seven speculative architectural scenarios relating to Israel, each focused on the relationship between biology and architecture.
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2. Refugees & War
War, and global migration flows it stems, will be a major theme, led by the Dutch Pavilion, curated by Malkit Shoshan, who has sat down with military engineers and policy-makers to understand how UN peacekeepers affect the world, particularly in Mali. The German representation will be entirely focused on how to make a home for the million-or-so Syrians the country has taken in over the course of 2015: concerns will range from shelters to schools, basic needs to cultural integration.
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3. Informal Structures
Informal structures have fascinated architects for a century at least, and this year’s Biennale will offer plenty to see. The Columbus-based BairBalliet, which will be presenting its work in the Pavilion of the United States, will be looking at innovative urban infill in the city of Detroit, famous in contemporary urban design discourse as a locus of extraordinary decay.
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4. Nature & Geopolitics
The sensuous exhibition The Forests of Venice, situated in the Serra dei Giardini, a 1894 greenhouse, proposes a peaceful coexistence of urbanity and nature for one of Europe’s least green cities – as only seven Swedish architects could imagine. Meanwhile, Montenegro's most southern town Ulcinj will be the topic of the country's pavilion: a former saline, a man-made biotope, has there become a crucial node in the global migratory routes of birds.
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5. Crafts & Tradition
What do traditional crafts have to do with social good? Well, writes the curatorial team of the Belgian national representation, “dealing with scarcity demands a high level of precision.” In the Belgian contribution to the Biennale, Architecten de vylder vinck taillieu, interdoorzon interieurarchitecten and Filip Dujardin— coming together as the Bravoure (Bravura) team—will explore “what craftsmanship can mean during a period of economic scarcity.”
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6. Home & Belonging
The role of family home as a major financial asset, and a substitute for the social space once played by the street will be explored in the British Pavilion, which will be converted into a series of domestic interiors. A similar topic on a larger scale: the Portuguese representation will look at Álvaro Siza's social housing projects and interventions in different neighborhoods in Porto, Berlin, Venice, and the Hague, and see how they measure against the political and social ideals embedded in the notion of the European urbanity. The Spanish Pavilion, on the other hand, is looking at the abandoned housing projects since the economic crisis, as objects exposing the freakish relationship between the notions of local belonging, and global capital.