Architecture Biennale 2016

The Venice Biennale is one of the most important events in the Architecture calendar.

Open to the public from Saturday May 28th to Sunday November 27th 2016, at the Giardini and the Arsenale, the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, titled REPORTING FROM THE FRONT, will be directed by Alejandro Aravena and organized by La Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta.

“Reporting from the Front is about sharing,”explains Aravena, “with a broader audience, the work of people that are scrutinizing the horizon looking for new fields of action, facing issues like segregation, inequalities, peripheries, access to sanitation, natural disasters, housing shortage, migration, informality, crime, traffic, waste, pollution and participation of communities.” 

The International Exhibition is laid out in a unitary exhibition sequence from the Central Pavilion (Giardini) to the Arsenale, and includes 88 participants from 37 different countries. 50 of them are participating for the first time, and 33 architects are under the age of 40.

The Biennale also includes 62 National Participations in the historic Pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the historic city centre of Venice. Five countries are participating for the first time: Philippines, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Seychelles, and Yemen.

The Giardini (gardens) in the east of Venice have been the traditional venue for the International Art Exhibition since 1895. They were laid out during the Napoleonic era, on land that had once been occupied by a district that included four churches and three convents. The area hosts the Central Pavilion and a further 29 national pavilions, built at various periods by the participating countries themselves.

The Venetian Arsenal (in Italian, Arsenale di Venezia) was the heart of the Venetian naval industry from the thirteenth century.