Exhibitions: On the Road to Venice: 9th Architecture Biennale

摘要

To the list of creative folk captivated by Venice, Italy—from Tintoretto to Thomas Mann—add the modest Staff Of ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. We were drawn there, not as artists, but in the unusual role of curators for the U.S. Pavilion at the 9th International Architecture Biennale held there. Invited by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, we oversaw an architectural show that opened September 12 and is closing on November 7. The location was sublime: The U.S. Pavilion, which the State Department leases from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, is one of 33 such pavilions in the Giardini di Castello, a serendipitous public garden accustomed to alternating annual presentations of cutting-edge art and architecture. Nearby, a massive exhibition of international architecture filled the cavernous 16th-century Corderie of the Arsenale, a former shipbuilding yard.