The public culture of architecture: biennale fever and teenage angst

摘要

Architecture is having a busy year in 2012 - and so are all of the other professions that deal with the design of the built environment: landscape architecture, urban design and so on. It isn't that billing is up, projects are numerous or commissions common - just the opposite. Yet this year is the year of the Biennale, which means that there is a lot of public attention on architecture - and the architecture world is focused strongly on itself and, in the best cases, how and what it conveys to the outside. Here, architecture is used in the broadest sense and includes landscape architecture and urbanism. Moscow, Hong Kong and Shenzhen, Barcelona, Venice and Rotterdam all held or will hold an architecture biennale this year. Clearly there's a lot to be communicated in architecture, and the wham-bang format of the biennale is a popular - and possibly effective - method. Architecture has been hit hard by the financial crisis that began in 2008 with the sub-prime mortgage crisis, and the profession, ever on the brink of change, seems to be doing more display and introspection in 2012 than ever before. Architecture is like a nervous, pimply, angsty teenager unsure of its role in society.