Austria-Pavilion examines Vienna and Rome as residential models

The architectural biennals in Venice starts in May and preparations are already in full swing. This year’s curators-Sabine Pollak, Michael Obrist and Lorenzo Romito-open the “Agency for Better Living” in the Austria Pavilion.

What is it about?

In recent years, living has become one of the most important sociopolitical issues of our time. Mechanisms of crowding -out mechanisms have taken place due to large capital flows. In this context, the curators question what a state or urban -organized system and an informal activist approach can learn from each other. The pavilion becomes a place of knowledge exchange on how we want to live in the future.

While Vienna has understood the living question as a social question for decades, it looks very different in the Italian capital Rome. On the one hand, a hundred years of social housing in Vienna, on the other informal living in Rome: there are many settlements here that were built without state permission and without connection to the urban infrastructure.

Many residents are forced to live in these outskirts, or live on the street. For example, activists in Rome expropriated a huge lake in Rome years ago. In the Italian capital you can see how the displacement mechanisms of the present are reacted to by creative interventions and civilian resistance.

Based on these two examples, it is questioned: What is a good living and living space? What political framework is needed for this? How do you design socially balanced, affordable living? And which strategies lead to the best results?

In addition to the exhibition, a discourse room is also opened in the pavilion. Events take place in the courtyard. Here visitors to the Biennale meet activists, residents, experts and all those who are interested in better living and living, in Vienna, in Rome or in any city.

A place is designed in the courtyard that motivates the guests to linger, to learn and exchange. In the symmetrical rooms on the left and right of the main entrance, current examples and topics related to living in Vienna and in Rome are presented and prepared in various media.