This day the weather in Venice was sometimes like that. But no different than north of the Alps. With that, without realizing it, you have arrived at climate change, which will make the already warm south warmer, but will make the cool north noticeably hotter.
And so that demands on architecture and urban planning, which we still do not adopt ourselves. And certainly not the politics that focuses on the renovation of the inventory instead of the necessary transformation of building, traffic, of everything.
Wake -up call of the Germans
Do you still need a wake -up call? The German contribution to this year’s, 19th Architectural Biennale of Venice, which can be visited for half a year from Saturday, wants to send this wake -up call.
Under the title “Stresest”, the curator team with Nicola Borgmann, Elisabeth Endres, Gabriele G. Kiefer and Daniele Santucci built an all-round video projection in the empty pavilion, on which the upcoming Hitze Extremes are shown using examples of well-known city places, with thermal imaging cameras that have just been viewed Dissolve cityscapes in bright red-yellow as if Marienplatz or Römer went up in flames.
© Architekturbiennale / Patricia Parinejad
Then the film leads to a kaleidoscope of small -scale measures of greening to absorb heat and store moisture. All of this is known and also easy to realize. Just it’s not enough. It has to be much more, but this imperative is the German contribution solely by the power of the images, and you leave the pavilion, which has a veritable heat chamber on the right and does not crush on the left with trees with treetops, but in careful optimism.
The German contribution fits into the lead motto “Intelligens-Natural, Artficial, Collective” issued by Biennale Commissioner Carlo Ratti, which is supposed to address the questions about anthropocene and climate change and the like, which have been moving us for years, but are constantly overlaid by other, man-made crises. Ratti is both an architect and engineer and has worked at the most renowned universities. The problem is mediation.
The main exhibition responsible by Ratti, which this time focuses solely on the Arsenal site because the venerable central pavilion, the former Italy pavilionis currently being renovated, the three steps given in the lead motto of “natural”, “artificial” and “common intelligence”.
Carlo Ratti said in advance that the exhibition is shown “that intelligent solutions for urgent problems can take many forms”. She will present projects and experiments that “research, knowledge or power” research, knowledge or power as a skill to adapt to the environment “.
High aesthetic stimulus
This means what is offered here in basic research as well as in individual projects, cannot even fully add to any coherent whole. A total of more than 750 architects, craftsmen, researchers have developed the projects shown. Ratti had called for submissions worldwide.
The aesthetic charm of the articles that have been transferred in the elongated raging in the long -stretched raging in the former rope are high, everything is staged with care. But every visitor has to make up for the gain in knowledge. Should we build like the trees, which from their branches do not form a rigid geometry of the following, yet wonderfully practical roofing roof? Can robots help us to carry out the plans you design with artificial intelligence? Can we learn so much from indigenous practices that it can be used on a large scale and not just in the tranquil ethnic garden?
At the very end, outdoors behind the historical arsenal buildings, there is currently a strange building on wooden stilts, with folded-out solar collectors and networks to catch fog droplets-an “ecolia”, an eco-player for survival in the Chilean Atacama desert, one of the most hostile environments on earth. A kind of lunar station without water and power connection; Completely the “intelligent adaptation to the environment” postulated by Carlo Ratti. This does not mean that humanity should vegetate in Atacama cells. But that we recognize and make adjustments usable.
Dutch with a “sports bar”
As always, the Giardini with the national pavilions offers a picture of diversity. The Spanish, carefully composed article shows how ecological construction can work and the use of materials becomes environmentally friendly. Next door, the Belgians made a veritable greenhouse out of their pavilion.
This time the Dutch are locked up against Correctness And offer a “sports bar” in which nobody knows who competes with whom for which team; A pretty confusion game. France has converted its renovation pavilion with a wild scaffolding construction, but for what purpose? Great Britain is working on its colonial past, expanded to include the keyword of the “extraction” that can be used for the future; Well.
The United States fes its culture of the veranda and the rocking chair in dozen -fold variations; Will the Trump guidelines be effective after all the freedom of ideology? The Israeli pavilion is seamstalized, recently protected by a metal cuff.
The Arab countries, which, as recently, come up with remarkable amounts, are not represented in the Girardini with new greenhouses in the emirates and a revival of traditional clay architecture in Saudi Arabia-both contributions from female teams, almost the rule.
Switzerland is once again shining with its aesthetic high-performance minimalism: a temporary pavilion by the architect Lisbeth Sachs from 1958 is enrolled by the real Venice pavilion by the architect Bruno Giacometti from 1952 in gray and white concrete panels, the question “What if?” –Lisbeth Sachs would have built the Swiss pavilion?
Yes, what would be if? To be able to ask is the great advantage of an exhibition that can play through without being constricted by the poor existing. Carlo Ratti’s central exhibition offers inspiration and illustrative material for own research.
There cannot be enough to conquer the crises of the world. The German contribution clearly shows that small steps are neither in vain nor silly, but simply steps to an inevitable goal. Venice will get hot enough in summer to show its reminder as unfortunately realistically.