Floornaturelive at the Biennale: Nordic Pavilion

"In Therapy: Nordic Countries Face to Face” is the title of the Nordic Pavilion at the 15th Architecture Biennial in Venice. Yesterday we met curator David Basulto, founder of the ArchDaily architecture portal, along with assistant curator James Taylor-Foster


Arriving in Venice for the Biennale is always a great emotion especially when you are going to visit first of all the long awaited Nordic Pavilion presenting itself in a very different manner to the previous editions. Thanks to the curatorship of David Basulto with James Taylor-Foster, the space designed by Sverre Fehn has been added with a pyramidal structure designed by Marge Arkitekter in untreated timber logs recalling the pattern of the formwork used by the Norwegian architect in 1962.


The logs leave a gentle perfume of wood in the space while inviting chaise longues on coloured carpets combined to bespoke monitors round off the visual and precise references to the topics of the Nordic Pavilion.


The pyramids of projects presents the results of the Open Call to find architectural answers to the following topics: Foundational – architecture that responds to basic needs (shelter, education, healthcare), Belonging – architecture that enacts public engagement and creates public spaces (culture, worship etc.), Recognition – architecture that reflects on certain processes in Nordic society and its values (monuments etc.). Three projects were chosen for each category - one for each country (Norway, Sweden and Finland).


The coloured “pixel” on the pyramid are paper sheet as note pads where the visitors can collect information of the single projects and thus explore the pyramid itself and gaining a new vision of the space. The chaise longues refer to the exhibition title “In Therapy”, a kind of psychoanalysis to better understand the state of the art of Scandinavian architecture and where the doctor has been replaced by the monitors showing interviews with the authors of the nine selected projects.


So there is a wonderful tension, which is not just visual, between the pyramid as public space and devoted to interaction and the intimacy of the chaise longues. It's the two sides of the same coin to delve deeper into Scandinavian architecture.


The architecture of Finland, Norway and Sweden might seem to us like the top of the pyramid but has nonetheless to deal with a lot of problems, not least the economical and social changes. All this with the spirit of a person looking to create a dialogue with the visitors knowing very well that if you don't communicate architecture properly it is not perceived. And who better to explain this than David Basulto, founder of ArchDaily?

Christiane Bürklein

Biennale di Architettura di Venezia
Nordic Pavilion - http://intherapy.arkdes.se/
Curator: David Basulto
Assistant Curator: James Taylor-Foster
Commissioner:ArkDes, The Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design (Sweden).
Deputy Commissioner: The Finnish Museum of Architecture (Finland) and Nasjonalmuseet (Norway). Curator:David Basulto, James Taylor-Foster.
Exhibition Design: Marge Arikekter
From 28 May to 27 Novembre 2016
Link: http://www.floornature.com/blog/venice-biennial-the-nordic-pavilion-reveals-its-contents-11391/
Images: © Gianluca Giordano