The meetings take the form of panel discussions, a talk by the Curators, two conferences and a supporting film programme.
We will ask: what is FREESPACE? A panel discussion including established and emerging architects from the Exhibition will be moderated by the Curators Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell, and will reveal and analyse the innovative interpretations and responses to the theme of the 16th International Architecture Exhibition.
The discussion will question the importance and impact of awards on standards and on the awareness and appreciation of architecture by a wider audience.
This panel will provoke a debate on what ’generosity’ means in architecture, in different cultures, in communities, in political processes and show discuss how it can be obtained and proclaimed.
This panel will review ways of thinking, new ways of seeing the world, of inventing solutions, systems and technology where architecture provides for the well-being and dignity of each citizen.
A conference organised by London School of Economics Cities and Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft.
The panel will discuss the mutually beneficial and reciprocal relationship between teaching and practice as part of the creative process with architects who teach in schools of architecture.
To mark the European Year of Cultural Heritage, this conference will discuss the role of Heritage within the concept of FREESPACE.
This panel provides the opportunity to emphasise nature’s free gifts of light, sunlight and moonlight, air, gravity, materials, natural and man-made resources and discuss the responsibility within architecture.
The Curators of the 16th International Architecture Exhibition, in conversation with the President of La Biennale di Venezia, will review the legacy of the FREESPACE Manifesto.
Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell in conversation with Paolo Baratta.
The Meetings on Architecture program is enriched by a series of Meetings organised by the Participating Countries in response to the invitation from La Biennale and the Curators Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, hosted at the Teatro alle Tese.
As part of the Meetings on Architecture Programme, we selected a programme of film-based work, both documentary and descriptive, that complement the diverse responses, interpretations and qualities drawn from the FREESPACE Manifesto. The Programme is a combination of film installations looping daily, as well as special feature-length screenings, which are shown once a week. Whether you enter the room by chance, or plan a visit, our intention is that you will be drawn into stories and images revealing the relationship between architecture, landscape and society.
For daily screening, we chose to show the work of architects Hiroshi Sambuichi, Lina Bo Bardi and Kevin Roche, as well as two films by Yuri Ancarani and Jeff Orlowski which focus on the materials: marble and ice. Hiroshi Sambuichi shows an extraordinary poetic sensitivity to achieving an equilibrium between the natural world and the man-made world. Lina Bo Bardi’s work represents a radically fresh and humanistic approach to the making of both large and small buildings. The values articulated by the architect Kevin Roche, Pritzker Prize winner in 1982, very much reflect the values of the Freespace theme. Yuri Ancarani shows the need for a sense of respect and responsibility as we use the earth’s resources. Directed by Jeff Orlowski, James Balog dramatically highlights the enormous effects of climate change on our fragile planet.
For special feature-length screenings, we chose to show three films. Frederick Wiseman’s film “Ex Libris: The New York Public Library” celebrates the most important democratic institution in our society today, which is the freespace of the Public Library. “Le Centre National de la Danse” in Paris and “Unfinished Spaces: Cuba's Architecture of Revolution” highlight heroic visionary buildings.