Republic of Kosovo
The Kosovo Pavilion explores the impact of modernity on the country's architecture, which had a negative effect due to destruction, foreign aesthetics, and the forced transformation of organic cities. The post-modern movement in the 1980s aimed to restore architecture's relationship with tradition, but the fake folk revival resulted in even more harm. Reconstruction efforts in the 1990s were disastrous, resulting in "build without design," and property speculation. The exhibition features the Shkembi Tower, constructed from traditional old chairs, and a postcard wall depicting the slow but absolute erasure of regional identity in Kosovo's cities.
Supermarket sweep… the Latvian pavilion which has been transformed into a minimart.
This contribution brings a little levity to the long trek through the halls of the Arsenale.
Choice as the basis of architectural process, the pop aesthetics emphasizing the languages of consumption as in Hamilton or Warhol: everything is structured by the dynamics of commerce.
Welcome to T/C Latvija, surely the most instagrammed installation of this edition of the Biennale
Latvia is reopening the archive boxes once again, reminding us (including the Biennial Presidency) of everything that has already been thought up and invented, and inviting us to place the most urgently needed products in the basket, to combine them with one another, and ultimately consume all the knowledge.
Fun, colourful and thought-provoking, it offers a tongue-in-cheek moment to the Arsenale sequence...