From the 28th of May until the 27th of November 2016, LAN will participate to the next edition of the International Architecture Exhibition of Venice: Report from the front. Alejandro Aravena, who recently received the Pritzker Price and is the curator of the event, invits the participants to present the role of architecture in the struggle for the improvment of life quality through twisted ways, changing contexts and the exploitation of new intervention fields. You will be able to discover the presentation of two of LAN's projects in the Central Pavilion of Giardini.
"The image behind the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, curated by Alejandro Aravena, shows a lady who has climbed the ladder; at the top she can gaze out to a far broader horizon, and thereby conquers her “expanded eye”.
We immediately loved this picture. Partly because it represents La Biennale as a whole, with all our attitudes and our goals.
It is also partly a counterpoint to the one chosen for the most recent Art Biennale. The symbol chosen last year by Okwui Enwezor was Paul Klee’s very famous “Angelus Novus” as interpreted by Walter Benjamin; the winged angel looking backwards in shock, seeing the past with all its debris and tragedy, but also with insights which could be useful in the future, towards which the occult forces of providence are driving it like wind blowing on its wings.
What does the lady see? I think mainly desolated land comprising immense swathes of human habitation which no human could be proud of; great disappointments representing a sad, infinite number of missed opportunities for humanity’s ability to act intelligently. Much of this is tragic, much is banal, and it seems to mark the end of architecture. But she also sees signs of creativity and hope, and she sees them in the here-and-now, not in some uncertain aspirational, ideological future.
Is this a sign of optimism?"
Pablo Barata