"That was a lovely piece!" architect Philip Beesley (more about his amazing projects mixing science, technology and craft in another post…) stated during a post-Golden Lion awarding ceremony interview I did with him, commenting on the Biennale Director’s attire.
At yesterday's awarding ceremony Kazuyo Sejima opted for a skirt from the Comme des Garçons’s Autumn/Winter 2010 collection, matched with a simple black shirt, knee-length stockings and lilac shoes.
I thought her choice was a wonderful way to pay homage to her home country, Japanese designers, avant-garde inspirations, sculptural pieces and body-morphing creations, and, last but not least, architecture and architectural concepts like surface elaboration and density.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any chance to bore the Biennale Director with my verbose theories on architecture and fashion, but I thought she wore the piece really well, in fact it was a perfect example of how to wear a cutting edge piece at a formal ceremony without looking out of place.
What I liked about the awarding ceremony?
As I said in the previous post, the friendly atmosphere and the fact that everybody seemed to be genuinely excited about the winners (a thing you rarely see at fashion events/competitions where people who pat you on the back one moment would like to stab you 3 minutes after...).
Another thing that I really enjoyed about the awarding ceremony, but also the event in general was that many architects and people visiting during the press days brought their families with them, so there were quite a few children around, which I thought was refreshing and fun (again, it would never happen at fashion events, because the latter are too pretentious to admit kids...).
So let’s do a brief round up of the winners as selected by the International Jury, that is President Beatriz Colomina (Spain), Francesco Dal Co (Italy), Joseph Grima (Italy), Arata Isozaki (Japan), Moritz Küng (Switzerland) and Trinh T. Minh-ha (Vietnam):
Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement: Rem Koolhaas - He was around a lot during the press days, taking part in lectures and hanging around the Biennale Gardens at the OMA space or visiting the various pavilions.
He said he was happy to receive a lifetime achievement award in the middle of his career, but also pointed out he is only the tip of an iceberg.
From what we saw at the Biennale, he is definitely right: he is indeed the tip of an amazing iceberg that will hopefully inspire many young people and generations to come.
Golden Lion in memoriam: Kazuo Shinohara - the founder of the "Shinohara School" represented a huge influence for many Japanese architects and designers, among them also Sejima who told us she felt deeply inspired by his work when she was a student.
Golden Lion for the best National Participation: the Kingdom of Bahrain with the “Reclaim” project - The motivation for this project states: “Given the range of vast urban developments that Kingdom of Bahrain could have been tempted to include in this Exhibition, the jury was impressed by the choice, instead, of a lucid and forceful self-analysis of the nation’s relationship with its rapidly changing coastline. Here transient forms of architecture are presented as devices for reclaiming the sea as a form of public space: an exceptionally humble yet compelling response to People meet in architecture, the theme proposed by Exhibition Director Kazuyo Sejima.”
As the first official national participation of a Gulf State at the International Architecture Exhibition, Bahrain’s project - curated and
commissioned by the Ministry of Culture & Information Noura Al-Sayeh
who also co-curated it with Fuad Al-Ansari - was intense, moving and somehow also surprising.
The team involved in it - comprising Bahrain Urban Research Team (Tamadher Al Fahal; Muna Yateem; Fay Al Khalifa; Deena Ashraf; Fatema Al-Hammadi; Mohammed Al-Qari); LAPA (Harry Gugger; Leopold Banchini; Simon Chessex; Russell Loveridge; Ning Liu) and Camille Zakharia (photographer and engineer) and Mohammed Bu Ali (producer) - focused on the coasts and the sea conceived as living memories for the Bahraini citizens.
In the last few decades the sea, pearls and oyster beds literally disappeared to be replaced by buildings.
To analyse the impacts of architecture on the coast, the team behind this project dismantled from their original sites three
fishermen’s huts - officially called “portable cabins” - and installed them in the Arsenale, transforming them into gathering spaces where visitors can sit down, think and watch interviews with fishermen.
Golden Lion for best project: Sou Fujimoto Architects with "Architecture as air: Study for château la coste” with the motivation: “In awarding 'Architecture as air: study for château la coste' the Golden Lion, the jury would like to acknowledge the unique and uncompromising vision of its author, Junya Ishigami. The work pushes the limits of materiality, visibility, tectonics, thinness, and ultimately of architecture itself.”
The building presented, a study for the pavilion for the works of W.S. at Château La Coste in Aix Provence, is composed of slabs layered at regular intervals that can be used in versatile ways as chairs, desks, floors, shelves or stairs, allowing the people who use it to create through different levels a variety of places.
Silver Lion for a promising young participant of the Exhibition: OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen + Bas Princen (Belgium and The Netherlands).
The project was based around a temporary steel structure with a gold reflective fabric roof that connected 7 rooms of an abandoned building in the Giardino delle Vergini.
Each room featured photographs by Princen that looked perfectly integrated in the space.
The motivation for this project stated: "The jury’s selection of architects OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen in collaboration with photographer Bas Princen as recipients of the Silver Lion is a recognition of the remarkable potential of the practice and this ongoing collaboration.
The jury was struck by their ability to reconcile photographic analysis and design intervention into a coherent vision, particularly given the project’s resonance with the theme proposed by the Exhibition Director.”
I admit this was the last project I saw on Friday evening when I was completely shattered, but I found it very intriguing (especially the room with the rusty linen oil tanks - sorry for bad quality pic but it was the very last one I took on Friday around the Biennale spaces and I was so tired my hands were literally shaking...).
Special Mentions went to:
Amateur Architecture Studio (Wang Shu, Vito Bertin, Lu WenYu, China) for "Decay of a Dome" - a light and mobile structure that can be moved around and quickly built or destroyed.
Studio Mumbai (India) for "Work Place" - an insight into the creative context of the atelier in which their work originates.
Piet Oudolf (The Netherlands) for "Il Giardino delle Vergini" - a poetical and impressionistic garden transposing into the landscape the main theme of the Biennale.
Congrats to all the winners then!
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