Follow the Dezeen team reporting from the 18th international architecture biennale in Venice, curated by Lesley Lokko. We will be exclusively unveiling national pavilions throughout the day.
9:00am Venice time: Dezeen’s editor Tom Ravenscroft, architecture editor Lizzie Crook and digital editor Rupert Bickersteth are on the ground in Venice reporting from the 18th architecture biennale curated by Scottish-Ghanaian architect, academic and novelist Lesley Lokko (below) to the theme The Laboratory of the Future.
Lokko said in a statement “Africa is the laboratory of the future. We are the world’s youngest continent, with an average age half that of Europe and the United States, and a decade younger than Asia.
We are the world’s fastest urbanising continent, growing at a rate of almost four per cent per year. This rapid and largely unplanned growth is generally at the expense of local environment and ecosystems, which put us at the coal face of climate change.
Architects are key players in translating images into reality
“But hope is a powerful currency. To be hopeful is to be human,” she continued. “The vision of a modern, diverse, and inclusive society is seductive and persuasive, but as long as it remains an image, it is a mirage. Something more than representation is needed, and architects historically are key players in translating images into reality.”
“We envisage our exhibition as a kind of workshop, a laboratory where architects and practitioners across an expanded field of creative disciplines draw out examples from their contemporary practices that chart a path for the audience to weave through, imagining for themselves what the future can hold.”
Before the vernissage (pre-opening) begins tomorrow – ahead of opening to the public on Saturday 20 May – remind yourself what happened at the 17th biennale in 2021.
We rounded-up ten of the best pavilions from the exhibition that year, which was curated by Lebanese architect and academic Hashim Sarkis on the theme “How will we live together?”.
At the 2021 biennale, the Spanish architect, educator, critic and theoretician Rafael Moneo was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and the Special Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, given in memoriam, was bestowed on late modernist architect Lina Bo Bardi.
This blog will be updated throughout the Venice Architecture Biennale, which takes place from 20 May to 26 November 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest information you need to know to attend the event, as well as a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.
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