The 18th Venice Biennale of Architecture, The Laboratory of the Future, recently announced a list of participants that features a strong representation of Columbia GSAPP’s faculty. The exhibition, curated by Lesley Lokko, is on view from May 20 through November 26, 2023, with a pre-opening on May 18 and 19. It includes 89 participants, the majority of whom are from Africa or the African Diaspora.
“We have deliberately chosen to frame participants as ‘practitioners’ and not ‘architects’ and/or ‘urbanists’, ‘designers’, ‘landscape architects’, ‘engineers’ or ‘academics’ because it is our contention that the rich, complex conditions of both Africa and a rapidly hybridizing world call for a different and broader understanding of the term ‘architect,’” said curator Lesley Lokko.
The starting point for the exhibition is the Central Pavilion in the Giardini, which includes 16 practices that represent “a distilled force majeure of African and Diasporic architectural production.” This includes Cave Bureau, co-directed by Adjunct Assistant Professors Kabage Karanja and Stella Mutegi, who most recently taught the Summer 2022 Advanced Architectural Design Studio “The Anthropocene Museum 5.0: Reinscribing New York City” and delivered a public lecture at Columbia GSAPP on November 28, 2022.
The exhibition continues in the Arsenale with the Curator’s Special Projects. In the section titled “Mnemonic,” Professor Mabel O. Wilson (Studio &) and Höweler + Yoon are participating in collaboration with Josh Begley and Gene Han.
Also in the Arsenale complex, a section titled “Dangerous Liaisons” features work by the following GSAPP faculty-led practices:
- Office for Political Innovation led by Dean Andrés Jaque
- AD—WO led by Assistant Professor Emanuel Admassu ‘12 MSAAD, '13 AAR and Jen Wood
- Wolff Architects led by Visiting Assistant Professor Ilze Wolff and Heinrich Wolff
- autonoma led by Visiting Assistant Professor Paulo Tavares
- SCAPE Landscape Architecture led by Professor Kate Orff
More information about the installations produced by GSAPP faculty-led firms, as well as additional involvement by GSAPP faculty and alumni in the national pavilions and associated venues, will be posted on our website as the exhibition approaches.
