I brought politics with me to the Biennale, and so shouldn’t have been surprised to find them there. Of course there’s always going to be an element of Nationalism, or of self-promotion from some countries – it’s inherent in the structure of pavilions, all competing for attention, column inches, and a crowd at their openings. Some countries transcended this – Hungary, for example, wittily explored an issue that Europe and the US urgently need to address, the often-ignored influence, through immigration and commerce, of East Asian culture; meanwhile South Africa had tourist brochures available, belying the impact of some of their exhibition with glossy testaments to the country’s achievements.
You could see the relative successes of the publicity games over the opening weekend in the bags on people’s shoulders. Rotterdam 2007 was a big hit, and so were Denmark and Great Britain. And even after all the other shoulder bags had been handed out, Israel couldn’t have given them away. I wasn’t anxious for an Israeli bag, even before I had seen the content of their pavilion, but it was to the United States pavilion that I brought my real prejudices.
I walked around Building on Higher Ground crossly. Asking myself with what hypocrisy could the US present responses to the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, when the actual response had been so negligent? Where were the panels addressing the displaced poor? Where were the admissions that the Government had ‘messed up’? And it was only later, after I had visited, been engrossed in, and generally applauded the presentations in the Irish pavilion that I realised how unfair I was being. SubUrban to SuperRural showed the responses of nine Irish architectural practices to Ireland’s growing urban and suburban sprawl. Some of the presentations were sensible, some fantastical, some extremely clever and some thought-provoking. So where was my sense of disgust at the Irish Government? Their historical corruption, which has led to a blighted countryside, and appalling problems for suburban commuter families, is currently being investigated by a Tribunal of Enquiry. While government support is generally necessary to bring an exhibition to the Biennale, I have to remember to try to look at the ideas in the presentation, not the politics of the country. In this, of course, Israel failed on both counts.
‘Starchitects’ travel the world, bringing their visions and solutions across the divisions that the national boundaries (exemplified by the pavilions) create. Commerce also transcends national boundaries, and it seemed to me as I thought about how unfair I was being to the US, that as national political influence loses ground to international trends and multinational finance, political Nationalism grows ever stronger.
As a separate conclusion, I was also struck (yet again) by the misleading (and sometimes downright mendacious) exhibition strategies architects and developers employ. The worst and most brutally disproportionate towers and buildings are usually modelled in gleaming (and sometimes illuminated) perspex. The word ‘podium’ conjures bandstands, but usually means a cement block with a car park underneath. The skies are always blue and nothing is ever ever dirty. This thought came to me in Singapore (the pavilion, not the country), and again while flicking through the Arup book that was handed out to people drunkenly leaving the party at the Gaggiandre. Pages and pages of images of beautiful meadows and blissfully peaceful wildlife seemed rather incompatible with the development the book was intending to promote. Perhaps I’m being unfair, I can’t check back as the book was too much to carry home, along with lots of other bits of paper and books (so many also from pavilions promoting ’sustainability’) that I left it behind in my hotel.
