What is the role of statistics in discrete urban interventions? Often the macro-scale of statistics seems to suggest more about global flows of capital and people than specific architectural strategies? BB
The architectural strategies can only be the result of the research which takes form in these statistics. But concerning the really impressive exhibition "Cities, architecture and society" I had for the first time the impression that the research and the strategies were combined. ASA
Historically one feels as though, with a global scaled tour boat docked by the Giardini, drawfing even the Arsenale and towering over all the pavilions, that the mind boggling statistics take us to a mega-scale CIAM IV (Athens Charter)…. the confident super administrator solutons of CIAM 3/4 a century ago are clearly discredited even as the urban prognosis calls for new leaps of the imagination…. BB
Do you really think the approach changed so much? Probably it is also a result of representation, of scenography, of the new world of computer aided images which give us the illusion of things happening which did not happen yet. ASA
This is true for architectural projection to be sure, but one of the real revelations of the power of computer imageries is less in design than in real-time information gathering. Really impressive is the research project with cell phone usage mapped ‘in real time’ over the urban space of Rome. Here is a type of space-time depiction of which Giedion could only dream aboard the Patras. BB
My only hope to get out here is to change the topic, ok? There is the usual difference between the main exhibitions in the Arsenale (we mentioned) and the Pavillions in the Giardini. I had not the chance to see them all yet, but probably you made some interesting observations? ASA
I think about the whole paradoxical challenge of an exhibiton that is a research project, whre independent teams prepare exhibitons silmultaneously rather than in an iterative process. There are some wonderful serediptious moments, some unexpected parallels (the use of statistics emerging from economic analysis for instance in the LSE mode and those from the world of fashion, of ‘numbers as ornmanet’ in the OSA mode) but would it not be interesting to imagine a Biennale in two stages in which the research mega-exhibition was the launch for the individual pavilions? Pipe dream perhaps. BB
A wonderful idea and the chance to travel to Venice twice in autumn. But in the actual situation one could at least expect that the pavillions deal creatively with the main topic (that does not happen everywhere) which leads to different results, also concerning the quality. But this is always the same. You make new discoveries and are disappointed where you had high expectations. But you always return and begin the play again. ASA
In this sense it is more like a huge architectural competition in which the open call leads to the most diverse responses, or sometimes choice to ignore the brief. And is a competition the main point is the dialogue that goes on in the jury, the debate, the stages of judgement and reception. So blogging — even here as in set of ‘chess’ maneouvers leaves a trace of some fragments of responding, judging and reacting and as we blog countless ‘real life’ hints over the shoulders of what is really worth seeing, what is really a great urban strategy, a brilliant exhbition strategy… we have now to leave and check some of those out… the clock is ticking! BB
