Why did you decide to focus on the national pavilions in the Giardini?
We wanted to interpret David Chipperfield’s general theme – “Common Ground” – differently: more as the space in which we talk about architecture together. How do we discuss and debate architecture? How do we perceive it? So it seemed natural to do something with the national pavilions in the Giardini. This way we were also able to highlight the buildings, which the visitors often only perceive marginally as exhibition showcases.
You invited a different author to describe each pavilion, in an essay. Did you give them any guidelines about what the essays should address?
The authors were given complete freedom to approach the subject as they chose. Above all, our exhibition is meant to offer different perspectives. That’s why the authors wrote in their native languages and why the essays were also recorded, spoken either by the authors themselves or by a professional narrator. They are available on the exhibition website, so you can listen to the essays on a smartphone while you walk around the site. For us, listening and experiencing the site is a very important aspect.
In contrast to the texts, you had all the photographs taken by a single photographer, Gabriele Basilico.
Yes, because we wanted to supplement the visitor’s often-fleeting glance at the exterior of each pavilion with the extremely precise view of someone like Gabriele. These photos are arranged in the exhibition as in a reading room – not fixed on the wall in a given order, but placed freely on shelves along the walls. So some of the photos are behind others, replicating in a way the superimposed perception of the individual buildings in the Giardini.
Very sadly, Gabriele Basilico passed away just a few weeks ago. His choice to photograph the Giardini pavilions in stark black and white could perhaps be interpreted as an awareness of his close death.
It was great to complete this project together. Gabriele was indeed pushing all of us to finish the book, because he feared his strength could wane quickly; it was clear to him that this would be his last work. But his reasons for chosing black and white were very specific and very different: Gabriele told me he must photograph the pavilions like this because the entire grounds of the Giardini are so dilapidated. Color photographs would have emphasized this neglect, whereas black and white images stress the aging grandeur of the buildings. It’s a way of conferring nobility upon the pavilions: I hope that comes across in the double-page photos in the catalogue.
Roger Diener (*1950) established the firm Diener & Diener in 1980, continuing the original established in 1948 by his father, Marcus Diener. He is a Professor at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic (ETH Zurich), Studio Basel: Contemporary City Institute, where he has been teaching since 1999. In 2002, the Académie Française awarded him its Architecture Award for his work.
His practice is known internationally for projects such as the Warteck Brewery residential buildings in Basel, Switzerland (1996), the Swiss Embassy in Berlin, Germany (2000), the Forum 3 Novartis Campus in Basel, Switzerland (2005) and an extension of the Museum of Natural Science of Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany (2010).
Exhibition:
Common Pavilions
22 March – 9 May, 2013
Aedes Am Pfefferberg
Christinenstraße 18–19, 10119 Berlin
Catalogue:
Common Pavilions: The National Pavilions in the Giardini of the Venice Biennale in Essays and Photographs
Edited by Diener & Diener Architects with Gabriele Basilico
Photographs by Gabriele Basilico
Scheidegger & Spiess Publishers, Zurich, 2013
Texts in English and 23 other languages
Hardcover, 328 pages
Do you have a favorite pavilion?
The longer you look at them, they are all great. Yet I can’t help but love the Nordic Pavilion by Sverre Fehn. It’s the cathedral among the pavilions.
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