3 Review(s)

The Zurich-based architects and partners Alex Lehnerer and Savvas Ciriacidis view their work as a cultural practice that fundamentally assumes a (self-)critical stance towards the present. In Chicago, for instance, the architects proposed filling a hole left over from an unfinished skyscraper with a gigantic hot air balloon, which would then rise up into the air as a satirical commentary on a construction project that failed due to the bursting of the financial and real-estate bubble in 2010. The two commissioners of the German pavilion interpret Artistic Director Rem Koolhaas's theme of Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014 by examining the speculative reality of architecture through two protagonists, the Kanzlerbungalow [Chancellor Bungalow] and the German Pavilion. Their architectural installation in the pavilion transforms a historical retrospective into an experiment that is shaped by the intersection of material, space, and meaning. Exhibition: La Biennale di Venezia - 14th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice 7.6.-23.11.2014