The world is better off without any “new” architecture. Please just copy the old stuff. Pretty much anything pre-War will do.

It seems the Venice International Architecture Biennale has, like all mature organisations, sucumbed to the complete inversion of its purpose to serve the whims of its staff.

Short of war or revolution, we will see continued ossification and mediocrity envelope everything in Europe.

I’m sure the Venice Biennale is a wonderful destination for those interested in Ego-tecture.
But for those who came hoping to celebrate architecture, they can simply step outside the festival and enjoy the splendours of Venice

Idiotic academia again
Gosh this event sounds boring.
Meanwhile hideous buildings go up all over London, with no real architects involved.

A similar piece might well have been written following last year’s Art Biennale. Although not “empty” in the sense of being devoid of material, many of the pavilions were to all extents and purposes empty of art, or at least anything which might engage the visitor in an artistic capacity rather than a didactic or simply intellectual one.
The author makes an interesting point about the fringe activities, however; similarly, many of the most interesting and vital expressions of art tend to be found in the fringe exhibitions of the Art Biennale. So there is hope, that a new way forward may be found instead of the tired sterility of what these main events have become.

Remote working and online shopping have made many city centre commercial and retail properties obsolete. At the same time we have a pressing need for more brown-field residential property.
I would have thought re-designing the urban environment to make this transformation possible would be a good way to occupy this growing cadre of underemployed architects.
As opposed to wasting their time on adolescent agit-prop.

Architecture should be about designing buildings that are pleasing to look at and will remain standing for hundreds of years and sufficiently adaptable to be reused for different purposes as the original purpose becomes redundant.

Sadly modern architects seem to have given up on pursuing such objectives. Either their buildings are not attractive or where they venture into an imaginative approach from an aesthetic point of view the resulting building is incapable of meeting the test of time.

The National Glass Centre in Sunderland is a case in point. It functions well as an exhibition and workshop space and is not unpleasant to look at but its design is so defective that after about 25 years from construction it is becoming increasingly unsafe and is now regarded as uneconomic to repair or restore so that its current fate seems to be permanent closure involving the loss of a significant museum and an appalling waste of money and resources.

I do not understand why the Biennale is not biennial as the word implies. Were this to be the case it is quite possible that the event would hold more significance to both presenter and viewer. As it happens quite a lot does happen around the main venue albeit that it’s necessary to seek the different venues all over Venice.

Who cares?