​The Nordic Participation at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

In 2016 ArkDes (Sweden) will be in charge of organizing the Nordic exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia. The international architecture biennale, arranged every two years, is considered the foremost architecture arena in the world in which inspiring ideas and thoughts from architects in more than sixty participating countries are presented as contributions and reflections to the discourse. In line with the biennale, the exhibition will take place from the 28th May to the 27th November 2016.

The Nordic contribution will be presented in the Nordic Pavilion, a space designed by Sverre Fehn in the 1960s and co-owned by Finland, Norway and Sweden. In the same way, the Nordic participation in the Venice mostra is also a collaboration between the Museum of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki, the National Museum’s Department of Architecture, Oslo, and ArkDes – the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, Stockholm.

The Exhibition Theme
Architect and Editor David Basulto has been appointed as the Curator of the Nordic contribution for 2016. The exhibition will connect to the biennale’s artistic director Alejandro Aravena's overarching theme ‘Reporting from the Front’ by using Nordic society as a springboard to understand future challenges which architecture and the design of the built environment must meet.

An open call for projects will be launched imminently, with the intention to gather vital and relevant contemporary projects from Finland, Norway and Sweden that have shaped (or are shaping) society and have aided (or are aiding) in the process of understanding collective upcoming challenges.

According to Basulto, the exhibition will:

shine a psychoanalytical, inward light on Nordic society through architecture, helping to formulate the questions that can help us to reflect on and understand this particular moment in Nordic architecture in order to propose a direction to advance towards its full potential.

Using the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs as an analytical and observational lens, the exhibition will explore and investigate the projects that have been instrumental in constructing contemporary Nordic society and, from this analysis, discuss the questions that society and architecture need to find solutions to in order to progress.

About the curator
David Basulto is an Architect, founder and Editor-in-Chief of ArchDaily and its network of global sites in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese. ArchDaily is heavily focused on emerging countries and the rapid developmental processes they face by providing inspiration, knowledge and tools to architects through a global platform. In 2013, ArchDaily received the National Award for Innovation from the Chilean Government.

Basulto is a graduate architect from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and has lectured across the world at institutions including the Harvard Graduate School of Design (Boston), the Escola do Cidade (Sao Paulo), Tsinghua University (Beijing), and the Strelka Institute (Moscow). He has also participated as a Curator and Editor at a number of architecture biennales, exhibitions, and magazines, and as a jury member for design competitions and architecture awards. He recently moderated the 2015 Alvar Aalto Symposium in Finland.

Information
For more information please contact Sandra Nolgren, sandra.nolgren@arkdes.se / +46 (0)8 5275 4630