Island, British Pavilion, Venice Biennale

In collaboration with Marcus Taylor Venice, Italy 2018

Client: The British Council

The biennial commission to curate the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale is awarded by the British Council. In 2018, the pavilion was curated by Caruso St John Architects together with the artist Marcus Taylor. The concept of the pavilion was a response to the Biennale curator’s theme of “Freespace”, and to the important questions and political context of the time.

The design involved constructing a builder’s scaffold around the pavilion and making a new public space on the roof, accessed by a large external stair and lift. At the roof space, just the tip of the pavilion’s roof was visible, suggesting a sunken world beneath. The pavilion itself was completely empty and apparently abandoned. The two spaces, on the roof and in the pavilion, hosted a programme of events including poetry, drama, music, performance, film, and architectural debates. All the other participating countries were invited to hold events at the British Pavilion. The following is an excerpt from the statement written by the curatorial team:
“There are many ways to interpret the experience of visiting the 2018 British Pavilion. An island can be a place of both refuge and exile. The state of the building – completely covered with scaffolding to support the new platform above – embraces many themes: climate change, abandonment, colonialism, Brexit, isolation, reconstruction and sanctuary. A simple interpretation would be to see the layout as demarcating an ‘above’ and a ‘below’, heaven and hell, the future and past. This was not the intention; at times the situation could be the reverse, with the abandoned pavilion becoming a sanctuary during oppressive heat or a storm. In the empty pavilion, the whole history of the place can be told. The galleries are resonant with the marks, stories and ideas of the exhibitors and audiences who have passed through at previous Biennales. The building itself – opened in 1897 as a tea house within the Giardini and adapted for use as the British Pavilion at the 1909 Biennale – represents a moment in time when the world was divided along colonial lines. It has stood through two world wars, fascism, the formation of the European Community, the fall of communism and, now, major concerns of climate change and the rise of sea levels – with Venice being a city more vulnerable than most. These are challenges for all of us; the way we build, design cities, consume and live our lives.”

Rooftop plan

East elevation

North elevation

Holy Rosary Church at Shettiballi, Karnataka, India

Henri Savigny and Alexandre Corréard, Plan of the Construction of the Raft

Johann Heinrich Ramberg, The Tempest, Act II, Scene 2, Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo dance on the seashore

Island, British Pavilion

Theodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa

Building under wooden scaffolding, Kampala. Uganda

Exhibition

Island

British Pavilion, 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Italy

26 May - 25 November 2018

Caruso St John and Marcus Taylor present Island, the British Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

Project: Island, British Pavilion, Venice Biennale

Exhibition

Island

British Pavilion, 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Italy

design.britishcouncil.org

Caruso St John Architects and artist Marcus Taylor will represent the UK at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, the British Council announced today. The project, entitled ‘Island’, engages with current political themes and responds to the theme of Freespace, set by Biennale curators Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects.

Project: Island, British Pavilion, Venice Biennale

Location
Venice, Italy

Date
2018

Client
The British Council

Caruso St John Architects
Adam Caruso, Peter St John

Project architect
Elena Balzarini

Project team
Thomas Back, Simon Davison, Georgi Georgiev

Collaborating architect
Marcus Taylor

Structural engineer
Zero4uno ingegneria s.r.l

Services engineer
Max Fordham LLP

Cost consultant
Turner & Townsend

Planning consultant
M+B studio s.r.l