Venice Architecture Biennale - 2016

Recently, the President of the Venice Biennale, Paolo Baratta, announced the appointment of Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena as director of the 15th edition of the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. Following the success of the 2014 edition, Fundamentals, curated by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, the Architecture Biennale will be open to the public for 6 months - May 28 to November 27, 2016 - and, according to the new curator, will focus on the link between quality of life and the built environment: "There are some battles to be won and some frontiers to be widened so that we improve the quality of the built environment and, as a consequence, the quality of people's lives."

"In the 15th edition of the Biennale we will dedicate ourselves to and learn from architecture that through intelligence, intuition or both at the same time we break out of the status quo. We will present cases which, despite difficulties, instead of resignation and bitterness, propose and realize something else. We want to show that in a permanent debate on the quality of the built environment lies not only the need, but also the opportunity to act", the Chilean architect, known worldwide for the work of his office Elemental and his participation in international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale, told the press conference.

The Romanian Union of Architects, together with the Romanian Order of Architects, will prepare and launch, together with the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Romanian Cultural Institute, the competition for Romania's participation in the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, with the pavilion in the Giardini della Biennale and the New Gallery of the Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice. The theme that will circumscribe the design concepts of the two Romanian exhibitions is FROM GREEN TO MORE GREEN - from the greenness of the Romanian household, through the grey period of socialist industrialization, to the current GREEN of renewable and non-polluting energies. The theme proposed by the Romanian committee of the Biennale is in line with the vision of Alejandro Aravena, but will also provide an opportunity to express how the "ethos" - in a broad but also paradoxical sense - of contemporary globalized society is imprinting Romanian architecture through projects and works that reflect the cultural landmarks of the built environment and communities and the need to break out of the patterns.