International news

Golden Lion for Kenneth Frampton at the Venice Biennale 2018

International news

GOLDEN LION FOR KENNETH FRAMPTON AT THE VENICE BIENNALE 2018

text: Maria MĂNESCU

Kenneth Frampton

The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement will be awarded at this year's Venice Biennale to British architect, historian, critic and architecture professor Kenneth Frampton. The decision was taken by the Venice Biennale Committee, chaired by Paolo Baratta, on the recommendation of Biennale curators Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, Grafton Architects.
Frampton thus joins a long line of star architects honored with this award: Paolo Soleri, Renzo Piano, Jørn Utzon (2000), Toyo Ito (2002), Peter Eisenman (2004), Richard Rogers (2006), Frank Gehry (2008), Rem Koolhaas (2010), Álvaro Siza Vieira (2012), Phyllis Lambert (2014), Paulo Mendes da Rocha (2016).
Born in London in 1930, Frampton studied at the Architectural Association in London, then worked as an architect, critic and architectural historian. Before the 1960s, when he began teaching at Princeton, Frampton practiced architecture in London. This experience "made him more sympathetic and critical of different forms of practicing architecture" (Farrell and McNamara). He has taught at several prestigious schools, such as the ETH Zürich, the Royal College of Art in London, the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam, and since 1972 has been a professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP).
He is best known for his 1980 edited volume, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, which has become hugely influential over the years, a book that the Biennale's president says "should be known by every student of architecture".
But Frampton's contribution to architectural literature is about more than Modern Architecture (on whose expanded edition he is currently working, as he says in a telephone interview). In Towards a Critical Regionalism he advocates that architects reassess context, place and culture; in Studies on Tectonic Culture, he highlights the link between the languages of building and architecture; in A Genealogy of Modern Architecture: Comparative Critical Analysis of Built Form he reveals the "kitchen" of architectural projects, which thus become more accessible to a wider audience.
"Through his work, Kenneth Frampton occupies a position of extraordinary insight and great intelligence combined with a unique sense of integrity. He stands out as a voice of truth in promoting the key values of architecture and its role in society. His humanist philosophy in relation to architecture is concentrated in his written work, he consistently advocates the presence of the humanist component in all the various 'movements' and trends in architecture, often misguided in the 20th and 21st centuries" (Farrell and McNamara).
The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement will be presented to Sir Kenneth Frampton on May 26, 2018, during the official opening of the Venice Biennale, an event open to the public at the Biennale's headquarters in the Palazzo Ca' Giustinian.
"This year's Golden Lion goes to a 'maestro', and is also a recognition of the importance of the critical approach to architectural education" (Paolo Baratta, President of the Biennale).

Bibliography

https://www.archdaily.com/tag/golden-lion
https://archpaper.com/2018/04/kenneth-frampton-wins-golden-lion-lifetime-achievement/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/arts/design/venice-architecture-biennale-kenneth-frampton-golden-lion.html