Laboratory of the Future or about a 2D Biennale

How do we exhibit architecture? A seemingly simple question, but put into practice, the whole approach becomes difficult. We have exhibitions-objects, in a perhaps traditional format, and exhibitions-experiences, in an installation-type format, plus variations in between. Both types convey ideas, thoughts, messages about architecture, albeit differently. For a few years now, it seems that the architecture area has been trying to convey its messages through exhibitions-experiences, installations, which are simpler to decode and sometimes more direct. On the other hand, for several years now, there has been a need for a return to a more analytical, research-oriented exhibition, a more analyzed and sustained approach, which seems to contradict the tendency of the dynamic wanderings of the public, always short of time, comfortable but in search of new ideas.
In a certain sense, this Biennale perhaps took the two directions to the extreme, because in many cases, whether it was an object or an experience exhibition, the language adopted was quite predictable, the ideas and messages responding variously to the general theme proposed by the Biennale curator - the Laboratory of the Future and Africa. In fact, the theme constituted a controversy, and not necessarily in a positive sense, the two ideas constructing a not very clear discourse, indicating a need for context, for locality through a contemporary colonialist critique. Unfortunately, few countries found themselves in this kind of discourse and, surprisingly, the pavilions of many extremely powerful countries responded timidly to such a constructed theme. Film projections, printed and pinned images on the wall, wallpaper-like images, dark spaces with projections predominated. The final feeling generated by the whole Biennale is that architecture is either retreating very much behind more up-to-date, more active and inquisitive disciplines, or that it is trying to return to its own subject matter, but more nuanced, more thoughtful, less polished, more contextual, more local. The opinions of some star architects that there is no architecture in this Biennale, at least in the pavilions of the countries that matter, are both naïve and truculent. The contrary views expose the fact that architecture is to be found and transmitted through small, minor gestures or other domains, without the need for the corporate and power discourse typical of architecture on a global scale. Somewhere in between the two views lies the truth, and this Biennale, through its constituted message, attempts to offer a different vision of contemporary architecture, which is becoming a favorite medium for collaboration, participation and engagement. What is shocking is this tendency of 2D, of texturization of spaces and messages, of forced and simplified flattening of both the expression and the curatorial message specific to the exhibitions. Certainly, in our opinion, the more interesting and complex exhibitions were more likely to have belonged to countries that are not in the cultural and architectural pole-position of the world. This Biennale shows how important it is to have a coherent, clear and relevant curatorial message for as many countries as possible.
The big disappointment has come from a few exhibitions, with the overuse of wood, in a context where the exhibitions represent countries that are ostensibly fighting for nature conservation, ecology, biodiversity and sustainability. It's a good thing that visitors have not seen the staging of these exhibitions, the absolutely barbaric way in which trees have been butchered on the spot to generate the components of those exhibitions. Sometimes invisible gestures or actions say many great and true things, and what we are lacking for the future, despite all the technologies implemented so far, is exactly the real education that makes the difference and makes us say stop the misuse of nature, respect the resources and the effort made so far. This is what Nelson Mandela expresses in an inspirational text, which is the basis of the curatorial concept of this year's Romanian pavilion: