Arhitectura 3/2023 (705)

The July issue of Arhitectura is a plea for a world that can only change through education. We set out to convince our readers that the Venice Architecture Biennale is worth seeing every year, to be inspired by the wealth of ideas, the unexpected answers and to enjoy the charm of the lagoon.

Why go to Venice? Why read about the Biennale? Why not? This year's Venice Architecture Biennale has this year's theme The Laboratory of the Future, with Africa seen as a place of origin of mankind as its sub-theme and curator Lesley Lokko, Scottish-born, Ghanaian-born, London-trained architect, teacher and initiator of architecture schools in Europe, America and South Africa. Author of 11 novels and a correspondent for the Architectural Review, Lesley curated this edition with the idea that "it is not possible to build a better world if you can't imagine it first". 19.5 million Africans live outside of the African continent, bringing with them a culture and way of living that this biennial speaks to. Lesley has invited small offices of young architects residing in Africa or the Diaspora to exhibit in the central exhibitions in the Arsenale and Giardini. The average age of these architects is no more than 43. The offices are made up of one, two or three people at most, and the larger ones are chosen on the basis of their concern for education. "Major Force" and "Dangerous Liaisons" are the themes under which these offices exhibit, while the 37 special curatorial projects address two other themes simultaneously: decolonization and decarbonization. The exhibition is a very heterogeneous jigsaw puzzle: Alvar Alto exhibits wood sculpture at the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore in Palazzo Franchetti, the Kengo Kuma retrospective is a plea for the intimate connection between language and architectural language. Norman Foster brings a revolutionary emergency shelter project. For the first time in 500 years, the Old Procurations are open to the public and restored by David Chipperfield Architects Milan.The Romanian Pavilion is an accelerator of ideas that starts with inventions from the recent past and brings to the fore 100 visionary, participatory projects, a response from multiple disciplines to the problems facing Romanian society. Inspired by the proposal of the Romanian pavilion, we have in Arhitectura magazine an extensive material related to Henri Coandă's inventions on architectural themes. We invite you to discover new and little-known facts about prefabricated concrete and metal houses, cable transportation and the city of the future as Coandă imagined it.

The magazine does not propose these subjects with nostalgia for a glorious past now lost. These ideas are meant to be used as seeds that will germinate and grow in the future.