kazuyo sejima 'people meet in architecture'

theme for upcoming venice architecture biennale announced : 'people meet in architecture'.

54 countries participating in the 12th international architecture exhibition, which will be
held from august 29 to november 21, 2010.

traditionally, the architecture biennale opening date has been mid september; an earlier
date should allow many more people to attend the event at the giardini and at the arsenale
(and in various other venues in venice).

explaining her concept for the event, sejima said : 'the idea is to help people relate
to architecture, help architecture relate to people and help people relate to themselves.
there will be independent spaces for each architect or each theme, which means that
the participants will be their own curators. In this way contributors will design their
own space and make presentations that consider the experience of the visitor both
physically and conceptually. It will be a series of spaces rather than a series of objects.'

also, there will be greater involvement of the universities and a new
feature: 'the architecture saturdays'. it consist in a series of conversations, performances
and weekly discussions with architects, critics and personalities from the world of italian
and international architecture throughout the entire period of the exhibition. every saturday
there will be a meeting led, in addition to the director kazuyo sejima, by every director
of the former editions of the exhibition: vittorio gregotti (1975, 1976, 1978),
paolo portoghesi (1980, 1982, 1992), francesco dal co (1988, 1991), hans hollein (1996),
massimiliano fuksas (2000), deyan sudjic (2002), kurt w. forster (2004), richard burdett (2006),
and aaron betsky (2008).

venice
image © NASA’s Earth Observatory