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Professor curates Luxembourg Pavilion at the Venice Biennale

  • Faculté des Sciences Humaines, des Sciences de l’Éducation et des Sciences Sociales (FHSE)
    Université / Administration centrale et Rectorat
    22 mai 2018
  • Catégorie
    Université

Florian Hertweck, professor in Architecture at the University of Luxembourg, and Andrea Rumpf, director of the Luxembourg Centre for Architecture (LUCA) are the curators of the Luxembourg’s Pavilion “The Architecture of the Common Ground Exhibition” at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.

The Biennale di Venezia is one of the most prestigious exhibition in Europe and the world. This year’s thematic concept “Freespace” focuses on the quality of space. The exhibition brings together 71 participants and 63 national pavilions, which show their interpretation of the theme in the two major exhibition areas “Arsenale” and “Giardini” and throughout the city of Venice.

After almost 20 years of participation, the Luxembourg Pavilion is hosted for the first time at the Arsenale, one of the two official exhibition areas of the Biennale. The pavilion features the exhibition “The Architecture of the Common Ground” which confronts the fact that, due to privatisation and land speculation, urban constructible land has become a scarce resource in many European cities.

“With “Architecture of the Common Ground” we are addressing one of the most pressing issues in urban planning. Many social and ecological challenges cities are facing right now are directly linked to the shortage of public land. Luxembourg is unfortunately one of the best examples for these negative developments in urban planning. The authorities are increasingly under pressure to make public land available,” explains Prof. Hertweck.

A spatial installation illustrates the current situation in Luxembourg where public authorities own only 8% of building land, whereas 92% is privately owned. Original and surprising design solutions from the history of architecture are positioned around the installation demonstrating to what extent architecture is able to address current political issues.

The University of Luxembourg displays two experiments, which bring together ideas and principles from the history of architecture and data from recent research conducted by an interdisciplinary team lead by Danièle Waldmann from the university’s research unit in Engineering Sciences, experts from the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), and the university’s Master in Architecture students.

“Our scale models take into consideration the changing demographic situation in Luxembourg and propose innovating and flexible housing solutions adapted to today’s specific needs. We demonstrate that architectural design goes hand in hand with scientific research, which is also one of the central focuses of our Master in Architecture programme at the University of Luxembourg”, adds Prof. Hertweck. “The Biennale gives us the unique opportunity to showcase how creativity and design can help to solve real world problems”.

The 16th International Architecture Exhibition will be open to the public from 26 May to 25 November 2018. On 26 May, the Luxembourgish Prime Minister and Minister of Culture Xavier Bettel and invited guests will join the curator team for the official inauguration of the new pavilion in Venice.

You can visit the Luxembourg Pavillion in Venice until 25 November 2018.

More information :

www.labiennale.org

http://www.architecturebiennale.lu

Pictures: The curator team Florian Hertweck and Andrea Rumpf with Guy Arendt, Secretary of State for Culture / The Luxembourg Pavilion “Architecture of the Common Ground Exhibition”© LUCA Luxembourg Center for Architecture / Alberto Sinigaglia – OpFot