1 press image available

Architecture fans from all over the world will be heading for Italy at the end of August for the twelfth Venice Architecture Biennale. The installation in the Dutch pavilion shows that architecture can contribute to pinpointing and solving the complex challenges facing the world at the moment. The exhibition will be presented by the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) and curated by Rietveld Landscape. The Biennale will be held from 29 August to 21 November 2010.

There are major opportunities in the discipline of architecture: opportunities to solve complex global problems, opportunities to create a better environment, opportunities, in short, that designers all over the world have to seize with both hands. That is why the NAI initiative Architecture of Consequence is calling for architecture that is not only functional and aesthetic but that also comes up with solutions to the major issues of our time. The Venice Architecture Biennale, where the whole international architectural community meets once every two years, is the ideal platform for that message.

NAI and Rietveld Landscape
The NAI has invited Rietveld Landscape to curate the exhibition. The firm, which won the Prix de Rome Architecture in 2006, is looking for architectural answers to important social problems: flooding, ongoing urbanisation, extreme rainfall and drought, ecology and sustainability, infrastructure, and the changing significance of the public domain. The firm describes its designs as carefully chosen strategic interventions in the urban or rural setting to get the desired developments going. Rietveld Landscape takes advantage of the force of large-scale developments and processes to give existing qualities a new context and meaning. By joining forces and crossing disciplinary boundaries, it achieves innovation – a design attitude that corresponds to the architectural practice formulated in the innovation agenda of Architecture of Consequence.

Rietveld Landscape has been invited to make a statement in the Dutch pavilion about the potential of landscape architecture, urban planning and the public domain. The purpose? To inspire and stimulate principals and policymakers to make the fullest use of the potential of the design profession and thereby to come closer to solving the major social issues.

Ronald Rietveld (Rietveld Landscape): ‘The real opportunities for change often lie at a higher scale level (for example regional, national or international), or follow on from the long-term ambitions of the principal.’

Twelfth edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale
This year the artistic direction of the Venice Architecture Biennale is in the hands of the Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA). The overarching theme is 'People meet in architecture', in which Sejima raises the question of the quality of architecture in relation to society.
Kazuyo Sejima: ‘The idea is to help people relate to architecture, help architecture relate to people, and help people relate to themselves.’

For more information go to: www.architecureofconsequence.nl, www.rietveldlandscape.nl

The Dutch entry will be presented by the Netherlands Architecture Institute on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.

Note for the editor
For more information please contact Elsbeth Grievink, press officer for the Dutch entry to the Venice Architecture Biennale: +31 648266077 / mail@elsbethgrievink.nl.