This year’s Venice Biennale, the 11th International Architecture Exhibition titled “Out There: Architecture Beyond Building” and scheduled to open September 11, 2008, will feature a prominent, stand-alone landscape architecture project that promises to shine a significant and dramatic light on the profession on a global scale.
While landscape architecture projects have been included in past exhibitions at this highly visible and respected event, this year’s project by Gustafson Porter and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, in keeping with the event’s theme, steps outside the exhibit halls to occupy a significant piece of land.
The Biennale typically attracts well in excess of 100,000 visitors, including a huge press contingent that results in coverage across the media spectrum. The “Toward Paradise” site will be located within the grounds of the church of Santa Maria delle Vergini, a Benedictine nunnery founded in 1205 and demolished in 1869.
The firms have sent out a call for both financial patrons to help finance the project and supporters willing to donate time and materials to the installation. (To learn more, contact Anne Hill, marketing coordinator at Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, at 206-903-6802 or anneh@ggnltd.com.) What kind of impact do you think such global design projects have on the public’s understanding of the profession?
