Alejandro Aravena Appointed 2016 Venice Biennale Director
The Board of la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, has named Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, who heads the firm Elemental, as director of the 15th International Architecture Exhibition to be held from 28 May to 27 November 2016.
Aravena's apppointment comes two years after Rem Koolhaas's Fundamentals exhibition and four years after David Chipperfield's Common Ground exhibition in Venice. In a statement on the appointment, Paolo Baratta said:
Aravena first came to international attention with the Incremental social housing in Chile, which provided residents with a house half as large as the norm with an adjacent gap for them to fill in at a later date as money and resources became available. Among other notable buildings, since has realized the Siamese Towers in Santiago and the UC Innovation Center - Anacleto Angelini; the latter won a Design of the Year Award from the Design Museum in London.
On his appointment, Aravena said:
The 15th International Architecture Exhibition will be about focusing and learning from architectures that through intelligence, intuition or both of them at the same time, are able to escape the status quo. We would like to present cases that, despite the difficulties, instead of resignation or bitterness, propose and do something. We would like to show that in the permanent debate about the quality of the built environment, there is not only need but also room for action.