For the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The Albanian Pavilion set out to respond to the theme “The Laboratory of the Future” with the exhibition “Untimely Meditations or: How We Learn to Live in Synthesized Realities.” The project seeks to introduce and understand new typologies of civic spaces by repurposing the rendering engine as a mechanism for exploration. The curatorial team is composed of architects Martin Gjoleka, and Era Merkuri, exhibiting together with architect Ani Marku and 3D digital artist Geraldo Prendushi.
The concept for the exhibition starts from a series of observations made in two civic spaces in Tirana: an empty stadium and an artificial lake, both derelict. It then extrapolates from these experiences to examine global issues such as the role of digital transformations and climate crisis. The connection between humans, the environment, and technology is explored through the various possibilities of occupancy in these forgotten civic spaces.
Using the lake as an origin point, and the stadium as a reference point, the exhibition invites visitors to explore civic spaces through a series of engaging meditations and activities spanning the entire six-month exhibition period. To navigate the complexities of these spaces, the curators propose the use of computing machines as a new medium for holistic storytelling and play. Computer rendering has often been used as a speculative tool, a device for selling a sanitized version of a future lifestyle. The team behind the pavilion aims to move beyond these uses, trying to understand the ways in which renderings and digital doubles can inform and influence the physical world.
Related Article
Lesley Lokko on the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale: "I Hope It Provokes the Audience to Think Differently and More Empathetically"Working in collaboration with universities and interdisciplinary experts such as cosmologists, philosophers, architects, planners, artists, policymakers, and anthropologists, the project proposes a series of workshops to build upon the exhibited work. These exercises will encourage students and visitors to expand the field to explore other sites in the city, leading to the co-production of an authentic and comprehensive map of the city. Organized table talks and dining lectures complete the image of the proposal, adding insightful perspectives on the boundary between the natural and the artificial landscape.
The exploration of virtual realities and their impact on physical environments has been a recurring theme in the way other national pavilions responded to curator Lesley Lokko’s chosen theme of The Laboratory of the Future. The Polish Pavilion aims to allow visitors to experience data in physical form through their exhibition titled “Datament.” Japan’s Pavilion centers on the post-pandemic tendency to build faceless developments, questioning how people can find amazement in architecture and joy in shared physical spaces, while the Singapore Pavilion presents an interactive exhibition striving to measure the immeasurable qualities of our cities.
