The curators of the U.S. Pavilion for the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale has unveiled OfficeUS, a “radical experiment” that explores the ways in which “space, structures, and protocols of the U.S. architectural office” have influenced the construction of Modernity.
New York based architects Leong Leong, graphic designer Natasha Jen (Pentagram) and technology consultants at CASE have been commissioned to re-design the U.S. Pavilion in Venice’s Giardini as a modern architectural practice. Eight architects will be selected from an international open call to serve as the ad-hoc practice’s acting principles, collaborating with 90 satellite offices from around the world to revisit and re-envision historical projects from an onsite archive of 1,000 buildings so that they may construct an agenda for the future production of architecture.
"Taking history as its foundational ground, we envision OfficeUS not just as an exhibition, but as the first headquarters for a new model of global architectural production. In these ways, OfficeUS is an anti-exhibition, it turns the pavilion from presentation to demonstration. We are setting a stage for the architects and visitors to address and respond to the most pressing architectural anxieties of the last one hundred years," say curators Eva Franch i Gilabert, Ana Miljački and Ashley Schafer.
OfficeUS is commissioned by Storefront for Art and Architecture, on behalf of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The project is developed in collaboration with PRAXIS journal and with students from MIT's Department of Architecture and the Knowlton School at The Ohio State University.
Partner Lars Müller plans to publish four catalogs about the exhibition, following the conclusion of the 25 week Biennale.
Learn how you can participate in OfficeUS, here.
