UPDATE: We've added our interview with Jimenez Lai.
Jimenez Lai, leader of Bureau Spectacular and curator of Taiwan's Pavilion for the 2014 Venice Biennale, claims that "domesticity is possibly one of the origins of architecture" and that "the standardization of the domestic program was...a very modern development." Thus, Lai built nine single-program houses within the Palazzo della Prigioni, each dedicated to one specific domestic act--such as sleeping, eating, etc. The result is a vibrant, colorful response to Rem Koolhaas' unifying theme: "Absorbing Modernity."
Township of Domestic Parts: Made in Taiwan, delves into the part-to-whole relationship and political implications of our domestic lives. But Lai also believes that, from this relationship, we can learn something about the way that cities function. See more images from the exhibition and read on for the curator's statement.
From Curator Jimenez Lai. The experience of meandering through the Venice Biennale is not dissimilar from the journeys of Le Petit Prince - one wanders amidst a river of inquisitive souls, transporting themselves from the worlds to the worlds. In this proposal, we welcome the international sea of meandering guests into our home - an oasis, a temporary set, or a guesthouse - but a private diagram of domesticity inverted as public.
The 2014 Taiwan Pavilion is titled Township of Domestic Parts: Made in Taiwan. This pavilion is a collection of nine small houses, each with one single program. Scattered inside the Palazzo della Prigioni, it forms an interior township of misfit parts. Each house embodies one domestic program, such as the House of Sleep, or the House of Social Dining, so forth.
The 2014 Taiwan Pavilion is a direct response to the theme, "Fundamentals", as set up by Chief Curator Rem Koolhaas. We also responded to the other subtext, "Absorbing Modernity". We believe domesticity is one fundamental origin of architecture, and the compartmentalization of interior parts is a very modern concept. Therefore, instead of one single pavilion, the 2014 Taiwan Pavilion will be Nine Little Pavilions, allowing visitors to freely circulate inside, between and through-out the little city inside of the Palazzo della Prigioni.
Ideas such as ancestor's altar, and an open-air banquet become very central in the design concepts of the representation of Taiwanese culture, as well as the organization of the urbanism. We want the visit to Taiwan Pavilion to be an optimistic experience. This will become our home-away-from-home.
Design Team: Joanna Grant, Felipe Oropeza, Shun-Ping Liu, Kevin Pazik, and Jacob Comerci.
