The board of La Biennale di Venezia has just announced that Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena (b. 1967) will be the Director of the Architecture Section, with the responsibility for curating the 15th International Architecture Exhibition to be held from May 28th to November 27th 2016 .

Cover image: Alejandro Aravena (photo via http://www.indechs.org/ )



In its curator’s intentions, the 15th Architecture Biennale, entitled “Reporting from the front“, will focus on architecture intended as an instrument for improving the people’s quality of life, and will represent a comprehensive survey on how it’s possible to favor the public interest against selfish ones. Therefore, the biennial exhibition will highlight projects developed in extreme conditions, and designs completed despite scarcity of funding and resources.

On the occasion of his nomination, Alejandro Aravena has declared: “There are several battles that need to be won and several frontiers that need to be expanded in order to improve the quality of the built environment and consequently people’s quality of life. This is what we would like people to come and see at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition: success stories worth to be told and exemplary cases worth to be shared where architecture did, is and will make a difference in those battles and frontiers”.

Aravena is co-founder of the social housing initiative “Elemental“ and his work has been distinguished with several awards: the Design of the Year, (London Design Museum) 2015; 1st Prize of Zumtobel Global Award (Austria, 2014), World Green Building Council Chairman’s Award (USA, 2014), the 1st Prize Index Award (Denmark, 2011), Silver Medal Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction (Switzerland, 2011).

In 2016, Aravena has been awarded the prestigious Pritzker Prize, with the following explanation by the jury “He practices architecture as an artful endeavor in private commissions and in designs for the public realm and epitomizes the revival of a more socially engaged architect.”

UC Innovation Center by Chilean architectural practice Elemental | winner of architecture category of the Design of the year award, London, May 2015. Photo courtesy of Design Museum, London.

More info http://www.labiennale.org/en/Home.html