Past

20 May – 26 November 2023, _docks_cantieri cucchini

A Fragile Correspon­dence

The  Scotland + Venice partnership is delighted to announce that A Fragile Correspondence is one of the collateral events for the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia at the Arsenale Docks, S. Pietro di Castello, Venice. Curated by the Architecture Fringe, -ism, and /other, A Fragile Correspondence responds to Biennale curator Lesley Lokko’s theme of The Laboratory of the Future.

 

About the Exhibition
Team image by Matthew Arthur Williams. The creative team – from left to right: Amy McEwan, Aoife Nolan, Carl Jonsson, Neil McGuire, Mia Pinder-Hussein, Kristina Enberg, Alissar Riachi, Alyesha Choudhury and Andy Summers. Representing each collective is: Neil McGuire and Andy Summers for the Architecture Fringe, Kristina Enberg, Amy McEwan, Aoife Nolan, Alissar Riachi for ism magazine, and Alyesha Choudhury, Carl C.Z. Jonsson and Mia Pinder-Hussein for /other (pronounced: slash other).
Representatives of Architecture Fringe, ism magazine and slash other stand in a high ceilinged, light filled room

Scotland + Venice 2021 for the 17th International Architecture Exhibition

22 May – 21 November 2021, V&A Dundee

What if…?/ Scotland

What if…?/Scotland responds to the Biennale’s theme How will we live together?, seeking to re-engage the civic role of architects and designers by asking citizens from across Scotland to share their hopes and dreams for the future of the places they call home. 7N paired 25 people from 5 places across Scotland with 25 designers, architects, and artists – to share their hopes and dreams for the future of the place where they live. The architects and designers then used these wishes to begin exploring imaginative ideas in response to the community challenges being faced.

About the Exhibition
Participants in Annan workshop, collaborating with Beautiful Materials to explore the High Street. Image by Bash Art Creative

Scotland + Venice 2018 for the 16th International Architecture Exhibition

22 May – 17 November 2018, Palazzo Zenobio

The Happen­stance

The Happenstance was Scotland + Venice response to Grafton Architects theme of Freespace. In the garden of Palazzo Zenobio, WAVEparticle curated an active archive around a boardwalk-cum-climbing frame designed by Baxendale. The Happenstance engaged with people of all ages, encouraging everyone into a vital relationship with the built environment through adding to the structure and staging their own events (over 60), demonstrating and gathering what can be built using play as an active agent within the process of rethinking and reclaiming Freespace. Elements of The Happenstance were exhibited in Scotland along with a series of aligned events.

About the Exhibition
WAVEparticle

Scotland + Venice 2016 for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition

1 January, Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice

Prospect North

Prospect North delivered an interactive exhibition exploring 15 community projects throughout Scotland and Scotland’s relationship with its northern neighbours with a focus on people and place. A micro to macro approach delivered a series of innovative mapping strategies, individual narratives, portraits and evocative imagery, highlighting Scotland’s place and identity within an economically emerging northern region. It then toured to three major venues in Scotland and to the Arctic Circle conference in Reykjavik. A smaller version was produced to tour to communities in Scotland.

About the Exhibition
Prospect North
Art installation in a religious building

Scotland + Venice 2014 for the 14th International Architecture Exhibition

1 September – 1 October 2014, Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice and Giardini

Past + Future

Curated by Reiach and Hall, Past + Future saw four groups research modernity in Scotland. In response to the theme Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014, Scotland + Venice was concerned with undertaking fragments of research, aimed primarily at opening up debate within Scotland about what a modern architecture was and what it might be? A series of publication were distributed in Venice and Scotland. Past + Future continue the event-based approach that established itself as the hallmark of a distinctive Scottish presence in Venice during the Architecture Biennale.  A series of events were also run in Scotland on its return.

About the Exhibition
Past + Future
A group of people sitting down watching a presentation

Scotland + Venice 2012 for the 13th International Architecture Exhibition

1 June – 1 June 2012, Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice and Venice wide

Critical Dialogues

Curated by Jonathan Charlie, Critical Dialogues saw four Glasgow-based practices created a Scottish ‘studio’ in Venice to explore the social role of the architect and the creative boundaries of architecture. Organised as a week-long series of events that took place within the public realm, Critical Dialogues was planned as a sequence of actions that engaged with overlooked and marginalised places and social organisations. Each practice developed a methodological tool kit that was adaptable and playful, so that in principle any one of the projects could be transferred and repeated in other locations.

About the Exhibition
Stone Opera
A structure made of cardboard being made by people in high vis

Scotland + Venice 2010 for the 12th International Architecture Exhibition

1 November, Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice

To Have and to Hold

The premier of Murray Grigor’s Space and Light Revisited was presented as a split screen film of St Peter’s Seminary –  the original film shot in 1972 as working seminary and a recreated shot-for-shot in 2009 as a ruin. NVA’s To Have and to Hold round table discussion enabled a high level of international engagement and marked a step change in developing a strong and distinctive Scottish presence and the many potential benefits through an engagement-based approach rather than pre-prepared exhibitions.

About the Exhibition
An exhibition featuring wooden panels with photography of landscapes on them

Scotland + Venice 2008 for the 11th International Architecture Exhibition

1 June – 1 June 2008, Piazzale della Stazione Santa Maria

A Gathering Space

Sited outside the main railway station opposite the Grand Canal, the 7m-high wooden structure created from sustainable materials, including Scots larch, showcased Scottish design and construction. It provided a temporary public forum for debate and discussion and  invited visitors to sit, pause and contemplate, and from the top offered a new perspective on the city A Gathering Space was the focus of a number of debates including New Regionalism in Architecture, Architecture Beyond Building, Architecture and Landscape and Transforming the urban landscape.

About the Exhibition
A Gathering Place
Large wooden structure with steps and people walking over

Scotland + Venice 2004 for the 11th International Architecture Exhibition

1 May – 1 October 2004, Arsenale

Landforms

Landforms exhibition presented 16 keynote architectural projects completed since the formation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. The Biennale theme of Metamorph is of particular relevance to Scotland in showing how architecture both reflects and acts as a catalyst for political and cultural change. The projects reflected the variety of contemporary architecture emerging from the numerous Scottish landscapes and ranged from the Scottish Parliament by Catalan architect Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue Miralles, and in partnership with Scottish practice RMJM to An Turas on Tiree by Sutherland Hussey. The exhibition toured to Scotland, Spain, France and the Netherlands.

About the Exhibition
NORD, Landforms
Large exhibition space in an old building