The Master’s Tools Will Not Dismantle the Master’s House
Lesley Lokko’s curation of the Central Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale offers a bright future.
Counteract, Kéré Architecture Image © Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy of la Biennale di Venezia
The Laboratory of the Future, the Eighteenth International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Architecture Biennale, is open through November 26.
Following the opening of the current Venice Biennale, plenty of representatives of architecture’s old guard have quietly (and not-so-quietly) criticized curator Lesley Lokko for, in the words of Patrik Schumacher, “not showing any architecture.” The Zaha Hadid Architects principal seems to have been referring to the shiny images and models of finished buildings that have dominated previous incarnations of the Biennale. But Lokko’s curation doesn’t turn its back on architecture. Rather, it places it under almost unbearable scrutiny, forcing an examination of both the practice of architecture and the production of buildings.
The term “radical” is often over (and mis-) used, but here its literal meaning rings true: this Biennale comes from a different root. It is not asking for a nudge of the status quo, but rather demanding a wholesale dismantling of the previous colonial, capitalist, and patriar…
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