Decolonization will be the main theme of this year Architecture Biennale which will be inaugurated on Saturday, May 20, in Venice under the name “Laboratory of the Future” and in the bright presence of Mavri Epirou. A very smart choice if you consider the profile of the curator to be the most important architecture exhibition on a global level: this is Lesley Loko, one of Africa’s most vibrant voices and an iconic figure in architecture education with numerous initiatives on her resume (in 2020 she founded the African Futures Institute in her hometown, Accra, Ghana, PhD architecture and a platform for public dialogue and events). “What does it mean for an architect to be an agent of change in the modern world?” – Loko is perplexed in his opening speech. “An architectural exhibition is both a moment and a whole process. It borrows its structure and form from art exhibitions, but it differs in ways that often go unnoticed. Beyond the desire to tell a story, issues of production, resources, and representation should be central to how an architectural exhibition opens up to the world, but ultimately these aspects are rarely acknowledged as such or discussed. From the very beginning it was clear that the main gesture of our own central exhibition would be the question of “change”.

From this point of view, Kostis Panigiris (b. 1965, professor of architecture at the University of Thessaly) and o Andreas Nikolovgenis (b. 1988, assistant professor of architecture at the University of Ioannina), two Greeks architects who will represent us at the Biennale perfectly matched the spirit of this year’s exhibition. “Water projects are collective liberation projects in the sense that they keep local communities alive,” they say “K” during a break from their intense training to set up the Greek pavilion in time. “They supply them with drinking water, irrigate their fields and produce wealth from agricultural products, while on a larger scale they have produced and are producing energy for the entire territory. . This is how they create the conditions for our collective liberation.”

In “Water Objects”, as their proposal is called, they will present the dams and reservoirs that have changed the country (back in the 30s) with an extensive and collective water retention program providing irrigation, water supply and energy. What application can the Greek “experiment” of the 20th century have in the modern world in the face of climate change, and also at a time when architecture is looking for a new, more constructive social role? “Water projects at all times, but especially today when combined with other sources of clean energy production,” they explain, “contribute to the production of energy from “local” materials, usually inexhaustible, which drastically reduces the environmental and economic footprint of imports and transportation. energy. The opportunities for small scale projects and small local interventions dotted across the Greek landscape further reinforce the above argument.” And they add: “The architecture of waterworks is public in the sense that it answers the question of the life of all people, just as the wall in the Roman era answered the question of general security.

Life is a comprehensive concept that also includes sustainability. Thus, these projects provide an opportunity to re-discuss public architecture in the form of infrastructure, community projects and in the new context of a rural area that is intensively urbanized without planning.”

Water projects are collective liberation projects in the sense that they keep local communities alive.

Kiosk

In terms of representation of the proposal, Water Features will feature three main areas: a set of plinths that will feature pieces of reclaimed land from water retention projects with recycled corrugated board models, a narrative area on the walls with historical and new photographs and drawings, and finally through a number of models of reservoirs, containers made of overlapping glass rings, in the dark interior of the pavilion.