Austrian Pavilion – Venice Biennale
LAAC Architects, Henke Schreieck Architects, Sagmeister & Walsh – Venice, Italy
Thoughts Form Matter – Spatial Installation Austrian Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2018
The Austrian Pavilion is principally perceived as a strictly symmetrical building. It was built in 1934 to a design by Josef Hoffmann and Robert Kramreiter. Twenty years later Hoffmann added a curved garden wall in the rear courtyard.
The spatial installation interprets this gesture as one of deviation, as a revolutionizing of one´s own design. Sphere 1:50.000 is a poetic mise-en-scene, a spatial deviation.
LAAC, Henke Schreieck and Sagmeister & Walsh are creating a conceptually and materially complex spatial installation which draws together inside and outside, vertical and horizontal, the historic pavilion and the language of contemporary architecture and design.
The Austrian contribution ‘Thoughts Form Matter’ is a plea for the power of architecture as an intellectual analysis of the world and for the freedom to design spaces that are not subject to functional and economic constraints.