Architecture Biennale: sharing wins against fear

(ANSA) - ROME, FEBRUARY 27 - From his studio in Los Angeles, surrounded by young collaborators from all over the world, Hashim Sarkis presents the 2020 Biennale. His presence in Venice today is postponed due to coronavirus, from the lagoon city the outgoing president Paolo Baratta has just introduced the exposure also in streaming. Yet the dominant word of this edition, the most repeated, is together, "together". It is in sharing the principles, the horizons and the projects that face the problems and also the changes and fears of our time, suggests Baratta and confirms the architect of Lebanese origins on the other side of the ocean, always interested in the theme of inequalities social issues, inclusion issues, environmental emergencies. "We need a new space contract", Sarkis repeats, while exhibiting the model of the 2020 Biennale, anticipates the sections, explains how the visit will be structured. How will welive together ?, the question that gives this edition its title, "is such a social and political quantum space question". The architect quotes Aristotle "when he asked this question to define politics, he proposed the city model".
Each generation, he underlines, has answered this question in a different way, but today's problems make the question "even more urgent and on different levels than in the past", "more than ever architects are called to propose alternatives". A concept that from Venice reaffirmed, introducing it, Baratta speaking of architecture as "a reference of a vast interdisciplinary commitment and of a vast cultural and political commitment. A sort of call to alliance". The changes underway call for "new visions and new projects". The exhibition that - epidemic permitting - can be visited in the lagoon from 23 May to 29 November will respond to these challenges of living in relationship with the others around you. To inaugurate it, instead of Baratta, who leaves after years, there will be the successor Roberto Cicutto (also luioggi is not in Venice due to the emergency of these days). Barattalo thanks now. (HANDLE).