Biennale and covid, Sarkis: "architecture is optimistic"

by Silvia Lambertucci (ANSA) - ROME, NOV 14 - Architecture is by its very nature "an optimistic discipline", accustomed to seeking solutions to offer to society, says Hashim Sarkis, also for this reason the work that is being carried out for the Architecture Biennale is planned for 2021 in Venice will aim to deliver us a message of hope at last. Interviewed by Luca Molinari for the debut of Sneak Peek, the initiative launched to approach the 17th International Architecture Exhibition, first postponed for a year due to Covid, the Lebanese-American architect called to curate it questions the paradoxical actuality of that title he had chosen before the pandemic ("How will we live together?" How will we live together?) a question that to reread it today seems almost a premonition. Ericorda as to move his project there was the awareness of a very serious crisis and well before the global tsunamiglobal Covid, or the climate alert from which, however, we will have to start again and that indeed, precisely in the light of what we are experiencing, will have to be addressed with choices in which architecture is also at the forefront. The theme of the climate, Sarkis anticipates, "will be very present" in his exhibition, declined in different ways by the many participants, who in these long months offered by the postponement are finalizing their his initial project, some even with the anxiety that the virus topic may end up limiting the horizons, scope and meaning of his project. (HANDLE).