Publisher: Archis December 2018, ISBN: 9789077966648 Format: Softcover newsprint-magazine, 112pp 240 x 330mm
The biennial as format and phenomenon was declared dead or obsolete time and again, it was discarded as commercial, promotional, touristic, capitalistic, wasteful, white supremacist, and what not. In the end, that is not the issue. The issue is the tension between expectations and pretension, between agency and result.
Volume 54 looks at what biennials promise and what we actually get; they look at who is pulling the strings and for whom they are made. But first and foremost they check what a biennial can do.
Next to the biennials in general with a focus on architecture and design biennials we are zooming in on the Shenzhen Biennale. In UABB 01-07 supplement we look back at seven biennials, their goals and how they transformed the city.
This issue features contributions by Charles Esche, Ole Bouman, Léa-Catherine Szacka, Brendan Cormier, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Francesco Degl’Innocenti, Gabrielle de Vietri, Marina Otero Verzier, Deniz Ova, dpr-barcelona, Tinatin Gurgenidze.
Volume is an independent magazine that sets the agenda for architecture and design. Created as a global idea platform to voice architecture any way, anywhere, anytime, it represents the expansion of architectural territories and the new mandate for design.