British Pavilion Research Articles

Curatorial practices and ‘intrinsically English’ art: The British pavilion at the Venice Biennale

ABSTRACT British artists have been a constant presence at the Venice Biennale from the very beginning in 1895, installed in the only existing pavilion alongside others international artists. In 1909, a dedicated British Pavilion was built in the Saint Elena Gardens. This paper charts the development of the British curatorial choices that have taken place at the Biennale since its outset. Rather than being a chronological history, it deals with aspects of power concerning the relationship between the authority of the British Pavilion's curatorial practices and those of the Biennale's curators and institution. The text highlights the peculiar political and managerial situation of the Venice Biennale, one that creates three levels of power confrontations. The first is between the structures of the Italian institution and those of the British Pavilion; the second is between the British government and the curators of its pavilion; and the third is between the curatorial choices taking place as part of the British Pavilion and those of other pavilions. This case study, which makes use of unpublished documents, highlights the singularities and commonalities of British curatorial practices at the Venice Biennale and offers the opportunity to reveal dialogues and tensions.

Between Daedalus and Ariadne

This paper investigates the hidden body in architectural education, and the importance of place over space (Ingold, 2012), through three body, architecture, and movement research projects, where explicitly, at the centre of the architectural investigation, is the body. In the first research project, a mapping of the body in a social environment; in the second, an environmental and spatial audit of the places of drowning across the South West of the UK for the RNLI, reveals the mental and physical pressures that the body can be under; and thirdly, an installation project in the British Pavilion in Venice, which exhibits an experiential journey of mutability between architecture and the body. The position and context of the mythological Ariadne (Colomina, 2011) versus Daedalus (McEwen, 1994) as either architect or choreographer is graduated across the projects set with the ecological context of Guattari’s, ‘Three Ecologies’ (1989)

State of the Union - The Home Nations at the 56th Venice Biennale.

La Biennale di Venezia, Giardini and Arsenale venues, Venice 9 May 2015 — 22 Nov 2015 www.labiennale.org In the middle of the vernissage for the Venice Biennale I received an email from my sister: ‘I saw the BBC article about the British pavilion which sounded like it was just going for shock value, but what was it really like?’ It’s not hard to see where these opinions about the Sarah Lucas show come from. As you walk along the main boulevard of the Giardini and approach the pavilion you are confronted at the top of the steps by Gold Cup Maradona reclining leisurely with a 20ft phallus in bright yellow. All the walls are painted in the same colour and in each room naked, plaster figures cast from the waist down (literally topless) recline on tables, or in one case, on a chest freezer, with single cigarettes poking out of whichever orifice is on show. All very ‘shocking’ but, as ever, there is more to the show than meets the eye. Lucas came to prominence in the early 1990s as one of the Young British Artists (YBAs), good friends with Tracey Emin, they were …

On Steve McQueen’s Giardini and the Follies of Nations

Steve McQueen’s Giardini (2009) was a film installation made specifically for the British pavilion at the 53rd Biennale. It pondered the architectural and ideological grounds of Venice’s ageing institution of art. Filmed in the winter, the Giardini della Biennale were made to appear derelict, abandoned by the summer exposition crowds and left to the effects of nature. Viewers were positioned within a heritage of ruin-gazing that extends back through the picturesque tradition, and which had been familiar to the Venice of Englishmen such as Byron, Turner and Ruskin. In this film, the national pavilions took on the character of so many follies, in a proleptic fantasy or ‘fairytale’ that challenged a line of imperial imaginaries handed down from Scipio, Gibbon and Speer.

Intuitive Material Distributions

AbstractPanagiotis Michalatos and Sawako Kaijima describe how the Optimisation Design team at Adams Kara Taylor (AKT) work with mathematical algorithms to develop interactive software applicatons that help inform structural behaviour in the early parts of the design process. This is exemplified by the project‐specific software they developed for Thomas Heatherwick's British Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Acrylic Spike Design of British Pavilion, 2010 EXPO

Innovative architectural acrylic spike application leads to a great challenge for structural engineers for the structural design of Shanghai Expo British pavilion. A set of mechanical properties has been proposed to provide a reference for the application of acrylic material in structure design area. The wind tunnel, fatigue and creep tests and research for acrylic spike were carried out to determine the wind load effect of spike and ensure that the spikes are not damaged under fatigue and creep effects during 1.5 years service period.

Framing the outdoors: landscape and land art in Britain, 1973–1977

With the formation of the first sculpture parks in Britain in the 1970s, the gallery roof was lifted off — in both the literal and figurative sense — so that works of art could be displayed and exp...

Relaxed and Comfortable: The Australian Pavilion at Expo '67

Expo ’67, Montreal, was the first international exhibition Australia had attended since the 1939 New York World’s Fair. In New York, Australia promoted its export industries in timber and wool in an annex next to the British pavilion. In Montreal, Australia contributed its own major pavilion, a simple, rectangular box of glass and steel. Inside, the pavilion contained few actual exhibits. The main feature of its spacious interior was a salon-style arrangement of two hundred and forty lounge chairs created by the Australian designers Grant and Mary Featherston from an idea by the exhibit designer Robin Boyd. Visitors sat in the chairs to activate short, taped interviews with prominent Australians on aspects of Australian life and achievement, delivered though stereophonic speakers in the chairs’ headrests. Occasional tables stood nearby, bearing books on Australian society and ashtrays of a modern Australian design. One wall of the main exhibition hall featured a row of modernist paintings by leading Australian artists. Natural light streamed into the pavilion through its glazed north and south faces, which provided sweeping views across the exhibition site. Quality Australian wool carpet covered the pavilion’s floors and some internal walls, muffling incoming noise and adding to the general feeling of repose. Aspects of the pavilion’s interior suggest a range of architectural types: a hotel lobby, a corporate foyer, a gallery of modern art, and the living room of a large, modern home. The priority of modern design over specific symbols of Australian nationhood was unprecedented, its origin was in the government’s newfound eagerness to stress Australia’s modernization. Such progress was emphasized in Prime Minister Harold Holt’s four-minute interview on industrialization as a significant but little known feature of contemporary Australia. When questioned on the scale of Australian manufacturing in comparison to its more familiar rural sector, Holt described employment in industry as roughly equivalent to the USA, and higher than other recognized industrial nations such as Canada, France, and Japan.1 He identified Australia’s automobile, electrical, engineering, petroleum, mining, and steel industries as all experiencing rapid growth since 1939, and being “much more advanced and sophisticated than most people would realize.”2 The Prime Minister highlighted Australian inventions such as transistorized aviation beacons, radio telephone equipment, a 1 “Expo 67 Sound Chair Scripts. Notes for Interview with Prime Minister—Final Reading Text,” undated, National Archives of Australia (NAA): A463/1966/2141: 1. 2 Ibid., 3. © 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The British Pavilion at Expo '67: Art, Architecture and National Identity

The British architect Sir Basil Spence designed the British pavilion at Expo '67 in a style which controversially combined elements of national identity with the innovative use of steel-framing and asbestos sheeting. The design departed from orthodoxy and was seen by reviewers more as sculpture than architecture. In realising the design Spence worked with a firm of architects based in Montreal and associated with McGill University, where they were also members of the architecture faculty. The first part of the article explores the ideological basis for the Spence design, its cultural and artistic references, the collaboration with artists, and finally the mechanisms (including construction) employed to bring the design to fruition. The second part investigates the responses to the British pavilion comparing the opinions expressed in Canada to those in the UK, and contrasting popular reaction to comments in the architectural press. Finally, the article reflects upon Expo as a place of design experimentation and the role the Spence pavilion played in this. The paper speculates that one of the first expressions of postmodernism in architecture is to be found at Expo '67.

David Adjaye: houses: recycling, reconfiguring, rebuilding

David Adjaye is the most exciting and accomplished young architect to emerge on the international scene in many years. The combination of material inventiveness, creative clients and modest budgets has produced a refined and comprehensive body of design work - and Adjaye is only 38 years old. He was born in Tanzania the son of a diplomat, and his wide-ranging education, both cultural and formal, has allowed him to respond deftly to wildly differing projects, from gritty urban contexts - such as London's Whitechapel multimedia centre and an extension for New York's New Museum - to elegant pastoral retreats in more natural surroundings. The innovation in Adjaye's career is exemplified in his residential works for a wide variety of clients and budgets. Perhaps his best-known projects are the houses he has created in a range of settings for such creatives as artist Chris Ofili and actor Ewan McGregor. The winner of a competition to design a new building for the Nobel Foundation and the architect of the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Adjaye is currently enjoying enormous worldwide attention in both specialist and journalistic presses. This publication, his first monograph and an object of beauty in its own right, is a timely celebration of a young talent at the height - and yet at the beginning - of his creative powers.

The British pavilion in the Expo'92 world fair in Seville

This article contains the description of the composition and functioning of the glazed facade of the British pavilion in the EXPO'92 World Fair in Seville. A panel of 70x 18 m serves as a base for a large waterfall which will soothe the heat of Seville. The dimensions of the glass pieces are 2.5x1.8 m and they are 12 mm thick with a small spotted weft occupying 20% of the surface. The structural silicone is the only unifying element used. The hanging structure, to which the panels are tied, is reticulate and is composed of: Vertical ties of 8 mm of diameter, horizontal aluminium profiles, bracing pieces made of stainless stell and fitting pieces in the upper part. Another prominent feature of this facade is the integration of the whole system of pipework and tubes necessary for the functioning of the waterfall.