On Saturday, May 20, 2023, the opening of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia took place. At the event, the selection of the international jury for the Golden Lions and other awards of the exhibition was announced, which consisted of 5 members: Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli (jury president), Nora Akawi, Thelma Golden, Tau Tavengwa and Izabela Wieczorek.

Golden Lion for Best National Participation

The jury has awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation to Brazil »for a research exhibition and architectural intervention that center the philosophies and imaginaries of indigenous and black population towards modes of reparation.«

The curators Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares: »Our curatorial proposal is based on thinking of Brazil as earth. Earth as soil, fertilizer, ground and territory. But also earth in its global and cosmic sense, as planet and common house of all life, human and non-human. Earth as memory, and also as future, looking at the past and at heritage to expand the field of architecture in the face of the most pressing contemporary urban, territorial and environmental issues.«

Special Mention for National Participation

The jury has awarded the one Special Mention for National Participation to Great Britain »for the curatorial strategy and design propositions celebrating the potency of everyday rituals as forms of resistance and spatial practices in diasporic communities.«

The curators Jayden Ali, Joseph Henry, Meneesha Kellay and Sumitra Upham: »This exhibition advocates rituals as a form of spatial practice, celebrating their unique ability to organize and creat space. When spaces are not designed to accommodate certain behaviors, cultures, and traditions, rituals can become powerful, disruptive tools for facilitating occupation and supporting different lived realities.«

Pavilion of Slovenia

In the Slovenian pavilion, the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) presents the project +/- 1 °C: In search of well-tuned architecture. Commissioner Maja Vardjan from the Museum of Architecture and Design selected a group of architects, consisting of Jure Grohar, Eva Gusel, Maša Mertelj, Anja Vidic and Matic Vrabič, as curators of the Slovenian pavilion.

The pavilion project addresses the issue of ecology, which has significantly influenced the development of architecture in the past decade. In architecture, ecology is most often understood as "energy efficiency", which usually solves the issue of ecology with technology hidden between the walls. In search of an alternative to the existing construction systems, the curators of the pavilion, together with fifty European architects and creators, researched and analyzed examples of vernacular buildings from Europe, which - unlike current modern practice - consider the issue of ecology holistically, as an inseparable part of the architectural design. Vernacular architecture is thus understood as a living example of energy principles that are relevant to the present time and can be used as a basis for a critical reinterpretation of contemporary architectural production.

The Slovenian pavilion project consists of three parts: a spatial installation on a scale of 1:1 in the Venice Arsenal, an interdepartmental conference that will address the issue of ecology and sustainable development through the integration of architecture, economy and science in autumn 2023 in Ljubljana, and publications. The publication entitled +/- 1 °C: In search of well-tuned architecture, which will be published in June 2023, places the complex and multifaceted topic of ecology in architecture in a wider socio-economic context, where it is placed by a curator, publicist and consultant in addition to the participating architects and curators in the field of design Jane Withers, economist and politician Ph.D. Janez Potočnik, chemist dr. Michael Braungart and philosopher dr. Timothy Morton.

You can read more about the presentation of the Slovenian pavilion at the Outsider magazine link.

The presentation of the rest of the winners of the Biennale can be found on the link of the World-Architects website.

Some other prominent national pavilions from the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, 3 in the Giardini and 3 in the Arsenale, are featured on the World-Architects website link.