Venice Biennale exhibition opening of Exuberant and Sublime Flesh, 27th August

Exhibition opening of Exuberant and Sublime Flesh – Contemporary Spiritual and Sacred Spaces at the Austrian Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 27th August. 

Friday, August 27
5:00pm - Preview Opening at Austrian Pavilion
6:30pm - Panel Discussion at Austrian Pavilion
9:00pm - Reception at Hotel Danieli

Sunday, August 29
All Day - Public Opening
Padiglione Austria, Giardini della Biennale
Viale Trento
I-30122 Venezia
Exuberant and Sublime Flesh brings together architectural proposals for contemporary spiritual and sacred spaces developed by students in Unit 20 at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL London, and Innsbruck University, Austria. A collection of architectural projects for Istanbul, Rome, Turin, Munich, Lisbon, Havana and Miami explores a unique sense of exuberance and sacredness, promoting the digital and aspiring at the sublime. The complex nature of these themes is articulated in a series of exquisite 2D laser cut and 3D rapid prototyped models that express a new ornamental, spatial and technological approach and also reconsidered a religious and cultural dimension for contemporary architecture design.

Sacred spaces have long been the apotheosis of architectural genius; exuberant buildings created by some of the greatest names in architectural history in which stylistic and spatial innovations are revealed and new technologies tested and developed. The theory and theology of sacred spaces holds renewed interest in the current historic moment where religious faith is under intense social and political scrutiny. Sublime spaces are primarily associated with experiences bound up in the powers of nature, but as nature has changed throughout the ages, so has our sense of the sublime. Expressing grand passions and utopian ideas, this exhibit illuminates the emotional involvement between a contemporary (digitally savvy) designer and the user of contemporary spiritual and sacred spaces.
 
Curated by Marjan Colletti.
Students: Yousef Al-Mehdari, Kasper Ax, Jason Chan, Yaojen Chuang, Ben Cowd, David Edwards, Peter Griebel, Tobias Klein, Hannes Mayer, Vicky Patsalis, Sara Shafiei, Johan Voordouw, Jay Williams.
Sponsored by: The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL London.

'under construction' is this year's official austrian pavilion at the 12th international architecture biennale in venice. Commissioned by American architect Eric Owen Moss, the first foreign architect to be appointed for the design of the Austrian Pavilion in the history of the biennale, the exhibition explores the country's export and import of architecture by presenting the works of internationally practicing Austrian architects
as well as the projects of international architects who are building in Austria.