The curator of  Pavilion of Switzerland at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition â la Biennale di Venezia â Hans Ulrich Obrist and the swiss arts council Pro Helvetia have announced their programming of the swiss pavillion:
Lucius Burckhardt and Cedric Price  â A stroll through a fun palace
In collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron, Atelier Bow-Wow, Lorenza Baroncelli, Stefano Boeri, Eleanor Bron, Liam Gillick, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Dan Graham, Dorothea von Hantelmann, Samantha Hardingham, Koo Jeong-a, Philippe Parreno, Asad Raza, Tino Sehgal, Mirko Zardini, and othersÂ
Obrist revists recent retrospectives of Lucious Burckhardt and Cedric Price reflecting its future of the 21st century. An archive of drawings should represent the two protagonists' and visionaries' work.Â
On the two protagonists:
Lucius Burckhardt was a Swiss political economist, sociologist, art historian and planning theorist, known as founding father of âstrollologyâ â his science of the walk. He pioneered an interdisciplinary analysis of man-made environments, discussing both the visible and invisible aspects of our cities, landscapes, political processes and social relations, as well as the long-term effects of design and planning decisions.Â
Cedric Price was guided by a fundamental belief that architecture must âenable people to think the unthinkableâ. His project Fun Palace (1960â61), conceived as a âlaboratory of funâ and âuniversity of the streetsâ, though never realised, established him as one of the UKâs most innovative and thought-provoking architects.Â
On the exhibition content:
Following their revolutionary teaching methods, Obrist's Lucius Burckhardt and Cedric Price â A stroll through a fun palace radically re-approaches the idea of the national pavilion, reconceiving it as a site for cross-disciplinary, interactive, international engagement. Acknowledging that it is not possible to present the complex practices of Burckhardt and Price through a static display of drawings, Lucius Burckhardt and Cedric Price â A stroll through a fun palace aims for visitors to encounter the architectsâ archives performatively. The display on Lucius Burckhardt is co-curated by architects Herzog & de Meuron, in collaboration with the Lucius & Annemarie Burckhardt Foundation and Martin Schmitz Verlag, whilst the temporary archive of Cedric Price is co-curated by Mirko Zardini, director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA). To present the temporary archives, Herzog & de Meuron have devised a site-specific system located in the graphic room of the Swiss Pavilion, aiming to create a new system of knowledge and ideas. Visible through the glass walls but not accessible to the public, it is to be conceived as an object on display.Â
"Lucius Burckhardt and Cedric Price â A stroll through a fun palace" should serve as an architectural school under the leadership of Italian architect Stefano Boeri with Lorenza Baroncelli and  Pierpaolo Tamburelli.Â
Atelier Bow-Wow will turn the courtyard of the Swiss Pavilion into a contemporary learning space inspired by the flexibility and innovation of Priceâs airy structures, in which mobile furniture units will enable students and visitors to turn the space into an auditorium, library or studio as directed by their needs. Students are encouraged to consider the future of architecture through an engagement with Burckhardt's and Price's works and to question the current infrastructures for the production of knowledge within architectural institutions.
Following the last Biennale's example, the Salon Suisse a parallel programme of events and discussions is continued:
âSalon Suisseâ: a platform for lively international exchange This yearâs talks and events programme âSalon Suisseâ, entitled The next 100 years â Scenarios for an Alpine City State, taking place at the Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi for the third time, will be curated by Zurich-based architects and urbanists Hiromi Hosoya and Markus Schaefer.Â
via:
http://www.biennials.ch/home/Press.aspx
http://www.biennials.ch/download/PagePartFiles/fp_1463_140305_e_mm_pavilion_of_switzerland_at_the_14th_international_architecture_exhibition_-_la_biennale_di_venezia.pdf











