30.05.2014
A-01 is curating the Costa Rica Pavilion in the 14th International Architecture Biennale of Venice. The general title of the Biennale is "Fundamentals"; it is directed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and will opened to the general public from June 7 to November 23, 2014.
A-01 founding member Oliver Schütte has been appointed by the Costa Rican Minister of Culture and Youth as the official commissioner and main curator. The multidisciplinary curating team further includes anthropologist Marije van Lidth de Jeude of A-01, historian Florencia Quesada, architects Ofelia Sanou and Javier Salinas with the assistance of Alvaro Rojas, Klaus Steinmetz, Carlos Araya, Lou Guthrie and Ursula Grodzicka.
The Costa Rican pavilion presents the development of Costa Rica’s Greater Metropolitan Area with a focus on the capital city San Jose throughout the last 100 years. The exhibition is called "Ticollage City: the Vicious Circle of Social Segregation and Spatial Fragmentation in Costa Rica's Greater Metropolitan Area 1914-2014".
Following the guiding principles of the general curator Rem Koolhaas, it takes a specific look at the impact of Modernity in terms of architecture and urban interventions. In the multimedia exhibition, the visitors will be informed about the development of San Jose in the form of a timeline that highlights 70 selected buildings according to 7 historic periods. The exhibited works were defined with the Costa Rican historians Ofelia Sanou and Florencia Quesada, winner of the Premio Cleto Gonzalez Viquez in 2011.
Furthermore, the pavilion takes a critical look at the competition and ongoing discussion about the New Legislative Assembly in the historic “Center of Power” as well as its possible impact on its immediate context as well as the general urban development of San Jose. This part of the exhibition was curated in collaboration with Steinmetz Gallery who had presented the complete competition in an exhibition at the SIGMA building in San Pedro earlier this year.
The exhibition in Venice is rounded up by a series of sound installations about the city as well as its surrounding nature by Costa Rican composer Sergio Wiesengrund, winner of the Premio Nacional de Cultura in 2013, in collaboration with Mauricio Herrera Palma from Postformal Design and Green Noise as well as the New York sound engineer and composer Daniel Perlin.
The photography of the featured buildings and infrastructure presenting 100 years of architecture and urbanism in Costa Rica is provided by Simon Photo Video, Plex Studio, Archivos de Álvaro Castro Harrigan, Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, Junta de Andalucía, CFIA, CCSS, UCR-Escuela de Arquitectura, Banco Nacional de Costa Rica, Tomás Dueñas and A-01.
The National Pavilion is sponsored and supported by the Costa Rican Ministry of Culture and Youth, the Costa Rican Embassy in Italy, Euromobilia, EDICA, PLYCEM, Desarrollos Mega, Excetel, Grupo Baharet, Grupo Interamericano, CPCA and Manig Unternehmensberatung; it has been declared of national cultural interest by the Ministry of Culture and Youth.
More information can be found here or there; a full virtual tour of all national pavilions can be taken here.