La Biennale di Venezia. Weaving Architecture

71 architects from all over the world were invited to respond to the Manifesto written by the curators Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, in order to reveal, to lay bare, the FREESPACE ingredient embedded in their work. In response to this invitation for the 16th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, Benedetta Tagliabue - Miralles Tagliabue EMBT participates with an installation entitled ‘Weaving Architecture’, located in Le Corderie dell’Arsenale. The Exhibition opens to the public on Saturday 26th of May and runs until Sunday 25th of November 2018.

A free space is a well woven space

Weaving Architecture summarises a way of thinking stemming from Benedetta Tagliabue and EMBT’s experimental work through the years, starting with the wicker Spanish Pavilion of Expo 2010 Shanghai.

Progressing now in Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil (in the outskirts of Paris) with the design of a metro station (part of the Grand Paris Express), a marketplace, an urban renewal, which will be built with fibers, a delicate material resistant through time and climate.

Weaving Architecture, here in La Biennale, deals with the concept of weaving at different scales: weaving the city through its metro, weaving activities of people in the public space, weaving the structure of the canopy to dress it with fiber fabrics.

The canopy provides protection and shade, creating a comfortable, semi-open space for various communal activities. Its colourful nature expresses the spirit of Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil by recalling patterns of African traditional clothing as well as local graffiti - an artwork owned by the people.

This architecture, like the infrastructure it represents, links territories and builds a sense of social inclusion by manifesting architecture’s social role.