Venice Biennale: The Material Side of Architecture

The Materials Side of Architecture

 By Rachel Gamble

During my travels this past week, I noticed a great variety of beautiful and interesting building materials. The red marble of Verona, the glass of Venice, and the rustic stones of Vicenza, among others, lent a rich historicism to much of the architecture that I saw. Yet other buildings, like the work of Carlo Scarpa and Tadao Ando, employed more high-tech and contemporary materials, giving their buildings a fresh and exciting sense of modernity. Through the choice and treatment of materials I saw during my travels, I was able to make comparisons between the various ways architects throughout history have employed different materials. At the Architecture Biennale in Venice, I was thus particularly interested in the exhibitions which focused on the importance of materials in architecture. As I toured the Biennale, I paid special attention to how the choice and treatment of materials shaped the exhibits and communicated the architects’ design goals.

In Anupama Kundoo’s “Feel the Ground: Wall House,” the Indian architect created a life-size scale model of her Wall House in South India. The exhibit used seemingly simple materials and traditional building techniques. However, in doing so, the Wall House demonstrated how valuable and relevant such construction methods remain, in spite of the high-tech world we live in. The house was constructed using handmade bricks, terra cotta tubes, and recycled materials – basic materials that exist in many different cultures and time periods. The materials themselves were made by Kundoo’s college students, Italian workers, and Indian craftsmen. These people were from several different counties but were brought together for the material construction of the exhibit. Kundoo’s exhibit demonstrated why traditional, low-tech materials and construction materials remain important in this high-tech era: through their ability to draw diverse people together to collaborate with one another in the creation of architecture.

Alternatively, Zaha Hadid’s “Arum Shell” represented high tech materials and construction techniques at the Biennale. The complex geometric sculpture was made up of lightweight folded aluminum in combination with a tensile structure. The project began with research and was then developed computationally based on a complex algorithm. By experimenting and testing the structural efficiency of the materials through technological means, the architect created an elegant and beautiful form. Through the cutting-edge materials and construction of this high-tech exhibit, I observed that architecture is constantly evolving and testing its boundaries. 

In the exhibits of the Biennale, many interesting materials from around the globe were featured, covering both the low tech and high tech ends of the spectrum. Exhibits such as Kundoo’s “Wall House” involved traditional building materials like brick, timber, and earth, showing how they are useful in bringing many different cultures together. In contrast, exhibits like Zaha Hadid’s “Arum Shell” were daring and visionary in material selection and technique. All the different materials and technological levels at the Biennale last week showed me how materials and construction techniques can be communicative. Together they tell the viewer much about the time period and culture of a design. In the words of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, “Each material has its specific characteristics which we must understand if we want to use it. We must remember that everything depends on how we use a material, not on the material itself... Each material is only what we make of it.” Materials contribute uniquely to the architecture of which they are part. The Biennale showed me that architects should think beyond form and consider the impact that their material choices have on the built environment.

Wall House: Homemade Materials

Wall House: Photos of the Traditional Construction Techniques

Arum Shell: High Tech Tensile Structure

Sources

Mies Van Der Rohe, Ludwig. Illinois Institute of Technology. Armour Institute, Chicago, IL. November 1938. Inaugural Address.