The third edition of Architecture Biennale of Pisa has been launched with the theme "Tempodacqua", as chosen by the Director Alfonso Femia. Opening its doors today, the Biennale can be visited between November the 21st - December the 1st, 2019 at the Republican Arsenal, Pisa, Italy.

Following the success of the two previous editions, in 2015 and 2017, the Architecture Biennale of Pisa has launched its third edition, dedicated to the theme Tempodacqua. 

The event, an international architecture exhibition, aims to highlight the link between Water and Time and the effects of climate changes on territories, emphasising some extreme situations, being an excess or a shortage.

The Director of the Biennale launched a Call to Action to which many of the most important international architects (list of the participants) answered to give their personal vision of the theme Tempodacqua.

Among the numerous participants to the Call: Bjarke Ingels, Stefano Boeri, Junya Ishigami, Rudy Ricciotti, Mario Cucinella, Michele De Lucchi, Alessandro Melis, curator of the Italian Pavillon for the 2020 Architecture Biennale of Venice, the designer Giulio Iacchetti, the landscaper Andreas Kipar, Carlo Ratti, the studio TamAssociati, the studio Scape, Vincent Parreira, Hamonic + Masson, Metrogramma, the maestro Fabrizio Plessi and the photographers Ferrara, Gardone, Cedric Dasesson, Marco Introni and Michel Denancé.

The participation of the Italian and world universities is also important. Among them, the Politecnico of Milan and Turin, the Universities of Hong-Kong and Melbourne, La Sapienza in Rome...).

The agenda also offers many events, conferences and debates that will take place during the Biennale, in the Republican Arsenal of Pisa, from November the 21st to December the 1st.

"Water is the founding element of our lives and the planet on which we are living. With time, we mortified, forced and neglected it. We exploited it a lot. We know how to do it. Time has come for getting out of the logic of opportunism. Water reveals itself, being an excess or a shortage, and deeply marks territories and urban geographies," as explained by the Director of this year, Alfonso Femia, who encourages a decisive change and great initiative for the Biennale.

Tempodacqua wants to revamp the matter of watter with a global concept (art, narration, architecture, technology, photography, multimedia) through the projects resulting from the Call to Action launched in July 2019.

The quotation, "Put out your bread on the face of the waters, for after a long time it will come back to you again" (Quohelet 11:1), extracted from the Ecclesiastes, expresses both the signification and the form proposed by the theme of the 3rd edition of the Biennale of Pisa, Tempodacqua.

The Biennale, as especially wished by the Director, expresses an open position that highlights the will to settle a situation of debates and confrontations, where the encounter of various experiences forms the humus of a collective reflection, large and continuous, a generation that initiates concrete actions and concentrates on the role of architecture in the necessary and urgent projects thought for climate changes.

This intention is notably expressed by the Award of the Biennale for which a shortlist of architects showing, in their projects, a significant and original interpretation of the theme Tempodacqua. The selected architects are Carla Juacaba, Vincent Parreira, Junia Ishigami, Valerio Barberis, Anna Heringer, Javier Corvalan and Vector Architects.

The jury is composed of Alfonso Femia, Alberto Ferlenga, Massimo Pica Ciamarra, Ico Migliore, Roberto Silvestri, Luca Molinari, Luciano Galimberti, Ezio Micelli, Luca Lanini, Gianluigi Pescolderlung.

The Award ceremony will take place on November the 27th, after the conference of the maestro Fabrizio Plessi.

Alfonso Femia is an Italian and international architect, founder of the Atelier(s) Alfonso Femia in Genoa, Milan and Paris. He is a representative of an original and unconventional contemporaneity, he affirms the importance of matter, of an architecture with feelings that dialogs with the soul of the place and of the man. 

He realised various projects in Italy and France, notably the Marseilles Docks and the new headquarters of BNL-BNP Paribas in Rome, the Dallara Academy in Varano de' Melegari, the Italian space agency in Rome, the IULM University and The Corner building in Milan.

All images courtesy of Architecture Biennale of Pisa

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