The Nordic Pavilion has filled the room with giant cellular structures at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale to emphasize the symbiotic relationship between human being and natural environment. 

Titled Another Generosity, the exhibition, curated by Eero Lundén and Juulia Kauste, focuses on the relationship not just between humans, but between humans and nature to raise awareness on the geological impact of human activity affecting our planet. The pavilion creates a new platform to foster a debate where these coexistences intersect each other apparently. 

Image © Andrea Ferro

"This is the epoch of the Anthropocene. Though the Anthropocene may appear to mark the moment humans have come to overpower nature, it is also an opportunity to rethink the most basic relationship between our buildings and ecology. Architecture should be considered a tool for redefining the complete cycle of building, from its most basic components to its operating systems," emhasized in a statement. 

Image © Andrea Ferro

The installation, featuring multiple cellular balloons filled with air and water, responds to this year’s theme of Freespace, with Another Generosity, showing that how new approaches to architecture can help shape a world that supports the symbiotic coexistence of both. The Pavilion seeks to create a spatial experience which heightens our awareness of our surroundings. 

Aiming to foster a dialogue, debate and criticism through these cellular structures, it helps reveal new ways that we can shape our world with another generosity. 

Image © Andrea Ferro

"A generosity not just between humans, but between humans and nature," stated in its discourse.

"Another Generosity considers a structure that holds two basic elements: air and water. The simple structures are combined to create a visible and dynamic cellular structure. The inflated elements mediate between the natural and built environment."

Image © World Architecture Community

"They respond to external and sometimes unseen stimuli, creating a new kind of experience, a momentary hesitation that heightens our awareness of our surroundings," read the project brief.

"With today’s mounting environmental challenges, we have the responsibility to restore the balance between the built and natural environment. Architecture as our most fundamental technology needs to be reinvented and, as architects, we must consider who or what we are building for. What is the worldview behind the buildings we create?," said Eero Lundén, the curator of the Nordic Pavilion.

Image © World Architecture Community

Image © World Architecture Community

Image © World Architecture Community

Image © Ugo Carmeni Studio

Image © Ugo Carmeni Studio

Image © Italo Rondinella, courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

Image © LAC

Responsive diagram. Image courtesy of Nordic Pavilion

The Nordic pavilion, designed by Sverre Fehn in 1962, celebrates nature’s different phenomena: light, sound, materials bringing them together to form a unique architectural experience. 

The Nordic Pavilion. Image © Nasjonal Museet

The exhibition is a collaborative project between co-curator Juulia Kauste, a collection of Nordic voices, Lundén Architecture Company, BuroHappold Engineering, Aalto University and Pneumocell. The project is commissioned jointly by the directors of three museums with the Museum of Finnish Architecture taking the lead this year: Juulia Kauste (until April 4) and Reetta Heiskanen from the Museum of Finnish Architecture; Nina Berre from the Norwegian National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design and Kieran Long from ArkDes.

Top image © Italo Rondinella, courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

> via Venice Architecture Biennale/Museum of Finnish Architecture