6 JUN 2014, 4:30 pm

The Venice Pavilion at this year’s Biennale di Venezia will showcase an installation by Daniel Libeskind exploring the fundamental tension between architecture and drawing. On view from June 7 to November 23, 2014, Sonnets in Babylon extends a line of questioning begun by the architect nearly three decades ago with the debut of Three Lessons in Architecture at the International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. 

 “I am always posing lessons for myself, always trying to go further into the nature of architecture,” says Libeskind. “In this project, using the particular materiality of the hand-drawn mark, glass, and metal structure, I’m exploring the questions of contemporary life and the fundamentals of architecture: is form disappearing into Techne or is it a permanent expression of being human?”

Some 100 never-before-exhibited drawings by Libeskind, created by hand from pen and sepia-toned washes of coffee, comprise the principal element of the pavilion. The series is screen-printed by Lasvit, the architectural glass-maker, using a ceramic process, on large-scale glass panels and arranged around the curved wall of the pavilion. Using state of the art technology, ribbons of aluminum panels fixed with discreet LED lights will create a luminous wall of light and transparency.

The drawings themselves depict explosive uncouplings of ambiguous forms that alternately evoke favelas, futuristic cities, mechanical parts, and even parts of the human body. Mr. Libeskind extends these forms into the room environment through the diaphanous layering of glass that will create a continuous landscape.

As visitors approach the pavilion, situated in the Giardini della Biennale di Venezia, they will first encounter a 5.5 meter high (18 feet) sculpture of a skewed axis form finished in the brown ultracompact surfacing material Dekton by Cosentino. The geometry of the form relates to the development of the axis as a fundamental to architectural drawing. Libeskind has explored this technical mark in all his major drawing works beginning with Micromegas continuing with Chamberworks, and now in Sonnets of Babylon. This sculptural “X” will serve as a starting point—a virtual beginning of a line that runs through the Sonnets and anchors their exploding and collapsing worlds.

Atelier Castagna Milano, the historic Italian automotive company, is constructing Sonnets in Babylon for Libeskind Design, the Milan-based design division of Studio Daniel Libeskind.

This year’s installation for the Venice Pavilion has been made possible thanks to the support of Rolex. Architecture students from the IUAV University of Venice have contributed with a photography project inspired by Venice and exhibited in a side room of the Pavilion, in dialogue with Sonnets in Babylon. Dekton by Cosentino and Novaclor have provided technical support. Thanks goes also to Lasvit and Atelier Castagna Milano for their contribution to the project.

> via Studio Daniel Libeskind