During the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale in May, the Swiss contribution will be dedicated to the architect Lisbeth Sachs. The five curators of the Annex group wish, with the Swiss pavilion, to highlight the historical absence of women architects at the Biennale.
The Annex group, which works between Geneva and Saint-Gall, is made up of architects Elena Chiavi, Kathrin Füglister, Amy Perkins and Myriam Uzor. For the Swiss contribution, he collaborated with the artist Axelle Stiefel.
For the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, the curators created the exhibition ‘Endgültige Form wird von der Architektin am Bau bestimmt’ (The final form is determined by the architect in the construction), Pro Helvetia reported on Wednesday in a press release. With this, they ask ‘What if Lisbeth Sachs, rather than Bruno Giacometti, had designed the Swiss Pavilion?’.
Lisbeth Sachs (1914-2002) was one of the first qualified architects in Switzerland. She has always been perceived as inferior to her male colleagues. In 1958 she created a temporary art hall in Zurich for the Swiss Women’s Work Exhibition. It is this hall that the curators now want to revive in Venice.
As part of their exhibition, the curators consider how Lisbeth Sachs’ vision might have influenced the design of the Swiss Pavilion today. Inspired by the latter’s approach, the curators want to create a ‘fragmented and immersive spatial memory’, which includes a sound installation transforming the pavilion into a ‘multisensory experience’. The installation includes field recordings of conversations, landscapes or construction sites.
The 19th Architecture Biennale will take place from May 10 to November 23 in Venice. The main exhibition is called ‘Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective’. Switzerland has its own pavilion at the exhibition site, designed by Swiss architect Bruno Giacometti and built in the early 1950s. Pro Helvetia is responsible for its operation.
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Swiss
