Exhibiting Architecture in Full-Scale: Wall House, One to One at the 13th Architecture Biennale, Venice 2012

Anupama Kundoo

Tekton
Volume 1, Issue 1, September 2014
pp. 96 – 105

kundooAnupama Kundoo graduated from Sir J.J. College of Architecture, Mumbai in 1989 and a year later started her practice in Auroville, Tamil Nadu. Her body of work demonstrates a strong focus on material research and experimentation aimed at low environmental impact and appropriate to the socio-economic context. She received ‘Honorable Mention’ by the jury of the 2013 ArcVision International Prize for ‘Women and Architecture’ for ‘her dedication when approaching the problem of affordability of construction and sustainability in all aspects’. Kundoo has taught at TU Berlin, AA London, TU Darmstadt, Parsons New School of Design, New York and University of Queensland in Brisbane, and from September 2014 she will be Professor at University Camilo Jose Cela in Madrid.

info@anupamakundoo.com

Exhibition of Architecture

The Architecture Biennale in Venice is the most important event on the International contemporary architecture calendar, with the world’s most influential architects, designers and critics visiting it, resulting in considerable discussion and commentary in the architectural press and general media. Apart from national pavilions where each country can showcase their work (India does not have a pavilion), there is a prestigious curated part of the exhibition where the Director appointed for that year invites architects according to his own discretion to show their work in response to his theme.

The 13th Architecture Biennale held in 2012 was under the creative directorship of Sir David Chipperfield who chose ‘Common Ground’ as the theme for the curated section. He intended to “demonstrate the existence of a rich culture of architectural practice and research stimulated by the work of other disciplines but defined by shared enthusiasms and concerns at a time when the singular work of architects are celebrated but the role of the profession and our place within society is continuously challenged.”

wallhouseAnupama Kundoo was invited by David Chipperfield to participate in the curated section along with more than fifty renowned architects all over the world. For this exhibition, she proposed a full scale facsimile of the Wall House in Auroville to be set up within the Corderie, a heritage structure in Venice. In this essay, Kundoo writes about the central idea of her exhibit, the concerns it addresses about practice of architecture and its mode of exhibition.