The Rural Future : Chinese Pavilion at Architecture Biennale

ruralation shenaoli library by zhang lei
photo by yao li
all images courtesy of pavilion of china at the 16th venice architecture exhibition, la biennale di venezia

The 16th Venice Architecture Biennale is in full swing, running until November 25th. Among 63 national pavilions, Chinese exhibition showcases how the country is developing its rural areas at a speed and scale unseen in the west. 

Curated by architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, 2018 International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale gathered 71 participants, under the theme “Freespace”.Chinese pavilion reveals major projects realized during the past several years in rural areas of the country, showing the contemporary countryside through six episodes: poetic dwellings, local production, cultural practices, agricultural tourism, community reconstruction, and future exploration. The projects presented in the pavilion how architects are trying to find a middle ground between tradition and modernization.

in bamboo by philip f. yuan
photo by bian lin

Li Xiangning, the curator of the pavilion, said that “the motivation for this exhibition is more than just xiangchou, a Chinese term that refers to nostalgia for rural lands. We return to the countryside where Chinese culture originated to recover forgotten values and overlooked possibilities; from there, we will build a future countryside’.

xinchang village central kindergarten inner plaza by atelier deshaus
photo by su shengliang