The Taiwan Pavilion design for the Venice Architecture Biennale was unveiled Jan. 21 by the Ministry of Culture in southern Taiwan’s Tainan City.
Proposed by Tainan-based National Cheng Kung University with support from Taichung City-headquartered National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, the design is themed “Non-Belief: Taiwan Intelligens of Precarity,” the MOC said. Inspired by U.S. land artist Robert Smithson’s “Non-sites” theory, which emphasizes absence, displacement and duality of landscape, the design aligns with the biennale’s main theme of “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.,” the ministry added.
According to the MOC, an island installation made of honeycomb paper embodying Taiwan’s topography will be situated in the pavilion’s center, with Taiwan landscape photos shown on electronic paper above the installation to demonstrate the impact of semiconductor development. A total of 16 architectural research documents and 12 models will also be displayed in the pavilion, the ministry said.
The pavilion design also addresses issues such as the impact of Taiwan’s high-speed rail construction and the establishment of solar panels on ecology, with the latter using Tainan’s Qigu District as a case study, the MOC said, adding that it further examines the conflicts between architecture and other environmental aspects like culture.
NTMFA Director Chen Kuang-yi said during the event that the biennale is an opportunity to show Taiwan’s architectural prowess to the world and an opportunity to undertake exchange with the international community. It is expected that more people will understand Taiwan’s spatial strategies and wisdom for globalization, she added.
The Taiwan Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennale will run from May 10 through November 23 at Palazzo delle Prigioni in Italy. There will be exhibitions, seminars and workshops held on site. (YCH-E)
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from Taiwan Today – Top News