12 Views of Venice
Exhibition, 22. November to 14. December 2018 at ETH Hönggerberg, Zurich
The exhibition presents drawings by 37 architecture students from ETH Zurich, the University of Tsukuba, and the University of Queensland, who participated in the Architectural Ethnography Summer School in the Japanese Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale. Using the medium of collaborative pencil drawings, the Summer School explored twelve different public spaces in the center and periphery of Venice. City views from the 15th to 18th centuries served as a common starting point. Using these references, the students examined the relationships between human behavior and architecture, between the past and the present. The result is a city portrait that reinvents our perception of Venice, creating connections between tourist sites and local spaces, between the conflicts of modern life and the rituals of past centuries.
The Summer School was part of the Japanese Pavilion at the Biennale, curated by Momoyo Kaijima (Atelier Bow-Wow) along with Laurent Stalder and Yu Iseki. In addition to the drawings, 12 Views of Venice, 2018, also presents photographs and copies of the Pavilion catalog, illustrating how the Summer School provided participants the opportunity to engage deeply with the collection displayed in the Pavilion. The exhibition included 42 works created over the last twenty years from around the world, ranging from design specifications and spatial activity diagrams to maps of hybrid urban structures and extensive studies on the development of agriculture and fisheries after natural disasters. The material, stemming from university design studios, architecture firms, or artistic practices, reflected the search for a new approach to societal processes, which the Pavilion curators referred to as "architectural ethnography."
In this sense, the Summer School in the Japanese Pavilion drew on the long-standing investigation by Atelier Bow-Wow into the interrelationships between human behavior, built architecture, its environment, and its resources.
The exhibition was curated by
Tamotsu Ito and Andreas Kalpakci in collaboration with gta Exhibitions
Instructors of the Summer School
Momoyo Kaijima with Kazuyoshi Watari and Tamotsu Ito, Laurent Stalder and Andreas Kalpakci, Andrew Wilson
Drawings by
Haruka Abe, Yuma Aki, Sandrine Badoux, Philippe Bleuel, Tanguy Caversaccio, John Ferguson, Sofia Ferrari, Niels Galitch, Genta Ishimura, Syunya Ito, Zeran Ji, Lei Jin, Shuo-Chia Ke, Risa Kitagawa, Yuka Kuboki, Alfred Lee, Gordon Macindoe, Itaru Matsumoto, Rodrigo Mendoza, Hinako Mizuhata, Miki Obayashi, Miki Onodera, Nanako Ota, Genevieve Quinn, Ellen Marie Reinhard, Georgia Sewell, Hiroe Shida, Miyako Someya, Lena Stamm, Kaede Sugawara, Ayano Tagami, Miyako Urakawa, Jing Wang, Nicola White, Vivian W. S. Ting, Rachel Wong, Jeremy Wooldridge
Photographs of the Japanese Pavilion by
Bas Princen
The Summer School was made possible through the support of
The Japan Foundation; Department of Architecture, ETH Zurich; School of Art and Design, Master Program in Art and Design at the Graduate School for Art and Design and Faculty of Art and Design at the University of Tsukuba; School of Architecture, EAIT Faculty, and Student Strategy Short Term Global Mobility Initiative at the University of Queensland; The Obayashi Foundation