The 11th International Architecture Exhibition entitled Out There: Architecture Beyond Building, directed by Aaron Betsky and organised by La Biennale di Venezia presided over by Paolo Baratta, will take place in Venice from Sunday, September 14th to Sunday, November 23rd 2008. The preview will be on September 11th, 12th and 13th.

According to Aaron Betsky – for six years director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) in Rotterdam, one of the most prestigious museums and architecture centres in the world, and from last year Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum– the 11th Architecture Biennale, entitled Out There: Architecture Beyond Building, “will point the  way towards an architecture liberated from buildings to engage the central issues of our society; instead of the tombs of architecture, which is to say buildings, it will present site specific installations, visions and experiments that help us figure out, make sense of and feel at home in our modern world.”

Betsky goes on to point out “what should be an obvious fact: architecture is not building. Buildings are objects and the act of building leads to such objects, but architecture is something else.  It is the way we think and talk about buildings, how we represent them, how we build them.  This is architecture. More generally, architecture is a way of representing, shaping and perhaps even offering critical alternatives to the human-made environment. In fact, buildings are not enough.  They are the tombs of architecture, the residue of the desire to make another world, a better world, and a world open to possibilities beyond the everyday. In a concrete sense, architecture is that which allows us to be at home in the world”.

“The challenge of the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale – underlines Betsky -  is to collect and encourage experimentation in architecture.  Such experimentation can take the form of momentary constructions, visions of other worlds, or the building blocks of a better world.  This Biennale does not want to present buildings that are already in existence and can be enjoyed in real life.  It does not want to propose abstract solutions to social problems, but wants to see if architecture, by experimenting in and on the real world, can offer some concrete forms or seductive images”.

The 11th Architecture Biennale, Out There: Architecture Beyond Building, will therefore present in the venues of Arsenale and Padiglione Italia at the Giardini, site specific installations, manifestos and utopian, dystopian or heterotopian visions. In the Arsenale, visitors will encounter almost two dozen such works. At Padiglione Italia  a survey of experimental work by mainly young designers and five Masters of the Experiment will be on display.

The beginning of the Corderie of Arsenale will present Hall of Fragments, by David Rockwell with Casey Jones + Reed Kroloff. An architecture before building in the form selections of science fiction films that once showed us what our world would look like, as well as historical films that recreated older worlds, will be projected on screens. The Corderie will present large-scale site specific Installations, that will ask the question how we can be at home in the modern world. These Installations will be accompanied by Manifestos for an architecture beyond building.  These Manifestos will both be spoken on large video screens and printed. Participants will include Diller Scofidio+Renfro, UN Studio, Massimiliano Fuksas, Nigel Coates, Droog Design, Philippe Rahm, M-A-D, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Vicente Guallart, Zaha Hadid, An Te Liu, Greg Lynn, MVRDV, Penezič and Rogina, Asymptote, Atelier Bow Wow, Barkow Leibinger Architects.  Continuing this theme, a modern-day yurt from Kazakhstan and a “paradise garden” by Kathryn Gustafson will continue this line of installations through the remainder of the Arsenale.