– la Biennale di Venezia Nordic Pavilion
29 August – 25 November, 2012

The exhibition celebrates the jubilee of the Nordic Pavilion designed fifty years ago by the Pritzker Prize winning architect Sverre Fehn. Thirty-two architects born after 1962, the year the pavilion was designed – eleven from Finland and Sweden, and ten from Norway – have been invited to create a model of a conceptual “house” that reflects their personal philosophy of architecture. The exhibition also highlights topical social and environmental themes, looking at the sobering economic constraints and diminishing environmental resources that challenge architects all over the world in their efforts to achieve maximum quality in their designs.

Contemporary Nordic architectural culture offers both exemplary approaches and significant constructed works addressing these most challenging circumstances of our time. The classic hallmarks of Nordic architecture – simplified form, frugal use of materials and sensitive treatment of daylight and the natural setting – embody the basic principles of responsible, sustainable architecture.

The Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale is Sverre Fehn’s distilled, elegant version of a Nordic “house” – a design evoking sensations of light, material, structure, space, nature and atmosphere. It embodies what might be called a metaphysical “house of the North”, one of specific primary architectural images, elements and details. The Nordic Pavilion is a physical and metaphorical “common ground” for Finland, Sweden and Norway.

The works have been commissioned specifically for the Venice venue from Nordic architects new and established, urban and rural, less-renowned and widely celebrated. The exhibits are displayed as installations, forming a “chorus” of contemporary Nordic architecture in polyphonic dialogue with Fehn’s iconic Pavilion. The exhibits are mounted on pedestals designed by Professor Juhani Pallasmaa, Fehn’s colleague and personal friend.

Read more: http://www.mfa.fi/lighthouses