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11th International Architecture
Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy
2008
The two housing schemes we were exhibiting in ‘Home/Away: Five architects build housing in UK & Europe’ are both sited in urban locations of a rich historical significance.
Due to the nature of London’s urban character the houses and other
buildings that we have designed as a practice have always had a conceptuality,
which is pointedly social and artistic, a quality that is far less prevalent
in current European architectural practice.
The Red House is part of a particular European tradition - that of the
individual house designed by an architect (Palladio for example) for a
cultured client - which has a pole position in European Architecture in
the development of style, ideas and the definition of culture. In the
UK it can be seen for example in houses by Hawksmoor Vanbrugh, Archer,
the Red House by Webb for Morris, houses by Norman Shaw, Voysey, Lutyens,
Connell Ward and Lucas et al and on into 1990-2000. These houses, even
if palatial have tended to have a social and urbanistsic attitude, something
that TFA continues, where the type is determined by the clientele rather
than by wealth.
It is this interest in a collective purpose that has opened up opportunities
for the practice in continental Europe, in projects in the Netherlands
and Denmark where these qualities were felt to be of paramount importance.
In Tietgens, the project is to finish the square surrounding the marble
church, a locale of some historical and social significance.
Photographs: David Grandorge
Exhibition dates: Sep 08 - Nov 08
Client: The British Council
Please see some of the press coverage:
BD
House proud at the British Pavilion
19 Sept 2008
The
Guardian 'Flesh in Venice' by Jonathan Glancey
16 Sept 2008