The Venice Biennale has become reflection of the state architecture is in

The £5 billion machine, designed to smash particles together with cataclysmic force, is a project of almost crazy ambition that will allow fundamental insights into the nature of the cosmos. It is also late, massively over budget, and was a huge risk for all those involved. And, even though few of us can really understand the science, we are gripped with the enormity of the idea.

Architecture too used to deal in ideas, and it was able to speculate on its future direction. It took risks and it wasn’t afraid of failure. People were open-mouthed at some if its experiments and its audacity to attempt the impossible, and were moved by its beauty.

The Venice Biennale, dedicated entirely to architecture, should be the place where we go for reaffirmation of architecture’s power to move us, and — like the 27km tunnel under the Swiss-French border — its power to change the way we think about the world. It is also where we expect to go to see what different countries are up to, and why as Brits we have something different and unique to say.

But globalisation has brought to an end the belief that there is any such thing as a nationally defined architecture. We are divided not by ideas any more, but by rules and codes, and by those countries that still see architecture as part of their identity, like Switzerland, and those that don’t, like Britain.

The Venice Biennale should be a hugely important cultural event, but it isn’t. It’s a lot of fun and can be hugely stimulating — who could fail to be swept up by the city’s beauty? But it has become a sad reflection of the state architecture is in and, unlike science, it is short of a big idea.

How long does shortlisting take?

“Venice should be where we go for reaffirmation of architecture’s power to change how we think about the world”

Competitions are important for architects. If you win, they are a way of jumping the queue waiting for that dream commission; if you don’t, they can still be a way of getting noticed.

BD supports competitions, and we wish that more clients used them as way of selecting architects.

This week we report on a competition for a visitors’ centre at Hadrian’s Wall which attracted a significant number of entries. The client, the National Trust, has a good record. Van Heyningen & Haward designed its award-winning Sutton Hoo visitors’ centre and Cullinan was the architect for the Fountains Abbey Visitor Centre.

It’s not the trust’s final choice of architect that BD is concerned about, but rather the method of selection. Going through more than 60 portfolios takes time, and even if — as the National Trust claims — it was looking for particular kind of experience and didn’t need an architect to help at this stage, it is almost impossible to see how it could arrived at a shortlist in just over six hours.

The trust says it needs to get its grant application in and is competing with other projects, so time is of the essence, but for the architects who were told the same day the deadline closed that they had been unsuccessful the process looks decidedly iffy.

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