next architecture biennale 2002 

From September 8 to November 3, 2002, the Venice Biennale will host Next, an exploration of the imminent future of architecture. Under the directorship of Deyan Sudjic, the critic and curator, the exhibition brings together more than 140 projects currently being built that each in their own way will serve to define the nature of architecture in the years to come.

The architecture biennale aims to reach as wide an audience as possible. Next offers a unique opportunity to find in one place a range of the most significant new work that will be realised over the years to come.

Architecture recently has often been presented as if it were a form of installation art, or dominated by cyber space or video. This biennale will concentrate instead on the physical, the material and the tactile. Architects have been invited to submit large scale models, and where appropriate full size material prototypes. Toyo Ito's work with aluminium and with glass reinforced cement for example will be represented not only by drawings, but by actual materials. Future Systems's innovative department store for Selfridges in Birmingham will be shown in model form, but also feature a full size representation of its strikingly inventive cladding.

And in another departure, the biennale has selected individual projects. Rather than inviting architects to make their own installations, the biennale has commissioned John Pawson to design the architecture of the exhibition as a whole. In this way the Biennale hopes to achieve a greater sense of coherence for the exhibition .

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