Biennale Pavilion - Art Gallery + Museum + Library

Venice is a city full of reflections, the same reflections that are found in the golden vaults of St. Mark's basilica. It's a place where architecture is weightless upon the water and sturdy in elevation, in a continuous running after what is above and what is below; what is real and what is reflected; of water and air immersed in light. Starting from these considerations, the project aims to materialize these dichotomies, with an architecture that could be both solid and fluid, at the same time.
A red resin island, morphing its landform with the tide movements, is home to a place where one can enjoy a new point of view on the heart of the city. Here you can admire Saint Mark's square from the sea, listen to a music concert, learn more about how Venice was built and, above all, connect with “Other Venices in the world”.
Through the multimedia stations, from which you can interact with those who are in Stockholm, Bangkok, Amsterdam and Recife, you can talk, exchange impressions, messages or images from smart phones, like messages in a bottle. These messages, shipped randomly to other participants, create new connections; binary routes on the web pilot books to which the island responds, brightening with lit circles. The more connections, the more LED lit circles, embedded in the red resin on the floor, will expand reaching the water.
The Bienniale as a "connection hub" with the world, the pavilion as a "Social Architecture".
The space is embodied by a ceiling, with regards to the design and proportions of the the nearby Doge's Palace. Helium filled Caissons, with aluminum frame and screen-printed nylon coating, float in the air, anchored to the island only by steel tie-rods, secured to bollards. The volumes, apparently solid yet weightless, are cut with new alleys, generated by the perspectives on the surrounding views, and they cover the island with golden Byzantine vaults.
A wooden wharf, supported by spruce pillars, starts from the “Ponte della Paglia”, pointing to “San Giorgio Maggiore”, and then turns right to the red island, passing through a small lagoon of the same pillars, evoking the foundations on which the city was built. To pay homage to these roots of wood a majestic oak stands in the center of the platform, coming from the woods North of the city, which for millennia have given the raw material in order to conquer the land from the sea.
What is solid floats above the horizon, what is fluid is stable in the water and, between these two entities, the city of Venice remains suspended, an ethereal backdrop and outline of a space with no walls.