Canada digs deep at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale

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Photography by Alex Ulam

While Canadian architecture has had its moments on the world stagethink Moshe Safdie or Arthur Ericksonthe prevalent feeling among a generation of up and coming architects these days is that were stuck in a backwater when it comes to innovative building design. It feels a little bland or a little polite, says Johanna Hurme, a founding partner of the Winnipeg-based firm 5468796 Architecture, We are constantly trying to define what Canadian architecture is.

Hurme is part of a team of three curators who organized the Canadian Pavilions exhibition this year at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale; they call themselves the Migrating Landscapes Organizer (MLO) and are hoping the exhibit, whose theme is Im/migration, will reinvigorate the Canadian design scene by exploring the architectural potential of the immigrant experience. Their show is the culmination of a year and a half of competitions and exhibitions, from which 18 finalists were chosen to represent Canada.

Curators Sasa Radulovic, Johanna Hurme, Jae-Sung Chon outside the Canadian pavilion (Barbara Zanon/Getty)

For the purposes of the exhibition in Venice, the shows curators Hurme, her colleague Sasa Radulovic from 5468796 Architecture, and Jae-Sung Chon, an architecture instructor from the University of Manitobahave completely transformed the permanent Canadian Pavilion, one of 29 national pavilions in the Giardini della Biennale, a large lagoon-side park where most of the international architecture festival takes place. Much of the space in and around the pavilion has been filled with lumber cut in four different lengths, which acording to the curators, is meant to evoke Canadas pluralistic cultural landscape where newcomers are welcome to express their own distinctive experiences. One of the dangers of global architecture is its dominance, says Chon. It is very trendy and fast moving. But if you step back and look at your hyphenated condition as a starting point, there is a much more rich condition that you can bring to the table.

Using this expansive and malleable landscape made of lumber, the 18 teams of Canadian architects and designers have installed their various models, which consist of dollhouse scale structures, sculptural objects, and figurines, though some teams have just rearranged the lumber to make their architectural statements. Each model is positioned alongside a tablet device with a video of one of its authors recounting the story of immigration that inspired the work.

In one video, Felix Tue, a Canadian architect from Romania, recounts a story about a space that remained outside my new house, organic and inaccessible like a childrens game from the past.

In another, Amirali Javidan, a Canadian architect from Iran, recalls the chants of Allah O Akbar from the rooftops of a densely packed Iranian city where he lived during the revolution against the Shah. He draws a contrast to the suburban neighborhood of detached houses with pitched roofs in Edmonton, Alberta where he later moved to, and where the buildings never spoke.

Travis Cooke and Jason Kun, two Canadian architects born in Canada, describe the Winnipeg Condition, in their video. Thats the provincial ache of wanting to be elsewhere even when a place is your home.

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Canada digs deep at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale