THEME Fundamentally Hong Kong? CO-ORGANIZERS

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1 THE 14 TH INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE EXHIBITION LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA 2014 Exhibition Organized by The Hong Kong Institute of Architects and Hong Kong Arts Development Council (COLLATERAL EVENTS) THEME Fundamentally Hong Kong? CO-ORGANIZERS The Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA) The Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA) is the professional body of architects in Hong Kong. The Institute has around 180 Fellows, more than 4,000 Members and around 670 Associates, Affiliates, Graduate Members, and Student Members. In 2007, a new membership category, Corporate Membership, was introduced, and as at 31 December 2013, there were 173 Corporate Members. The Institute is governed by a Council consisting of a President, two Vice-Presidents, an Honorary Secretary, an Honorary Treasurer, eight Ordinary Members of the Council, the Immediate Past President (ex-officio member), and the Chairmen of the 6 Boards. HKIA aims to advance architectural education and practices in Hong Kong as well as to promote and facilitate the acquisition of knowledge of the various arts and sciences connected therewith. The Institute is committed to raising the standard of architectural creativity in Hong Kong. Background Information Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) Established in 1995, the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) is a statutory body set up by the government to plan, promote and support the broad development of the arts including literary arts, performing arts, visual arts as well as film and media arts in Hong Kong. Aiming to foster a thriving arts environment and enhancing the quality of life of the public, the ADC is also committed to facilitating community wide participation in the arts and arts education, encouraging arts criticism, raising the standard of arts administration and strengthening the work on arts policy research. The HKADC has taken part in the Biennale since Page 1 or Page 7

2 VENUE: Arsenale, Campo della Tana, Castello Venezia PERIOD OF VENUE Preview: 5th to 6th June 2014 Open to Public: 7th June to 23rd November 2014 Page 2 or Page 7

3 EXHIBITION AT 14 TH VENICE BIENNALE INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE EXHIBITION 2014 Introduction The Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA) and Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) collaborate as Organizers of the Exhibition from Hong Kong at Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition 2014 with aims to - present a biannual exhibition in the highest standard to reveal the unique evolving path of Hong Kong architecture and urban development; promote the creative industry of Hong Kong in an international arena; encourage artistic and intellectual dialogue with architects, artists, curators and exhibitors from around the world; create conductive environment for the research, design and/or making of visionary architectural works in an exhibition scale; disseminate knowledge gained from VB2014; promote creativity amongst Hong Kong students and youth through participation; organize a Response Exhibition to arouse wider public interest in art, architecture and urban development in our previous Exhibition Background of the Biennale and Our Previous Exhibition With generous support from the Hong Kong Government funding and other private sponsors in 2006, HKADC and HKIA had joined hands and made a successful debut at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Our exhibition titled VICE VERSA: displacing Acts, Lives and Thresholds of a Hyper City had received over 70 local and international media citations. Also as part of the exhibition inauguration, we had held in Venice the forum titled Making of the Hong Kong Exhibition and the Making of Hong Kong while curators and exhibitors from Hong Kong had presented side by side with 15 well-known architects and critics from around the world, debating on the unique character and urban aesthetics of Hong Kong. Year 2006 also marked the first national pavilion of China at the Venice Architecture Biennale, while the our Exhibition had constructed a reciprocal dialogue on the art of building Chinese modernity and Chinese cities. While in 2008, our exhibition title was Fabrica Cultura (Culture Fabricate): Hong Kong in Venice. Six sub-themes namely Object, Landscape, Building, City, Media and Text, were located into six zones within the exhibition venue in Venice. Inspired by the colloquial Chinese phrase for the necessities of daily life 衣食住 Page 3 or Page 7

4 行 Clothing, Food, Dwelling, Transport Quotidian Architectures, title of the 2010 exhibition, asked architects, artists, educators, industrialists, and governmental agencies to re-envision the necessary choices we make every day. In response to the Biennale Director David Chipperfield s overall exhibition theme of Common Ground, the exhibition in 2012, titled Inter Cities / Intra Cities: Ghostwriting the Future, emphasizes the importance of social compatibility and cultural diversity in the creation of our cities and focuses on the vital urban, architectural and cultural regeneration of Hong Kong s very own common ground : Kowloon East. To continue with the tradition to respond to the Venice Biennale, the Project would be reformatted and made appropriate to exhibit in Hong Kong for the general public. In 2006, the Hong Kong Response Exhibition was held in Bank of China Tower, Central; 2008, at the Heritage Discovery Centre, Tsim Sha Tsui; 2010, the Former Central Police Station Compound; and 2012, four locations within Kowloon East (Fly the Flyover01; Tsun Yip Street Playground, Kwun Tong; Upper Ngau Tau Kok Estate Entrance Plaza; OCTA Tower, Kowloon Bay) by roving truck visiting respectively. It would be our 5 th participation to the Venice Biennale this year in The organizer hereby announces the theme of the 2014 Exhibition in Venice Biennale, Fundamentally Hong Kong?. EXHIBITION VENUE & RUNNING PERIOD The Exhibition venue is located at Campo della Tana, Castello Venezia, Italy, immediately opposite to the Arsenale, one of the main exhibition halls of Venice Biennale. The venue includes an interior area of approx.160 sq.m. and an outdoor courtyard area of approx.150 sq.m.. Final format and information on the venue will be further explored and agreed between the organizer and the Curator while the running period of the Exhibition will follow that of the Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition. i.e. 5th June to 23rd November EXHIBITION STATEMENT Fundamentally Hong Kong? Page 4 or Page 7

5 The Exhibition responds to Fundamentals by examining the essential elements that define the city s physical presence, and by interrogating the fundamental flows and practices that produce the spaces of the city. In particular, the exhibition seeks to present innovative interpretations of the city s typical architectural ingredients (eg. scissor stair, bay window, lightwell, rooftop, etc.), and ubiquitous urban components and typologies (tong lau. pocket parks and podium towers, walkways and infrastructures, etc.), to more remarkable settings and characteristics. The exhibition encourages novel appraisals of the city s material histories and spatial narratives in the past century, not so much in the academicist manner of retracing an architecture of styles or the didactic romanticising of the city s clichéd attributes, but rather to devise ways and means to engage the city s lived multiplicities that are at once retrospective and projective. By considering the city s foundations as fundamentally hybrid and inter-national (between nations), and arguably making a pioneering contribution to modernity, the exhibition intends to highlight the city s architectural and urban concerns at differing scales. One or more of the following sub-themes will be articulated: a) Urban infra-structures What have been the deep-rooted problems and urgent necessities in Hong Kong s city-making? What are nascent issues and agendas in the myriad ongoing contestations on civic values? How are these translated in the multi-scalar possibilities of urban development and the built environment? (from buildings to infrastructures, urban districts to city networks, public realm to sustainable development) b) Delta urbanism The Pearl River Delta phenomenon is one of the most complex and unprecedented spatial development in the history of city formations. With a 40 million population, a combined GDP of thousand million RMB, two/three spoken languages, a two-hour catchment, two special administrative regions and nine cities/municipalities, what were/are the Hong Kong perspectives? Beyond infrastructural connectivities, what are/will be the fundamental issues at hand between cross-border differentiation and integration, competition and complementarity? Page 5 or Page 7

6 c) Practicing architecture With an increasing proportion of projects located in mainland China, as well as abroad, how can Hong Kong s architectural practice maintain its specific contingencies and shared continuities, exploit its interstitial advantages while developing its critical contribution? How does one evaluate the vital contribution of Hong Kong architects to the making of the city? d) Communicating architecture What were/are the ambitions and responsibilities, constraints and opportunities confronting the Hong Kong architectural community? How can/should the city s architectural discourse and cultural infrastructure be contextualized, reinforced or expanded? How much dialogue were/are there between practitioners and scholars, or with related disciplines, from designers to planners, politicians to activists, stakeholders to users? Page 6 or Page 7

7 CURATORS AND EXHIBITORS Since our first participation in the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale, each exhibition had been led through by a devoted curatorial team comprised of outstanding architecture and cultural professionals. According to the exhibition theme around exhibitors would be selected to present their avant-garde pieces in Venice. For reference please find below the brief summary of the four previous participations: Year of Composition of The Curatorial Team Numbers of Participation Exhibitors* 2006 Mr. Alvin Yip, Mr. Joshua Lau, Mr. Billy Tam Professor Desmond Hui, Professor Leo Ou-fan Lee Dr. Juan Du, Mr. Chad Mckee, Ms. Mary Chan, Ms. 12 Margherita Errante, Mr. Glulla Foscari 2012 Mr. Christopher Law, Mr. Jonathan Pile, Mr. Bruce Patrick, Mr. Sada Lam, Professor Desmond Hui 13 *Detailed exhibitor list of the four exhibitions are attached as Appendix 1 Theparticipation in 2014 Venice Biennale with the thematic exhibition Fundamentally Hong Kong? is expected to inherit the high standards and performance of the previous years, with comparable scales and numbers of exhibitors. The Curatorial Team and exhibitor list are being finalized by the Organizers and the Steering Committee and shall follow. Page 7 or Page 7

8 Allegato 1 La lista dettagliata degli espositori Anno di partecipazione Espositori AD+RG 2 CL3 3 Laurence Liauw & Videotage 4 Rocco Design 5 Vito Bertin + Gu Da Qing + Woo Pui-leng 6 ALKF+ 7 Housing Authority 8 Wallace Chang Kacey Wong 2 Jason Carlow + John Solomon + John Lin 3 Wang Weijen 4 Gravity Partnership Ltd: 5 RAD Ltd. 6 eskyiu: Eric Schuldenfrei + Marisa Yiu 7 Edward Ng 8 Joshua Bolchover + Peter Hasdell + Esther Lorenz + Pokit Poon 9 Mathias Woo 10 Juan Du + Nicola Borg-Pisani 11 Leo Lee + Charmaine Hui 12 Desmond Hui + HK Cultural Imaging Workshop davidclovers + C.E.B. Reas 2 Map Office + Sun Hing Industries 3 Urban Rethink Tank + Craig Au Yeung 4 Joshua Bolchover, John Lin + HKU CPW + Kadoorie Farm 5 Michael Wolf with the Hong Kong Housing Authority 6 Ocean.CN + Rocker-Lange Architects + CAD 7 William Lim + Philip Yung 8 Clara Wong, Jonathan Solomon, Adam Frampton + Clean Air Network 9 Rocco Design Architects + HKICC School of Creativity 10 OMA + Chi Hai College 11 Urbis Ltd + MET Studio + Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust 12 RAD + Greg Girard ANTs 2 CAVE 3 Foster & Partners 4 Hour25 Production 5 HK Honey 6 Hidden Agenda

9 7 Jim CHAN 8 The Oval Partnership 9 Rocco Design 10 Ronald Lu & Partners (Hong Kong) Ltd. 11 Wallace CHANG 12 Eric SCHULDENFREI 13 Tris KEE