ABSTRACT
During my participation at the last Venice Architecture Biennale, in the fall of 2008, as I walked through the main exhibition inside the Arsenale, I thought of the huge divide between the architectures of excess that were displayed there and the economic precariousness of the world outside. It was unsettling to witness some of the most “cutting-edge” architectural practices present themselves as silent props for free market economic and political systems that were so wildly floundering that September. In my mind, this contrast magnified the powerlessness of our profession against the context of the world’s most pressing socio-political and economic realities. Yet as this fatalistic idea invaded my thoughts, what resonated most with me as I left the exhibition was how this unprecedented moment of crisis could actually become an opportunity to anticipate and rethink the institution of architecture, practice, and research.
