ABSTRACT

The fundamental stance of the 2014 Venice Biennale is that, while a hundred years ago, in 1914, it made sense to talk of ‘Chinese architecture,’ – or any other national architecture for that matter, – today such a reference is irrelevant. This is because the forces of modernization have been globalized during the past century and destroyed ‘national identity.’ Instead, the catalogue proposes, we should look at architecture as made up of 12 universal ‘fundamentals’: floor, door, wall, ceiling, toilet, facade, balcony, window, corridor, hearth, roof and stair.