Betsky showed the public an obvious fact: architecture is not building. As he elaborated,

Buildings are objects and the act of building leads to such objects, but architecture is something else.  It is the way we think and talk about buildings, how we represent them, how we build them.  This is architecture. More generally, architecture is a way of representing, shaping and perhaps even offering critical alternatives to the human-made environment…In fact, buildings are not enough.  They are the tombs of architecture, the residue of the desire to make another world, a better world, and a world open to possibilities beyond the everyday.

Then what’s the architecture beyond buildings? In Arsenale, the old shipyards and warehouses in east Venice, architects from different countries are invited to give their responses to “architecture beyond buildings”. Their works  come in various formats including mechanics, installation, video and audio, interactive media in search of the closest approach to express their imaginary space.

Giardini di Castello is another exhibition area to hold regular national exhibitions. Each of the participated countries has its own national pavilion with exhibitions that refer and influence many aspects of architecture: formal experimentation, narration, bodies, climate, social inequality, sustainability, multimedia, virtuality and ‘existentially’

*The post was originally written in Chinese and partly in English by our guest blogger Anya Yan and was translated by April Zhang.