No, no: we're not half as idle as our most loyal fans would have it. Not by half; while it may have appeared to many that we invented a new holiday (or two) for ourselves in order to squander July, then decamped to points sandy for much of August—only to return in September and fizzle out upon re-entry—the truth is that we've been traveling. With all the rest of the sad, sad, fallen world of starchitecture. Oh, but how that guilt already mounts; we must make a confesstion. It was not us, "per se", but one of ours—a colleague, an ally, a co-worker (in the bland parlance of our day). Squirreling away our dimes and ha'pence, we sent this brave soul into the belly of the beast—as some few wise among you may have cottoned—if by beast we mean the opening festivities of the...wait for it...10th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale!

Venice Biennale begins for some, ends for others The prosecco bottles are lying forlorn and empty in the undergrowth of the Giardini in Venice, the palazzi are voided of black-clad architects in difficult spectacles. The Venice Biennale preview is over is and it’s now open to the public, meaning that it’s as good as over. Your correspondent arrived in La Serenissima on Friday in a state of moist anticipation. Will Farshid Moussavi be sporting headgear to rival her Dark-Helmet-out-of Spaceballs effort from last year? Will Ricardo and Liz talk to anyone? Will it be any good now that the director has decided cities are more important than buildings? How will the Peggy Guggenheim bouncers deal with being bum-rushed by the desperate, non-guest-list hordes? None of the answers to these questions are revealed below….

Reports and pix continue, after the jump, in the order they were received from the field and piled up in our inbox. Because, fine: We were out of town too, just plain rocking bells, and we're not gonna interrupt that for some damn blog.

Iconmongers at war!
My first contact in Venice was with a noted gallerist from the north of this ancient continent. He texted Zaha to ask her if she would be coming to the world’s foremost architecture jamboree. Her reply? “Don’t know. Sounds really boring.” London-based Biennale director Ricky Burdett’s decision to focus on, like, cities, rather than using the million-money-shot, superstar strategy of past years has left us feeling like so many whipped schoolboys. Ricky wants us to put off childish things, and remember: buildings sometimes have other buildings right next to them, and we should think more about that and less about our design egos. It seems that Rick’s laptop has Excel installed, rather than 3d Studio Max. Or even Rhino. The exhibition was mostly statistics (has anyone before worked out the GDP per capita of New York in euros?), in an audacious attempt to transform our beloved biennale into a convention of traffic engineers. Not everyone liked this trend. We have always admired Odile Decq for sticking with being a goth despite everyone else leaving it behind in 1989, but she wasn’t happy this weekend. “It’s like architecture is a bad word, all of a sudden,” she was heard to exclaim. Oh, it’s a dark day indeed when these questions surface about this glorious profession. But Zaha did turn up, so form fans had some succour.

Golden shower
Ricky’s choice of the bestest architect in the world had already been made by the beginning of the biennale preview. Richard Rogers, he of baggy shirt and baggier face, is the Burdett pick for Venice’s coveted Golden Lion. When those in London heard this it was hard to contain their lack of surprise. There’s no way to make this sound funny: Ricky and Richard are best friends, frequently dining together to discuss transport nodes and densification. Nepotism doesn’t even begin to describe it.

France rocks like it’s the 1920s, except with scaffolding and spliff
The best party of the biennale was held at the magnificent French pavilion in the Giardini on Friday night. Your correspondent was responsibly sleeping off jet-lag, but those who were there report spliff-smoking Frenchmen drinking from siphons and generally partying like it was 1968 amongst the scaffolding. That is until the police arrived and shut it down. Some hardy souls avoided the Carabinieri and slept the night in hammocks on the roof. An évenement and no mistake.

Koolhaas is a hairshirt protestant shock
Proof if it were needed that Rem Koolhaas wants us to suffer. OMA’s exhibition at the biennale informed us lowly critics that we had missed the new urban paradigm that has taken shape in Dubai. But only the most puritan amongst us could stand to read it all – the only seating was in the form of barely upholstered trestles. It explains all that empiricism, I suppose. Here’s a taster of the tone of the presentation text on ‘Emiratization’: ‘The fact that a large amount of the thrust that this system delivers is geared towards providing “Christians” [Koolhaas’ emphasis] with the carnal stupefaction and alcoholic altered states that violates the tenants [sic?] of it’s own religion – like an abortion clinic in the Vatican.’ Where to start with this diatribe? Alcoholic so-called Christian landlords in Kuwait violating their tenants? Is this the future?

· Biennale Architecture [La Biennale di Venezia]

Posted in Dinosaurs, Our Fallen World, The Continent