The Forests of Venice is initiated byKjellander + Sjöberg and Folkhem, who have produced the exhibition together with the support of the Swedish Institute. The curator is Jan Åman. Additional support from Swedish Wood, Sveaskog and Martinsons.
The Swedish exhibition The Forests of Venice has been officially selected as a Collateral Event of the 15th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The initiative brings together some of Sweden’s most prominent architectural practices and highlights wood as a sustainable construction material, while illustrating the interaction between nature and the man-made human habitat in order to respond to climate change and limited resources.
The exhibition takes place in a greenhouse built in 1894, located between the two main exhibition venues of La Biennale di Venezia - Giardini and Arsenale. The point of departure for the exhibition is Venice’s built environment, in a time when climate change and rising sea levels impose similar threats to coastal cities globally.
"We wanted to create an informal meeting space resembling a glade in a forest; offering beautiful dappled daylight, evoking trees, branches and foliage. By inverting the Doge’s Palace, we investigated our contemporary democratic structures. Simultaneously, we wanted to combine the tactile qualities of wood and its potential as a sustainable construction material with innovation and technology", explains Stefan Sjöberg of Kjellander + Sjöberg architects.
The Forests of Venice extends inside the greenhouse where seven selected architectural practices – Architects without Borders Sweden, Arrhov Frick, DinellJohansson, Horn.Uggla, In Praise of Shadows, Carmen Izquierdo e Urbio - showcase how classical Venetian architectural and urban elements can be interpreted and translated into new strategies for our time. Once again presenting wood as the main material.