Next year's Venice Architecture Biennale (the 16th International Architecture Exhibition) will be curated by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, the co-founders of Dublin-based Grafton Architects, the biennale board announced today. According to a statement released by the president of the Venice Biennale, Paolo Baratta, the 2018 exhibition will build upon last year's show curated by Chilean architect and 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Alejandro Aravena.
"The Exhibition curated by Alejandro Aravena offered visitors a critical overview of the worldwide evolution of architecture and underlined how important it is that a qualified demand on the part of individuals and communities be met by an equally effective response, thereby confirming that architecture is one of civil society’s instruments for organizing the space in which it lives and works," Baratta said in a press release. "Along these lines, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara will continue to address the same theme but from the point of view of the quality of the public and private space, of urban space, of the territory and of the landscape as the main ends of architecture. The curators, who are well-known for the refinement of their work, are also known for their intense didactic activity and their ability to involve and fascinate new generations."
Grafton Architects, founded in 1978, recently won the Royal Institute of British Architects's first International Prize for its design of the Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología campus in Lima, Peru. The firm also won a Silver Lion at the 2012 Venice Biennale.
Visit ARCHITECT's Project Gallery for more information about Grafton Architects.
