The United States Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale pays tribute to wood framing — simple, cheap and revolutionary in its own way.
Since the Venice Architecture Biennale had its inaugural presentation in 1980, technology — particularly computer-assisted design — has transformed the field.
Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that the event’s latest edition, on view from May 22 to Nov. 21, looks forward to more cutting-edge developments in “Future Assembly,” a special exhibition billed as a look at a world that “both includes and exceeds humanity.”
The United States Pavilion, however, takes the opposite approach, looking backward to the rise of a simple, cheap and very analog building tradition.
“American Framing,” the pavilion’s show, which was commissioned by the University of Illinois Chicago, focuses on the softwood construction that became typically American in the 19th century. The exhibition emphasizes the democratic, anonymous qualities of the process, whose impact is still felt today: In 2019, 90 percent of homes completed in the United States were wood-framed.
“U.S. pavilions have typically focused on American architects,” said Paul Preissner, who founded Paul Preissner Architects in Chicago and curated the pavilion with Paul Andersen. (Both men are professors of architecture at the University of Illinois Chicago.) “We wanted to explore the anonymity of architectural practice and construction with this so-common-it’s-ignored building construction type as the theme.”
“American Framing” includes models of historical examples, as well as furniture and a series of photographs the curators commissioned from other architects and makers. A four-story, wood-framed installation, placed directly in front of the entrance to the U.S. Pavilion, requires visitors to move through it to get inside.
“It’s kind of half-house, with some very unusual proportions that will introduce people to framing very directly,” said Mr. Andersen, founder of the Denver-based firm Independent Architecture. Visitors will be able to climb stairs to three levels of the frame-only structure, which is 40 feet tall and 88 feet wide.
The installation is meant to contrast with the column-fronted, Palladian-style pavilion itself, designed by the acclaimed firm Delano & Aldrich and constructed of brick and stone in 1930.
“That building aspires to classical European architecture,” Mr. Preissner said, explaining his interest in countering it with “American architecture in its kind of dumbest, most ubiquitous, but maybe most significant contribution.”
Mr. Preissner and Mr. Andersen, frequent collaborators, trace their involvement with the Venice Architecture Biennale back more than two decades; as students, they both worked on the 2000 U.S. Pavilion, organized by Greg Lynn and Hani Rashid.
The show’s 12 historical models were made by students at the university. The earliest is of a Chicago warehouse, circa 1832, designed by George Washington Snow, who was considered the inventor of “balloon framing,” the process of building with a series of vertical wood segments held together with only nails. This cheap, lightweight technique contrasted with European timber construction, which relied on interlocking beams made of heavy hardwoods, often secured with pegs.
In the 19th century, settlers of European descent who were moving westward relied on the continent’s plentiful trees, particularly Douglas fir and Southern pine, to build homes.
“Especially after the Homestead Act in 1862, a lot of people needed to build homes,” Mr. Andersen said.
He added that at the time, homesteaders “couldn’t move large timber pieces or masonry around very easily, and not everyone had the skills to build in those materials.” So they gratefully adopted “a system that a couple of people could use to build a house in a week or two,” he said. “You just nailed it together.”
Other historical models in “American Framing” include those of a Sears, Roebuck kit house and a home from the influential Levittown development on Long Island, considered the first mass-produced suburb.
Mr. Preissner and Mr. Andersen also commissioned new furniture pieces constructed in a similar way. Four wooden benches in the show were designed by the Chicago architect Ania Jaworska in collaboration with the students.
The firm Norman Kelley created three pieces of seating, all loosely inspired by classic forms like Shaker furniture and Windsor chairs, from common lumber. Two of each design — a rocker, a bench and a chair — will be in the show, and time-lapse videos will show how they were formed from basic wood planks.
“We have a deep sympathy for history,” said Carrie Norman, who founded the firm with Thomas Kelley. “We’ve always been drawn to a slower and more analog process.”
Mr. Kelley said the goal was to create “something that is simple, and doesn’t just look simple.”
Visitors can see an artist’s take on the topic in the images the curators commissioned from two photographers, Daniel Shea and Chris Strong, who were given some latitude to riff on the show’s theme.
“They left it open,” said Mr. Shea, who is based in New York. “They talked about their mind-set, and they already know my work,” which he described as a search for the “values and politics that are inscribed in architectural form.” He contributed nearly 30 images, including “Untitled (Hammer)” (2021), showing a hand gripping the tool, and “Untitled (Geometry)” (2021), depicting a metal armature on a construction site.
“Some are more literal and some more textural,” Mr. Shea said.
For “Untitled (Slant)” (2021), a photo of angled tree trunks, he used an extreme telephoto lens that makes the background difficult to discern.
“People talk about seeing the forest for the trees, but this was an exercise in seeing the trees for the forest,” Mr. Shea said. “The part stands in for the whole, which is a central theme in my practice.”
Similarly, as the curators got closer to their topic, they found more detail to appreciate.
“This exhibition is more the beginning of a body of work rather than a culmination of it,” Mr. Andersen said, noting that their book on the topic, “American Framing: The Same Something for Everyone,” comes out later this year. They even have an idea for a follow-up exhibition. Mr. Andersen added, “It’s one of these threads that you pull, and it just keeps unraveling anew.”
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Celebrating the Very American Style of Building With Wood - The New York Times
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