Japan has sent the dismantled remains of a 65-year-old house as its contribution to the Venice Architecture Biennale, staging an exhibition that explores the potential for material reuse.
Titled The Co-ownership of Action: Trajectories of Elements, the exhibition on the terrace of the Japanese Pavilion features benches made from the old house's roof and screens constructed from its exterior walls.
Old house walls form exhibition screens at the Japan Pavilion
Inside, yet-to-be-reused elements of the house are lined up on display as if in a warehouse.
Prompted by the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale theme, How will we live together", curator Kozo Kadowaki and his team wanted to explore sustainable alternatives to two waste-generating architectural practices: house demolitions and international exhibitions. The team's answer was to rescue materials from the scrap heap in a way that honoured and documented their past, while also giving them a future. It sees this as a "co-ownership of architectural production" generated through movement and reconstruction.
Material from the old house is stored in the Pavilion as in a warehouse
The team is made up of architects Jo Nagasaka of Schemata Architects, Ryoko Iwase of Studio Iwase, Toshikatsu Kiuchi of Toshikatsu Kiuchi Architect, Taichi Sunayama of Sunayama studio, and Daisuke Motogi of DDAA.
"Over the past few years, while participating in the Salone del Mobile Milano and other international events, I have been ...