The French pavilion at this year's Venice Architecture Biennale takes the form of the Ball Theater ? a hemispherical stage that is intended to "reawaken our desires for utopia".
Set to host a string of performances over the course of the biennale, the pavilion was designed as an inclusive space where the boundaries of art and architecture are blurred and people can express themselves freely.
The French Pavilion contains the metallic Ball Theater
The Ball Theater was designed by the architecture studio Muoto in partnership with scenographers Georgi Stanishev and Clémence La Sagna, associate curator Jos Auzende and programmer Anna Tardivel.
It was designed to offer visitors a space to imagine a more utopian future, which the curators said responds to the theme of this year's event, The Laboratory of the Future. The theatre is a hemispherical stage
"The idea of the theatre came because we wanted to create a collective space," Muoto architect Yves Moreau told Dezeen.
"It was a way to respond to the theme of the biennale, The Laboratory of the Future," he continued. "The theatre is a laboratory because you can do whatever you want. You can put on a hat, you put on makeup and you're somebody else. It was really a place for expression and inclusivity."
It will host a series of performances
Entering the pavilion, the first thing visitors see is the curved exterior of the hemispherical stage, which is covered in aluminium. Its globe-shaped f...