Mostra Internazionale di Architettura La Biennale di Venezia 1980–2021

Text: Géza Boros

ASAC (Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee), the historic archives of the Venetian Biennale keeps publishing the data bases of the sections of the Biennale as a series. In 2019 the volume on the film festival, in 2020 that of fine arts and in 2021 the one on the architectural exhibitions was published. The architectural biennales sporadically followed one another till 2000 since when it is held every other year. There was only one excption to this rule: due to the COVID pandemic the event schedulled for 2020 was postponed for the next year. In the beginning, exhibitions lasted only 2-3 months. There was a change in 2014, since when it has been a six-month event just like the fine art biennale. The number of visitors has been the increase ever since? despite the pandemic, in 2021 it has exceeded 300,000. This is still only half of the frequency recorded for the fine arts biennale, but the tendency shows quite well well that the architectural biennale has evolved into a mega-event exciting and attractive for an ever widening public: it is no longer an exhibitions limited to architectural models and designs.