DRAFT

Swiss Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

“Endgültige Form wird von der Architektin am Bau bestimmt.”

With the exhibition title, which translates to “The final form is defined by the architect on site,” Annexe quotes a note left by Lisbeth Sachs on a plan for one of her buildings, the Kunsthalle. The title has guided us throughout the curatorial process. By overlaying two contrasting architectures, we create a new spatial constellation that lies between memory and imagination.

The exhibition draws from a remarkable piece of architecture by Lisbeth Sachs (1914–2002), one of the first registered women architects in Switzerland and a contemporary of Bruno Giacometti, who designed the Swiss Pavilion in the Giardini. This proximity in time, albeit not in space, leads to the question: What if Lisbeth Sachs had designed the Swiss Pavilion? Impertinent at first glance, yet both architects designed pavilions in the 1950s for the display of artworks. Giacometti’s Pavilion for the Biennale in Venice was completed in 1952. Meanwhile, Sachs’s short-lived Kunsthalle, conceived for the Swiss Exhibition for Women’s Work (Saffa), held in Zurich in 1958, was demolished and survived as a project in the archives. The act of (re)construction in the present day highlights an arresting absence in the No Woman’s Land of the Giardini—all 29 national pavilions are authored by men.

A site-specific sound installation transforms the Swiss Pavilion into a multi-sensory experience, where sound serves as both a medium of translation and an instrument of immersion. Field recordings spanning one-and-a-half years, from conversations to construction sounds, reveal the richness of the project’s process and introduce another dimension to the architecture, that of listening. Past and present voices merge into a “resounding architecture,” creating an archive of sounds that brings the space to life.

The project is led by the four architects Elena Chiavi, Kathrin Füglister, Amy Perkins, and Myriam Uzor, who form the group Annexe, and the embedded artist Axelle Stiefel. Annexe makes use of fiction to revive the work of pioneering women designers, opening a discussion with and learning from those who have come before us.