Olalekan Jeyifous, ‘ACE/AAP’

Since its first run in 1980, which under the title ‘The Presence of the Past’ set the path to postmodernism in Europe, the Venice Architecture Biennale has always presented itself as a call for introspection. On the history-laden premises where it is held, amid the halls of the Arsenale and the pavilions of the Giardini, this celebration of the discipline and its representatives comes with a dose of self-criticism and a desire for renewal. The exercise is dangerous; the pitfalls, numerous: huge spaces, curators frequently lacking expertise, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task before them when they fail to see it as a pure exercise in diplomacy, architects regarded as artists or academics… But Lesley Lokko, curator of this eighteenth edition that opened to the public last 20 May, has stayed clear of all of that. And it has turned out well...[+]