Hong Kong at Venice Biennale 2018: apartment living in focus as exhibitors look at how to create a community in a high-rise

The Venice Biennale of Architecture can be an unruly affair, with 65 national pavilions and dozens of other exhibitions, each with their own agenda. This year, however, the many different parts of the world’s largest architecture showcase seem to have taken the overarching theme to heart.

The theme is “Freespace”. As described by the biennale’s curators, Irish architects Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell, it is a philosophy that positions architecture around the people who use it. In their words, it represents “a generosity of spirit and a sense of humanity at the core of architecture’s agenda”.

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Hong Kong, as usual, took a pragmatic approach to the concept. Its exhibition – on display in a typical Venetian courtyard house next to one of the biennale’s two main venues – brings together 111 skyscraper models and artist impressions by 94 architects under the title “Vertical Fabric: density in landscape”. Each installation explores different ways of making high-rise living more comfortable, environmentally friendly, social, and humane.

Some are conceptual, while others are already under construction – including Victoria Dockside, an exhibit of the tower now being built on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront, and a high-rise church in Fortress Hill.

“It’s a new era for the skyscraper,” says Italian architect Giusi Ciotoli, whose 2017 book Dal grattacielo al tessuto verticale (From skyscrapers to vertical fabric) inspired the name of the Hong Kong exhibition.