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LA STAMPA

Architecture Stars Poised For Radical Shift To Simplicity

Is Zaha Hadid's Burnham Pavilion in Chicago about to look passé?
Is Zaha Hadid's Burnham Pavilion in Chicago about to look passé?
Marco Vallora

VENICE - Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously said of academic writers that "they muddy the water, to make it seem deep." Architects, we can say, have been known to do the same.

Let’s think for a moment about what we have been forced to endure over the past decades thanks to an alleged building language that was wooly, muddled, ideological, and unrealistic. Being awkward was a must, and the gullible public bought all this “architectology.”

Well, something might have finally changed. Venice"s 13th International Architecture Biennale kicks off Wednesday, running until November 25. The clean design, the display at the Arsenale venue -- more than the pavilions in the cold Giardini -- give the sense that the ideology of the past decades has arrived at its inevitable end.

In the words of Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni: "No xè ghe ne podeva pì" -- we couldn’t stand all this anymore.

I’m not saying that after all the unrealistic and ridiculous proclamations of the wannabe avant-garde, the storm of the crisis and the restoration was needed to sweep away all the allegedly progressive illusions. But a healthy breeze of simple wisdom can heal the wounds which were opened by the wasted Utopian ambitions that were bound to go nowhere.

In the introduction to the catalogue of the exhibition, the president of the Biennale, Paolo Baratta, criticizes the nomadic drift of architecture which injured many previous exhibitions. The president admits that in the past we had to swallow a lot, recalling the deadly paradoxes by Aaron Betsky who claimed that a building is the grave of architecture.

It is immediately clear that the title of this edition, Common Ground, works as an axe without any excuses.

Moving forward, facing backwards

Common Ground means finding a shared and requited language, a musical resonance. No more of Archistars’ remote works. Let’s find a connection, a ground zero, some basic shapes. This primordial language doesn’t accept divas’ vain solos anymore and their hysterical desire to be the center of attention.

“Here, there’s no room for architects, only for architecture,” said the director David Chipperfield, with his ironic Charlie Chaplin-esque smile. He means that architecture needs a joint effort, a real sense of the urban context, humbleness towards sources and influences. Not Harold Bloom’s anxiety of influence, but a long awaited sincere public outing about sources of inspiration and hidden passions.

Even the diva of shapes, Zaha Hadid admits her debts towards the pioneers Felix Campana and Heinz Isler’s fluid tent structures. Peter Eisenman works on Giovanni Battista Piranesi while Peter Märkli uses Hans Josephsohn and Alberto Giacometti’s human sculptures. We have never seen so many references to Piranesi, Palladio, Terragni and Libera. This Biennale, though, is not historicist or didactic.

The Italian Pavilion, which is curated by Luca Zevi, son of the famous architect Bruno Zevi, is showcasing “Made in Italy” products starting with the first Italian computer built by the Olivetti factory in 1959. Fulvio Irace is retracing the Milan of Giò Ponti, Caccia Dominioni, Gardella, and Magistretti. It is not nostalgia, though. It is hard rethinking and lucid memory.

In the Catalan and Balearic Pavilion, the sculptor Jorge Oteiza’s words explain the spirit of this exhibition well. He says that artists are like oarsmen, who move forward while paddling backward.

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Economy

Lex Tusk? How Poland’s Controversial "Russian Influence" Law Will Subvert Democracy

The new “lex Tusk” includes language about companies and their management. But is this likely to be a fair investigation into breaking sanctions on Russia, or a political witch-hunt in the business sphere?

Photo of President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda

Polish President Andrzej Duda

Piotr Miaczynski, Leszek Kostrzewski

-Analysis-

WARSAW — Poland’s new Commission for investigating Russian influence, which President Andrzej Duda signed into law on Monday, will be able to summon representatives of any company for inquiry. It has sparked a major controversy in Polish politics, as political opponents of the government warn that the Commission has been given near absolute power to investigate and punish any citizen, business or organization.

And opposition politicians are expected to be high on the list of would-be suspects, starting with Donald Tusk, who is challenging the ruling PiS government to return to the presidency next fall. For that reason, it has been sardonically dubbed: Lex Tusk.

University of Warsaw law professor Michal Romanowski notes that the interests of any firm can be considered favorable to Russia. “These are instruments which the likes of Putin and Orban would not be ashamed of," Romanowski said.

The law on the Commission for examining Russian influences has "atomic" prerogatives sewn into it. Nine members of the Commission with the rank of secretary of state will be able to summon virtually anyone, with the powers of severe punishment.

Under the new law, these Commissioners will become arbiters of nearly absolute power, and will be able to use the resources of nearly any organ of the state, including the secret services, in order to demand access to every available document. They will be able to prosecute people for acts which were not prohibited at the time they were committed.

Their prerogatives are broader than that of the President or the Prime Minister, wider than those of any court. And there is virtually no oversight over their actions.

Nobody can feel safe. This includes companies, their management, lawyers, journalists, and trade unionists.

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