MUHON: TRACES OF AN ADOLESCENT CITY

The Philippine’s first participation at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

GALLERY:
The Philippine Pavilion
Palazzo Mora
Venice, Italy

VERNISSAGE:
May 27, 2016

EXHIBITION DATA:
May 28 to November 27, 2016
 

Muhon: Traces of an Adolescent City, the selected exhibit for the country’s National Pavilion at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition in the Venice Biennale, has gathered the country’s foremost architects and contemporary visual artists to be part of the historic first participation of the Philippines to the Architecture Venice Biennale. The Philippine Pavilion will hold its vernissage on May 27 and will open from May 28 to November 27, 2016 at Palazzo Mora in Venice, Italy.

The exhibit’s curator Leandro V. Locsin Partners (LVLP) has invited six architects and three contemporary artists to start a conversation about the rapid creation and destruction of Metro Manila’s built heritage and whether such a condition precludes the formation of the city’s cultural identity. The curatorial team is composed of Leandro Locsin, Jr., Sudarshan Khadka, Jr., and Juan Paolo de la Cruz.

The nine participants surveyed buildings, structures, landmarks, boroughs, and urban landscapes, and evaluated their cultural merit and analyzed their potential as national heritage. After which they created three sets of abstracted models built for each of the subjects corresponding to their original state, their current condition, and their projected future.

The intent is to abstract and distill the essence of these muhons or markers in order to explore the presence or absence of significant value. The three rooms of the Philippine Pavilion have been categorized as-- (1) Imprints, (2) Markers and (3) Projections, and the three abstractions of each subject will be distributed accordingly.

The individual architects and firms are Eduardo Calma, Jorge Yulo, 8x8 Design Studio Co., C|S Design Consultancy, Lima Architecture, and Mañosa & Co. Inc. The internationally recognized Filipino contemporary artists, represented by 1335MABINI—Poklong Anading, Tad Ermitaño and Mark Salvatus—complete the list.

The subjects that will be featured in the Pavilion are KM 0 in Luneta (Anading), Pandacan Bridge (Ermitaño), Chinatown (Salvatus), Philippine International Convention Center (Calma), Mandarin Hotel (Yulo), Magsaysay Center (8x8 Design Studio Co.), Pasig River (C|S Design Consultancy), Makati Stock Exchange (Lima Architecture), and Coconut Palace (Mañosa & Co.).

With the main impetus being the destruction of post-war brutalist buildings and urban features, LVLP aims to underscore the urgency of inclusive public conversations about the relationship of the built environment and the identity of the city.

Muhon aims to extract conjectures that reconcile the diametrically opposed vectors of progress and of permanence in relation to corresponding notions of modernity and an emerging identity. Simultaneously, it aims to make sense of the implications of the destruction of signifiers of built heritage and the lack of social consciousness about this issue. LVLP’s exhibit aims to be a venue for a collaborative and collective act of contemplation about the built environment to transpire.

The 2016 International Architecture Exhibition, organized by the La Biennale di Venezia presided over by Paolo Baratta, is curated by Alejandro Aravena and titled Reporting From the Front. In 2014, the exhibition had a duration of six months and attracted 228,000 visitors, in addition to the 12,214 visitors who attended the preview.

 

LINKS:

Official NCCA Announcement

La Biennale di Venezia website

Interview with co-curator Leandro Y. Locsin Jr.