At the Venice Biennale, the suburbs sink

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This has been potent year for architectural symbolism, to say the least. Rem Koolhaas’ CCTV buildingin Beijing and Zaha Hadid’s Guangzhou opera house both went up in flames -- and with them a certain vision of the starchitecture era.

Now, with predictions swirling about American suburbia heading for a period of extreme poverty or lawlessness or worse, Mike Bouchet‘s project for the Venice Biennale goes glub-glub-glub.

If Bouchet didn’t plan it this way, he should have. Even without the soggy ending, the project was a compelling sub-prime spin on Aldo Rossi’s Teatro del Mondo, also as a Biennale design. With it, the symbolism is almost too perfect.

(Via c-monster et al.)

-- Christopher Hawthorne