Unfolding Pavilion - Rituals of Solitude

THE EXHIBITION

On December 17th, 2020, at 6 PM CET, the ’Unfolding Pavilion’ will open its doors to the public.

In its third edition, the ‘Unfolding Pavilion’ will enter, for the first and last time ever, inside of John Hejduk’s House for the Inhabitant who Refused to Participate: an eccentric solo house that until recently was believed to be a paper project by the American architect, but that in fact was built in the 1980s without his consent, on a small private island in the Venetian lagoon. The exhibition will open on the 17th of December 2020: almost midway between the cancelled opening date of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition at the Biennale di Venezia and its new opening date (due on the 22nd of May 2021). Between August 29th and September 4th, the ‘Unfolding Pavilion’ occupied the twelve rooms of the House, inviting twelve international architects and scholars to spend a one week-long residency locked inside of them. Their works, produced in-situ, are dealing with issues of privacy, domesticity and isolation and are characterized by a powerful focus on fiction and storytelling. Due to the legal conditions imposed by the current owners of the building, sharing the exact location and images of the House, as well of the works realized inside of it, will not be possible under any circumstances prior to December 17th. On that date, a preview of the installations, along with the fabulous story of the house, will be published on www.ritualsofsolitude.com. The complete documentation, along with exclusive additional material, will be exhibited in Venezia during the opening days of the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale.

THE WORKS

All the contributions to the ‘Unfolding Pavilion’ 2020 were created during a one-week residency inside of the rooms of John Hejduk’s House for the Inhabitant Who Refused to Participate.   Twelve authors were confined in twelve rooms of 1,5 x 1,7 x 2,3 meters, which they couldn’t leave until the end of the residency. While having almost identical architectural features, each room was equipped with only one piece of furniture, which the authors couldn’t choose but had to work upon: a bed, a dining table, a toilet… The unique protocol of the residency, which resulted from the match of an eccentric setting, current travel and sanitary restrictions, and the compulsory legal obligations contained in the contract stipulated with the owners of the House, put the temporary residents in extremely tough (but very inspiring) conditions. The works that they created as a result, turned out to be equally unique.

THE AUTHORS

An international ensemble of twelve teams of architects and scholars have been invited to take part in the 2020 iteration of the Unfolding Pavilion. They are:

(ab)Normal; Bart Lootsma; James Taylor-Foster + Anton Valek; Fala Atelier; WAI Architecture Think Tank; Microcities + Giaime Meloni; Fosbury Architecture; Shumi Bose + Space Popular; Salottobuono; Aristide Antonas; MAIO; Traumnovelle.

THE TEAM

Curators: Daniel Tudor Munteanu, Davide Tommaso Ferrando
Web Design & Graphic Design: Hund (Ernesto Bellei, Federico Bergonzini, Antonio Alessandro Di Cicco, Simone S. Melis)
Illustration: Giovanni Benedetti, Marialuisa Montanari
Model: ErranteArchitetture (Sarah Becchio & Paolo Borghino)
Production & Research: Daniel Tudor Munteanu, Davide Tommaso Ferrando
Poster: Magda Vieriu & Octavian Hrebenciuc 

INFO

name: Unfolding Pavilion / Rituals of Solitude
curators: Daniel Tudor Munteanu, Davide Tommaso Ferrando
location: www.ritualsofsolitude.com
dates: from Dec 17th, 2020 to May 30th, 2021
opening: Dec 17th, 2020, at 18:00 (CET)