KATE CLANCY ARCHITECTURE GRADUATE
Travel and Culture
I have a keen interest in travel and culture. I have visited and experienced the architecture of various European cities including London, Barcelona, Paris, Berlin, Venice and Rome. I spent last summer travelling Thailand, this experience in particular left me with a strong desire to travel and experience different cultures and ways of life. In November 2012 I lived in Venice for one month while invigilating at the 13th International Venice Biennale "Common Ground".
INVIGILATING AT THE IRISH PAVILION,
13TH INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE EXHIBITION-COMMONGROUND
LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
SHIFTING GROUND:
Heneghan peng architects look at the universal languages of projective geometry and number their specific embodiment in detailed design. The stone facade of the Giant's Causeway Visitor Centre in Northern Ireland takes precise measure of the properties of the volcanic basalt seams from which it is hewn. The extraction of this stone is the subject of wall drawings recording the cutting of basalt for the facades of the building.
An oscillating bench invites visitors to balance their respective weights. Its horizontal level is calibrated against the mark of the acqua alta in the adjacent brickwork of the building and in the drawings making a datum in the floating ground of Venice.
BIENNALE ARCHITECTURA 2012 - VENEZIA
COMMON GROUND
Venice provides a stage that no other city could provide for such an event. David Chipperfield, artistic director of the architecture biennale choose the theme "common ground" for the 13th international architecture exhibition. "Common Ground" was chosen to encourage his colleagues to react to the prevelant professional and cultural tendencies of our time that place such emphasis on individual and isolated actions, instead of making the case for common and shared ideas that can have a positive impact in the city.
"Common Ground" provokes one to admit the continuities and influences that define our architectural profession. The phrase also tries to train our attention on the city, which is our area of expertise and activity, but also something created in collaboration with every citizen, and the many stakeholders and participants in the process of building.
Chipperfields theme of the biennale was a provocation to his colleagues to demonstrate their commitment to these shared and common values, encourging them towards a portrait of the collaborations and affinities behind their work: "despite our different concerns, backgrounds and points of view we do indeed share common ground"-Chipperfield
St. Mark's Square
The site for spectacles or a spectacular site?
The best way to experience this square is not to describe it, rather live it. You have to touch, explore with curoisity. I had the chance to see the square filled with people by day and at night when it was empty, lights out. Suddenly a burst of light touched on its golden aspect and I was immediately filled with wonder. It is a place that embraces you in its great mystery.