Location:
arsenale building
Venice Biennale 2010
Venice

Italy

coordinates:
open coordinates in google maps
open coordinates in apple map

Building names(s): Venice Biennale 2010 Balancing Act
Architect/Designer: García-Abril + Ensamble Studio
architect website:
more images:

Completion date: 28 August - 21 November 2010

as part of this year's venice architecture biennale, spanish practice ensamble studio has created 'balancing act', an installation to be showcased at the arsenal building. consisting of two giant beams, a spring and a rock, the project is a play of balance. negotiating between the old structural columns of the building, the two lines created by the installation draw a diagonal incision through the space. the result is a new order, a new rhythm to the 'tempo' already established by the existing columns. this foreign composition creates tension and friction, offering a new and disturbing reading of the space. the predominantly horizontal structure affects the verticality of the room, breaking its scale and introducing a new element to the arsenal building. 'we have understood the whole arsenale as a theme of multiple counterpoint, where afterthe appearance of the original space, different voices occur around that theme, developedand carried in intervals, creating a complex compositional sequence, an architectural ''fugue'', in which different spaces follow one another, and in which the dissonant balance of the 'balancing act' is just one chord.' -ensamble studio by playing with the forces present in the space, and the gravitational force that the structures generate, 'balancing act' makes the concept of balance tangible.