Australia’s pools take centre stage at Venice Biennale

The Australian Pavilion’s exhibition at the Venice Bienale, The Pool by Aileen Sage Architects, Amelia Holliday and Isabelle Toland with Michelle Tabet. Photo by Brett Boardman

The swimming pool is being hailed as one of Australia’s greatest cultural symbols at the Australian exhibition at the Biennale Architettura 2016, which will run until November 27 2016 in Venice, Italy.

The Australian Exhibition, presented by the Australian Institute of Architects and curated by Aileen Sage Architects (Isabelle Toland and Amelia Holliday) with Michelle Tabet, uses the pool as a lens through which to explore Australian cultural identity.

Their manifesto encourages the audience to step outside the architect-to-architect discourse to show how a familiar, common object, the pool, is in fact pregnant with cultural significance; it is both artefact and catalyst of change.

What is The Pool?

The creative directors of The Pool said in a statement: “Pools in Australia are currently facing significant challenges as social institutions. The threatened closure and demolition of Australian public pools is a perennial theme of community protest and activism and is an issue to which architects and urban commentators are inevitably drawn.

“By identifying the pool’s cultural importance to Australia, we are pushing for a more critical engagement with the civic and social values that underpin our work as architects. The power and breadth of these places should not be underestimated nor simply jettisoned as uneconomical. Architecture can and does have an impact that transcends conventional economic models.”

The Pool was selected by a committee of the Australian Institute of Architects from an open competition process chaired by Professor Paul Berkemeier, La Biennale di Venezia Committee Chair.

Australia’s attendance at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia is an initiative of the Australian Institute of Architects. The Institute has coordinated Australia’s presence at the International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia since 2006. Australia’s previous exhibitions have attracted large audiences during the Architecture Biennale and on tour globally.