6th São Paulo International Biennale of Architecture and Design
Living in cities: Reality Architecture Utopia
Open to the public in October, 22, the 6th Biennial will debate feasible alternatives for better living in the big cities of the world
To Live in the City: Architecture, Reality and Utopia: this is the dominant theme for this 6th edition of International Biennial of Architecture that will begin this October, 22th, in São Paulo, Brazil. The leitmotiv of the exhibition is to anticipate the challenges of living in the big cities and metropolis of the world for the next years. This 2005 edition of the Biennial is an opportunity to ponder about the active and comprehensible participation of the architects in
the process of living in the Brazilian cities and this discussion embraces the social inclusion of
large parts of the community, says Paulo Sophia, president of the Brazilian Architects
Institute, São Paulo Department.
The show, sponsored by the Brazilian Institute (IAB) and by the São Paulo Biennial Foundation, is supposed to attract more than 200 thousand guests, a number not so far from the last edition of the event. Just to have an idea of the magnitude of one of the most
traditional architecture shows in the world, the Venice Biennial welcomed no more than 65
thousand people in the last Italian edition.
Since the theme is about living in the city, the exhibition will show mainly buildings for inhabitation and work with their extensions and urban complements. "Our idea is to make clear that the architecture is not an exclusive privilege of a class, as we used to think in the past, but a democratic benefit. People can recognize the buildings and, for that matter, the cities, so that they could profit a lot if an architect comes with a project", says Pedro Cury, one of the curators of the biennial.
The curators believe that the actual role of architecture is to engage in solutions to organize the urban spaces with respect the harmonization of the chaos and the balance of opposite interests. "To accomplish this we have to reconcile our reality, an effect of our dysfunctional development, with the utopia as a kind of thinking that fulfill the progress of mankind", says Cury.
In the last edition of the Biennial, about sixty percent of the guests were formed by people without direct relation with the professions like architects, designers and landscape or interior architects, according to curator Gilberto Belleza. This year, the exhibition will resume that dialogue with this person with no expertise. We are not going to favor the avant garde aspects of the show. On the contrary, we intend to convey instruction and information as well as pleasure and entertainment to attract an large amount of guests, says Belleza. About 250 scale models will help in the visual and understanding of the show.
+ Numbers and trivia
- Almost 1,000 projects
- expected public: more than 200,000 people
- general exhibition: 200 panels
- exposition area: 28,000 square meters
- About 70 colleges enrolled in the international competition
- 250 scale models
