In the main hall of the German Pavilion, we deposited the collected material from over 40 pavilions of the 2022 Art Biennale. Golden metal plates from the Uzbek Pavilion, white pipes from Austria, transparent showcase glass from the main exhibition. Tons of timber material in between. Throughout the Architecture Biennale 2023, all the material was repurposed in projects for nonprofit Venetian initiatives. After six months, all the material was used up and the pavilion was empty again.
We were particularly pleased with those ‘spolia‘ that had an architectural expression, such as the blue half-column from the Israeli contribution to the 2022 Art Biennale entitled ‘QUEENDOM‘ by artist Ilit Azoulay. Elements such as these half-columns made it clear that we were not only interested in the material value of things – but above all in the cultural enrichment they contain. This could be the shape (as in the case of the Israeli half-pillars), but also the colour, as in the case of the Chilean beams and planks in the colours red, black and blue. Each element received a QR code from us, which visitors to the pavilion could use to trace the history of the component.
We stored textiles and carpets in the meeting room. Some fabric was repurposed to create rolled-up chairs. The remaining material was used by visitors to produce their own bags, using tools and stencils provided by HdM Berlin.
For many collected building elements, we pondered how to store them. Above, an attempt to create storage containers from the collected material itself. The drywall aluminium profiles used were previously gathered in various lengths from several pavilions of the 2022 Art Biennale. The entire material, including the ‘barrel‘, was further processed during the six-month workshop program.
Much of our collected material was dirty and required cleaning before reuse. We spent the winter tackling this task, investing a significant amount of effort. From a purely monetary perspective (given the current circumstances) it seemed utterly nonsensical. However, adopting alternative, resource-oriented measures became not only sensible but also necessary. At times, the German Pavilion became a large cleaning hall, as to be seen here with the drying fabric sheets from the Swiss Pavilion, which had been quite dusty as a base for a former gravel floor.
We documented every component we collected: with photos, measurements and origin information. This resulted in a large catalogue, a digital twin of our physical depot. In preparation for the six-month workshop programme in the pavilion, the digital catalogue served as a source of information for the many universities and vocational schools that later worked with the material. However, the cataloguing also had an independent, perhaps more artistic purpose: by documenting each material on an equal footing, each material received the same ennobling appreciation, without hierarchy and without judgement, from the small screw to the large door. Quite German, this cataloguing, was the comment often heard from visitors. There is something to it.
At times, the German Pavilion looked very messy. Material everywhere, roughly pre-sorted, piled up in heaps and piles, quite dirty in places. It may have looked like rubbish to some, but to us it had quality. Not so much because of its material value – other characteristics were decisive for us. We compared a lot of the collected material with ‘spolia‘: components that already had special shapes or properties due to their previous use and had therefore become carriers of cultural significance.
We deposited the material we had collected from the pavilions of the previous Art Biennale 2022 in the main room of the German Pavilion. Over the winter, we were busy sifting through the material, categorising it, making an inventory and – if necessary – cleaning it. Each piece passed through many hands. In order not to lose the important information about the origin of each piece, each item was labelled with a small sticker as soon as it was ‘delivered‘ to the German Pavilion. We had many hundreds of these stickers. We later replaced them with labels with a QR code. But the handwritten labels are perhaps the best example of the hard work behind them.