With its National Socialist past, the German Pavilion in Venice actually only speaks of the ‘healthy‘ body. As part of our German contribution ‘Open for Maintenance‘ to the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale 2023, which we curated together with Büro Juliane Greb and ARCH+, we built a new entrance situation to the pavilion that also addresses the ‘fragile‘ and ‘limited‘ body: a semi-circular ramp under which the five steps of the mighty plinth disappear. A shared, accessible entrance for everyone, directly in front of the portico. For pedestrians, wheelchair users, pram pushers, pallet pullers… Although made of wood, although only for six months, merging with the existing stone architecture. As a constructive, optimistic suggestion of how it could be, or could have been. The ramp was inaugurated as part of the opening ceremony with a performance by the mixed-abled FORWARD DANCE COMPANY from Leipzig’s LOFFT – DAS THEATER.
In our ‘correction‘ or ‘repair‘ of the German Pavilion, we tried to synthesise rather than contrast. Although the new ramp was built entirely from used wood instead of solid stone, we wanted it to connect directly to the existing building. So we painted the wood to match the colour and texture of the stone. It was great fun: paint just a few tenths of a millimetre thick, dabbed, thrown, drawn – and everything blended together. We didn’t want to fool anyone; on the contrary, we were most pleased when visitors didn’t even notice the new ramp. And we ourselves were always a little surprised at how much the pavilion suddenly opened up to visitors with a few painted wooden boards.
The ramp in front of the German Pavilion was built entirely from used material from the 2022 Art Biennale. Most of the material came from the Ukrainian contribution ‘Piazza Ucraini‘ by architect Dana Kosmina: flamed solid wood planks and many hundreds of sandbags. The Rebiennale / R3B team, who had already helped us collect the materials, used them to build the ramp. The boards were both supporting structure and ‘façade‘. The sandbags were used to bridge the height difference and weigh down the wooden structure.