Dezeen Wire: architecture critic Justin McGuirk (pictured above, holding the award), photographer Iwan Bann and the Urban-Think Tank team of Venezuela (also pictured above) have won the Golden Lion for best project at the Venice Architecture Biennale for their Torre David/Gran Horizonte installation and cafe.
The project documents the Torre David vertical slum in Caracas, the 45-storey concrete frame of a corporate office building that was never completed and is now inhabited by people who would otherwise live in the city's slums.
Photographs by Iwan Baan record the culture that's grown up there while the pop-up Venezuelan restaurant, called Gran Horizonte, brings a taste of public life in Caracas to the Arsenale exhibition.
"This exhibit believes that sharing a meal is the best way to establish common ground for a discussion," says Urban-Think Tank in relation to biennale director David Chipperfield's theme (discussed in our interview here).
See all our stories about the Venice Architecture Biennale »
Well deserved!!!! Felicitaciones!!!
Fantastic ! This is great… wish we could have been there.
This is a shameful attempt to glamorize poverty, invasion of private property and so many other social problems that we have in Venezuela. I can see how an Italian jury can see this as exotic and innovative but I think that’s very blindsided.
Reinaldo, ignorance is best kept to oneself. Do not display it here and openly to the world please. If you simply can’t understand the reasoning behind this award and have to call politics in to justify your ignorant comment then go back to Venezuela to play politics there being with MUD, Chavez or Nini’s and leave architecture to those who understand it.
I agree with Reinaldo and also think this award is a shame. As a Venezuelan citizen, I see this building like a symbol of the anarchy that goes on in Caracas and the inability of the government to give a house to the families that were, in a way, forced to do this. To give an award to this is really confusing and I believe that it has to be discussed, not like Charles just said.