As the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012 draws to a close, we take a look back at the five exhibitions and pavilions that were most popular with Dezeen readers, as well as the biggest news stories to come out of the event. More
The Venice Architecture Biennale 2012 closes this weekend and this movie by Cristobal Palma shows how visitors to the Chilean Pavilion had to walk over a bed of salt while viewing proposals for Chile's public spaces on glowing boxes suspended from the ceiling. More
News: following this week's news that the UK government is restricting curved and glass walls on new school buildings, Aberrant Architecture's Kevin Haley and David Chambers are urging the Department of Education to look to the standardised schools designed by Oscar Niemeyer for Brazil in the 1980s, which the architects are presenting in the British Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennale. More
Irish studio Grafton Architects have acknowledged the influence of celebrated Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha on their work by constructing models of his buildings at the Venice Architecture Biennale. More
This movie by filmmakers Stretch documents the ongoing work by Cape Town studio Noero Architects to create a cultural centre within the barracks of Port Elizabeth that were once used as a concentration camp. More
In the final movie we filmed with Reinier de Graaf of OMA at the Venice Architecture Biennale, he discusses the firm's fascination with architecture of the late 1960s and how there is an "inherent paradox between the brutal appearance of these buildings and the social mission that they were part of." More
News: the New York Times has published a scathing news report about the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, claiming "the less said, the better."
The article declares the theme of "Common Ground," chosen by director David Chipperfield, to be "a missed opportunity" to draw attention away from "glamorous buildings and celebrated designers" towards "broader issues like urbanism, public space, social responsibility and collaboration." More
Reinier de Graaf of OMA talks to Dezeen about "architecture with a degree of social conscience" by anonymous local authority architects in France and Italy in the second of three movies we filmed at the firm's Public Works exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012. More
In the first of three movies filmed at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Reinier de Graaf of OMA talks about Pimlico School, a brutalist building in London that was demolished last year and which features in OMA's Public Works exhibition of "masterpieces by bureaucrats" at the biennale. More
In a movie Dezeen filmed at his Golden Lion-winning installation in collaboration with Justin McGuirk and Urban-Think Tank at the Venice Architecture Biennale, architectural photographer Iwan Baan talks about how residents have built their own homes between the columns and floor plates of the unfinished Torre David skyscraper in Caracas. More
Danish architects BIG and Tegnestuen Nuuk present ideas for a combined airfield and shipping port in Greenland at the Danish Pavilion during the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012. More
Bright lights, prime numbers and a map of the universe are installed amongst the abandoned oil tanks of a former shipbuilding workshop in what's now the Chinese Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012. More
Real and animated figures are reflected by a trembling mirror inside the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. More
This wooden chamber by Irish architects O’Donnell + Tuomey stretches up like a funnel towards the roof of the Arsenale Corderie at the Venice Architecture Biennale. More
FAT director Sam Jacob explains why he believes that "copying is both fundamental to how architecture develops and something that threatens its foundational belief in originality," in this movie we filmed at the Venice Architecture Biennale, where the firm has created an installation called The Museum of Copying. More
Urban improvement projects in neighbourhoods across America are presented on stripy blinds that can be pulled down from the ceiling of the United States Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012 (+ slideshow). More
Curator Justin McGuirk tells us why his Golden Lion-winning installation about a community living in a vertical slum in Caracas could set an example for new forms of urban housing, in this movie we filmed at the Venice Architecture Biennale. More
Visitors to Kuwait's pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale can lie back on cushions around a faded patchwork of defunct masterplans, while recorded sounds and voices echo down from above. More
Portuguese architects Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura have created a pair of installations in the Giardino delle Vergini for the Venice Architecture Biennale (+ slideshow). More
Dezeen Wire: architect Wolf D Prix of Coop Himmelb(l)au has launched a scathing attack on the Venice Architecture Biennale, claiming it's "no longer about lively discussion and criticism of topics in contemporary architecture" but places too much importance on celebrity. More
