There is so much to see and experience at this year’s Venice Biennale that it is a real pleasure to encounter and avail of the Irish presentation, Assembly. Towards the far end of the vast Arsenale, the high-roofed sheds where the Republic of Venice constructed its naval vessels many centuries ago, Assembly plays on that word’s meaning as both construction and gathering.
Cork-based architects Louise Cotter and David Naessens have designed a spacious architectural vessel, beautifully crafted in Irish beech by Alan Meredith Studio. Weary Biennale visitors can enter this truncated cone, rest on a segmented bench enclosing a circular rug and listen to sounds of Irish life – from children playing to barely audible crayfish – gathered by composer David Stalling. Other contributors include poet Michelle Delea and art historian Luke Naessens, son of the architects.
The title, Assembly, is apt, owing to the careful calibration and legibility of individual building components, including speakers, and is made from twelve modules that allow for reassembly. As Louise Cotter pointed out at the inauguration, the second meaning of ‘assembly’ refers to the ongoing process of public consultation on political issues in Ireland, an ambition ‘to deliberate and gradually build consensus… the opposite, for example, to social media and algorithms’.
Yvonne Farrell of Dublin’s Grafton Architects launched Ireland’s pavilion in Venice. She spoke of the persistence of forms for human gathering across history and of a six-metre limit, just beyond Assembly’s internal diameter, for people to see eye to eye. ‘Solutions,’ Farrell noted, ‘can be found only when people come together.’
Assembly is alert to the past, present and, in its specific focus on political assembly, potential futures. Cotter & Naessens Architects are using their international platform to refine their design practice and, most saliently, to imagine a brave architecture of common good. Assembly is on display at the Venice Biennale until 23 November and at the Cork Midsummer Festival in June next year.
Raymund Ryan
