Arts Council presents Swiss project at Venice architecture exhibition

Sander (left) is an artist and professor of architecture and art, while art historian Ursprung works as professor of the history of art and architecture at ETH Zurich, Switzerland's Federal Institute of Technology. Keystone/gaetan Bally

Artist Karin Sander and architect Philip Ursprung will represent Switzerland at this year's Biennale of Architecture in the Italian city of Venice.

Their joint project, Neighbours, focuses on two national pavilions and a wall, according to the Swiss Arts Council.

“Neighbours highlights both the spatial and structural proximity of the Swiss Pavilion to its Venezuelan neighbour and the professional bond between two architects: the Swiss Bruno Giacometti (1907-2012) and the Italian Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978),” a statement said.

“By turning the architecture itself into the exhibit, the artist and the architecture historian introduce the audience to new perspectives on the territorial relations within the Giardini of La Biennale,” it continued.

The Swiss Pavilion designed by Bruno Giacometti opened in 1952. In the immediate vicinity, the Venezuelan Pavilion designed by Scarpa took shape four years later.

The international exhibition will open in May for six months. It is the architecture section under the overall Venice Biennale and was officially established in 1980, even though architecture had been a part of the Venice Art Biennale since 1968.

+ Find out about plans for a new Swiss Pavilion