Over 275,000 visitors (+6%) on top of the 14,434 attendants of the pre-opening.
Half of the visitors were under 26.
Architecture -
Biennale Architettura 2018 closes on Sunday 25th
President Paolo Baratta and the Curators will meet the public at the Arsenale Teatro alle Tese at 2:30 pm.
The 16th Exhibition
The 16th International Architecture Exhibition organised by La Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta and curated by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, will close tomorrow, November 25th 2018, when the President and the Curators meet the public and the press (Teatro alle Tese, 2.30 pm) to discuss the legacy of the FREESPACE Manifesto, draw their conclusions on the Exhibition, which attracted extraordinary interest and a great number of visitors.
The Exhibition, which lasted over 6 months, will close with over 275,000 visitors, on top of the 14,434 attendants of the pre-opening. These figures mark an increase of 6% when compared to the 260,000 visitors of 2016.
High number of young visitors: visitors under 26 years of age were 50% of the total. Visitors that attended as part of a group amounted to 27% of the total number of visitors.
President Baratta commented the results as follows:
“With a Biennale dedicated to space, and to free space in particular, thanks to Yvonne and Shelley we have celebrated architecture in its most delicate, noble and socially useful of functions, which is to contribute to the common good. Be it the fruit of the client's or designer's generosity, the fruit of institutional or collective actions, free space qualifies the way we live with a more complete vision of our civilization and our culture. Having freespace is a right, creating freespace is a duty.
I wish to thank the Curators again, and once again to thank the entire staff of the Biennale.”
The Exhibition in figures
71 Architects invited to the Exhibition
2 Special Sections:
Close Encounter, meetings with remarkable projects (16 participants)
The Practice of Teaching (13 participants)
63 National Participations
29 National Participations in the historical Pavilions of Giardini
24 National Participations in the Arsenale, including Italy
10 National Participations around the city of Venice
6 National Participations for the first time: Antigua & Barbuda, Saudi Arabia, Guatemala, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Holy See (with its own pavilion located on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore). Lithuania participated for the first time with its own pavilion, and participated in 2016 as part of the Baltic Countries pavilion.
2 Special Projects:
Applied Arts Pavilion, in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Forte Marghera Special Project in Mestre
12 Collateral Events
Biennale Sessions /
Educational
The Biennale Sessions project, which is dedicated to universities and academies of fine arts, research and educational institutions in architecture, visual arts and related fields, facilitated the visit of the Exhibition for the eighth consecutive year for groups of students and teachers, once again recording a high attendance of foreign universities.
160 affiliated universities (22 additional universities as compared to 2016: +16%) out of which:
50 Italian universities
110 Foreign universities from all continents. With 15 universities, USA is the second country, followed by the United Kingdom (13) and Germany (13).
5,730 university students involved in the project.
50,467 (2,280 groups) participants in Educational activities and guided tours, marking a +15% increase compared to 2016
In particular:
33,347 (+10% compared to 2016) young people and students participated in educational activities (1,333 groups)
17,120 (+26% compared to 2016) adults and public organised in groups have participated in guided tours
103 students from 9 Italian secondary schools, involved in the internship programme “Alternanza Scuola Lavoro”, with over 3,700 hours of activities.
An important contribution was given by the 30 Active Catalogues: young graduates, standing in the Exhibition, according to an editorial project provided information to the visitors, who met the initiative with great favor.
Communication
Over 4,000 accredited journalists.
Some press comments:
“... Una mostra unica al mondo...” - Veronica Rodenigo, Il Giornale dell’Architettura
“... The world’s greatest exhibition of architecture...” - Rowan Moore, The Observer
“The Venice Architecture Biennale is a bit like being in a big city, where your every want and need can be satiated.” - Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times
“Selten hat man eine Architekturbiennale so aufgeräumt, ja geradezu poetisch erlebt wie diese.” “Rarely has an Architecture Biennale been so clean, or even as poetic as this one...” - Laura Weissmüller, Süddeutsche Zeitung
“Expérimenter l’espace mais surtout regarder, sentir... cette biennale réveille nos senses... ” - Béatrice de Rochebouet, Le Figaro
Web and Social Media
Official website www.labiennale.org
1,226,384 unique visitors from May 26th to November 23rd 2018 (+ 4.40 % compared to 2016)
1,962,334 sessions from May 26th to November 23rd 2018 (+10.38% compared to 2016)
Devices/Users:
- Smartphone: 563,296 (+41.25 compared to 2016)
- Desktop: 545,196
- Tablet: 73,063
FACEBOOK
341,720 total fans of the page
+ 14,656 since the opening of Biennale Architettura 2018
(Biennale Architettura 2016: 283,968 total followers on November 27th, 2016)
TWITTER
701,559 total page followers
(Biennale Architettura 2016: 621,000 total followers on November 27th, 2016)
INSTAGRAM
297,907 total page followers
+ 80,000 since the opening of Biennale Architettura 2018
(Biennale Architettura 2016: 96,800 total followers on November 27th, 2016)
Final notes
It is worth noting that this year’s Exhibition has also been visited by many who were attending the Venice Film Festival, amongst whom were film stars or celebrities such as Natalie Portman, Sylvia Chang, Trine Dyrholm, Nicole Garcia, Malgorzata Szumowska, Christoph Waltz, Athina Tsangari, Alison Mclean, Fatemeh Motamed Arya, Michael Almereyda, Andrea Pallaoro, Mohamed Hefzy, Hayashi Kanako, Kaouther Ben Hania, Gaston Solnicki, and Susanne Bier.
The 16th Exhibition was organised with the support of Rolex, Partner and Official Watch for the event, Artemide, Edison, JTI (Japan Tobacco International), Vela - Venezia Unica, Oakmount, Paola Lenti, Seguso Vetri d’Arte and Trenitalia Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane.
We would also like to thank Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP.
We wish to thank the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, the local institutions that each in their own way support La Biennale, the City of Venice, the Regione Veneto, the Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape Services for the City of Venice and the Lagoon, the Italian Navy.
Our thanks go to our Donors, who are essential to the creation of the 16th Exhibition.
We especially wish to thank Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara and their team.
And finally we would like to thank the highly professional staff of La Biennale, who work with such great dedication on the organisation and management of the Exhibition throughout its six-and-a-half month duration.
The videos of all the events of the Exhibition and the interviews with all participants are available online on the Biennale Channel.
