At the 19th Venice Biennale, the Swiss Pavilion addresses women in architecture
At the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Annexe collective evokes the work of Lisbeth Sachs in an immersive installation that raises questions about the representation of women in architecture and the memory of built space.
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‘What if it had been Lisbeth Sachs, instead of Bruno Giacometti, who designed the Swiss Pavilion?’
The winning proposal for the Swiss Pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale is based on this question. The Zurich-based Annexe team, composed of Elena Chiavi, Kathrin Füglister, Amy Perkins and Myriam Uzor, in collaboration with artist Axelle Stiefel and graphic designer Emma Kouassi, won the unanimous vote of the jury, which favoured a project capable of bringing to light gender inequalities in the profession.
In sharing with the public a reflection on the lack of female representation in architecture, and specifically in the Venetian context, the team linked up with the project of one of the first registered female architects in Switzerland, Lisbeth Sachs (1914-2002). In fact, the team has set up, inside the rooms of Bruno Giacometti's Pavilion, the ephemeral architecture created by Sachs in Zurich in 1958 for the Fine Arts Pavilion at the Swiss Exhibition, dedicated to women's work (SAFFA).
The exhibition aims to make the biographical experience of the architect and her memory resonate in the existing space: to do this, the elements of the radial plan of Sachs' original project are integrated into the Pavilion as part of an immersive site-specific system. «Juxtaposing Sachs's work with that of Giacometti brings together two architectural visions, inviting visitors to reflect on the need for inclusivity in the history of architecture and in contemporary practices. This intervention is not only physical, but also temporal, as it connects different architectural legacies, stimulating the visitor's perception to grasp their continuity." The curators affirm.
Through the project, which will be presented to the public starting from 10 May 2025, the Swiss Pavilion intends to present itself as an inclusive incubator of memories, from which it will be possible to listen to forgotten and hidden stories, creating a direct relationship with listening along the exhibition itinerary: the life and projects of Lisbeth Sachs, who graduated from the Zurich Polytechnic in 1939 and wrote important critical articles for the magazines Werk and NZZ, resonate through a multi-sensory experience of sound stimuli. Sachs's absence was probably an experience shared by many other female figures of the time, as none of the 30 permanent national pavilions in the Giardini of the Venice Biennale were designed or built by an architect. This same absence becomes, for Annexe, the starting concept of her vibrant exhibition project.
