These are remote places situated in different geographic dimensions. Despite the fact they were built in different centuries, a fine thread unites them across the distance. This is the theme explored by Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell of Grafton Architects in the installation greeting visitors to the exhibition hall in the Giardini. The two Irish architects believe that Machu Picchu and Skellig Michael, "somehow, tell the same story. These manmade complexes contrast the intimacy of the dwellings with the enormity of the Atlantic and the Andes."
This topic flows from the remote past into the present, and the comparison between distant (but also very close) worlds reappears in the dialogue that McNamara and Farrell started with Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha for the Venice Architecture Biennale. This is a conversation held at a distance by means of models, drawings and sketches: the models vary from general scale (small sculptures carved in blocks of French limestone) to a giant one (all in papier-mâché).
The installation shows that being open to outside influences is a starting point and a precondition for good architecture