This, it turns out, is one of the challenges of organising an exhibition about common ground: everyone has their own idea of what it means, and because everyone has a stake in it, disappointment is almost guaranteed. Paradoxically, if you want to make an exhibition that's going to make everyone happy, common ground is the last topic you should pick. But Chipperfield must have known this, and deserves credit for having stuck to his guns. He also deserves credit for having done what he promised to do from the very beginning: an exhibition about architecture (read "buildings"), a strategy that among other things allowed him and his team to neatly sidestep the trap of doing an exhibition about architects, and the thorny issue of how to deal with the rampant personality cult among contemporary practitioners.
Given the topic, I was hoping for an exhibition that stepped on a few more toes, or that ventured further into the battleground that is public space in the city today, or illustrated the growing significance of peer production and the emergence of a new digital commons, or a greater presence of the younger generation, which is unquestionably more active in using architecture as an instrument of grass-roots social engagement.
These aren't topics that always sit squarely within the realm of architecture, but it would be disingenuous to say that they have nothing to do with it; and then again, some of the most "architectural" works exhibited don't have a clear relevance to the theme. Also, Common Ground is a title that suggests inclusivity and anti-elitism, but considering that the Venice Biennale is visited by close to 200,000 people — many of whom are not architects — it doesn't present itself as a particularly inclusive exhibition: many of the works that are most likely to appeal to a broad public, such as the 1:1 scale reproduction of a house by Anupama Kundoo erected in the Arsenale by a team of Indian craftsmen flown over for the purpose, are also the least convincing.
This is the thing about common ground: as a shared space and a point of encounter, it is unfair to expect it to be a platform for a specific position (aesthetic, social, political). Its value lies in a point of disciplinary encounter that has something for everyone. The best works in the exhibition are very good, and are also the most provocative: FAT's Museum of Copying is a brilliant collective indictment of the false myth of originality in the act of architectural creation, and one needs to spend time in the installation, which also includes contributions and research by Ines Weizman, San Rocco and a "research cluster" at the Architectural Association, so as not to miss the many layers of historical reference that stack up in support of the group's thesis. OMA's celebration of a little-remembered yet relatively recent era in which the dream of young architects was to become civil servants — a concept that must seem mindboggling to our contemporaries — compellingly documents how quickly and dramatically the productive frameworks of architecture shift and evolve. What is interesting about this research, led by the director of AMO, Reinier de Graaf, is not so much that it highlights how the generative apparatus that produces cities and buildings transforms — it's how quickly we come to take for granted that it's always been the way it is today.
It was also interesting to see a collaborative project, Ruta del Peregrino, featuring nine different participating studios from several continents, including Ai Weiwei, Tatiana Bilbao, Christ & Gantenbein and Derek Dellekamp, effectively credited as a "participant" in itself. The installation was particularly well designed, and a clever way to confirm that borderless collaborative networks are a productive mechanism that plays an increasingly significant role in architecture today.
Lots of new national pavilions joined the fray this year including Kosovo, Turkey, Peru, Angola and Kuwait, and the conceptual strength of the theme seems to have energised the curatorial teams of the national pavilions more than usual — a bonus, considering they are not always eager to embrace the Biennale's topic. This generated an unusually strong dialogue and resonance between the pavilions around the city. In the design of the exhibition itself there are some nice touches like the pleasantly understated graphic identity (by John Morgan Studio), a sampling of the technique used to stencil the street names of Venice onto walls. The result is the sense that the exhibition spaces form a public space interwoven with the rest of the city.
By picking a topic of such critical relevance to this particular moment, Chipperfield upped the stakes that much more. He could have undoubtedly opted for an easier subject, which would have at least made one camp happy. But the impression one is left with is that this exhibition isn't meant to entirely please anyone in particular, which could be seen as a weakness but is also its greatest strength. Common ground, like quicksand, is treacherous territory. Going anywhere near it is dangerous business. This exhibition elegantly floats over it, and for that alone Sir David deserves a lot of credit. Joseph Grima (@joseph_grima)