The shape of society: Coexisting in Latvia’s Soviet apartment blocks — Strelka Mag
▻http://strelka.com/en/magazine/2018/05/07/latvian-pavilion-venice-biennale
▻https://storage.strelka.com/i/cd0416c1-cc2b-4d94-9737-eafdf2d86122/w/1200
Latvia is a century old this year. The anniversary coincides with the republic’s eighth crack at the Venice Architecture Biennale. The Latvian Pavilion’s entry ‘Together and Apart’ opens May 25 in the Arsenale and will examine how apartment buildings have shaped society in light of ideological turning points over the last 100 years. One of the topics to be addressed is the issue of coexisting in an increasingly complex world. Architects Matiss Groskaufmanis and Evelina Ozola, set designer Anda Skrejane, and New Theatre Institute of Latvia director Gundega Laivina are curating the exhibition, which is divided into four parts. “‘Distance’ portrays proximities between individual spheres that emerge as a consequence of demographic shifts; ‘Promise’ looks at the apartment building as a political project; ‘Warmth’ explores the relationship between energy and consumption, geopolitics, and collective decision making; ‘Self’ deals with the individual apartment as a subject of private property, and the limitations of it,’” reads the pavilion’s statement.