Antarctica Pavilion

Antarctopia

Walking into the first Antarctica Pavilion in the Architecture Biennale waterproof flight cases display models of visionary Antarctic projects, many considering the challenge of designing for an environment that is still so new and uninhabited. Curator Nadim Samman writing about Antarctica says, 'no ring for it on the Olympic flag and no pavilion in the Giardini. The only continent without a biennale. Has its art history been written? It is only a matter of time.' Writer Gabrielle Walker calls Antarctica, 'the living metaphor', adding 'the continent lacks most of the normal ways that we interact in human societies. There is no need for money'.

The Antarctic, 'the only continent without a biennale' makes its first appearance in Venice. Photo Credit: Igor Boury

So Samman's question about the role of art practice and by association the role of the architect is relevant, as concepts of home are not obvious, yet each of the exhibits are some type of dwelling. According to Antarctic scholar, Shane McCorristine 'homeliness was performed through winter rituals of comfort-eating and snugness. It was by these means that physical spaces of inhabitation were transformed into homes -- that is filled with narratives, memories.' Commenting on Cape Evans, site of Robert F Scott's last meal in 1911, before his fateful last expedition: 'by virtue of Scott's uncanny absence/presence, [it] has become the primal Antarctic home... signs of absent inhabitants have been preserved and this has transformed the hut into a site of pilgrimage and commemoration.'