Last 11th March 2008 the presentation of Architecture Biennale 2008 “Out there. Architecture Beyond Building’’ took place. Like the very title of this exhibition suggests, according Aaron Betsky (photo), the new director of such sector, architecture is not building, on the contrary, buildings are frequently the tomb of architecture. The Biennale, then, must not be just a collection of works of art, just an exhibition, but it must be a cultural event involving everybody and thus playing a role inside society: it must get us to meditate and create opportunities for dialogue and change of ideas.
It is for this reason that we maybe expect an Architecture Biennale sui generis ‘with no buildings, no photos, no cards’. Even if, for the time being, just at times, we can find, thanks to some wealthy purchasers, some architectural works of art which, by means of sensuality and sensitivity, give form to the surrounding environment, yet it is true that we can enjoy ideal spaces in films, in art, -”There is much more architecture in a film by Antonioni than  in Garretta!”. We can watch these spaces grow around us in the carefully planned landscapes that are our last true public spaces.
Then architecture could be considered – Aaron Betsky said- above all as a ‘way of figuring out what we need to build and what to unbuild. Architecture could be, first of all, experimentation, we need a sort of architecture that does not solve problems, but poses, frames and articulates them”.
In such Biennale, thus, the Arsenale will be the right location for experiments, where visitors will have the opportunity to enter a ‘room’ and admire the 15 projects, the 15 installations that have the aim of recycling and domesticating buildings, in order to let us feel at home in a building. There will also be an exhibition devoted to Rome, the mother of all the towns, and a great attention will be paid to the vision of past architecture too, so as to help us to find one for the present and future.
At the Giardini, in addition to the single national proposals, the Italian Pavillion will represent a monitoring on experimental architecture as well as the use of the Internet and new technologies. This survey will be anchored by a monographic exhibition of firms whose work has been based on experimentation: Frank Jehry, Herzog &e de Meuron, Morphosis, Zana Hadid, Coop Himmelblau.