To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Australian Pavilion at the Giardini della Biennale, Venice, Ronnie di Stasio in 2008 curated an international ideas competition for a new Pavilion to replace the “temporary” pavilion designed by Phillip Cox.
In 2011 the Australia Council for the Arts announced a competition for the design of a new pavilion that would be built to be available for the 2015 Art Biennale in Venice. One of the competitors who had proposed ideas for Ronnie di Stasio (and subsequently developed those ideas for the “real” competition) was Denton Corker Marshall, who won the competition and were able to realise their developed original proposition. In Australian tradition Mathew Doyle of the Muruwari people led the smoking ceremony for the pavilion’s opening in 2015, in the company of many Australian dignitaries.
The first installation was by the artist Fiona Hall with an exhibition titled “wrong way time”.
The strong, simple clarity of the Denton Corker Marshall pavilion is based on the “idea to create a simple, yet confident, memorable, powerful statement” that was respectful of the historic garden setting; timeless but with vitality, tactility and materiality that invites curiosity and engagement” with a core idea structured as a white box within a black box.
It is interesting to note that Fiona Hall saw her approach to her exhibition to make a black box within the black box, illustrating the Architect’s intent for the interior to be capable of the flexibility of reinterpretation.
The jury recognised the strength and clarity of the form, in its siting and particularly the power of the cantilever towards the Rio del Giardini canal; articulating its cubic basic form that sits on the back of house functions, utilising the site fall from the entry to the canal.