In collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), HouseEurope! is taking part in the Venice Architecture Biennale, raising public awareness throughout the city.
Set up in the Arsenale, the HouseEurope! exhibition will present the approach taken by this European citizens' initiative, with the screening of the documentary film “To build a law” by HouseEurope! and “The Great Together” by Docar.
During the opening days, the HouseEurope! team and students from ETH Zurich will be campaigning in the streets of Venice.
About the film “The Great Together” directed by Docar :
In the midst of a housing crisis, Europe is looking beyond the logic of demolition to explore other ways of approaching its modernist heritage in housing.The Great Togetherfollows several collective housing complexes and shows, through the processes of transformation, maintenance, privatization and demolition, how utopias came up against local politics, market logics and community habits.
The Great Togetheris a free translation of the French termGrand Ensemble, a typology of collective housing that spread widely in post-war Europe. Monumental, avant-garde and utopian, these ensembles moved away from local aesthetics to propose a universal response to the housing crisis of their time. They all explored new ways of living, combining sophisticated design with precise governance strategies.
Over time, these developments have often been stigmatized, have deteriorated socially and physically, and have sometimes been destroyed. Yet, in the face of the housing crisis in Europe's major cities and the urgent need to tackle climate change, demolition now seems an obsolete response. On the contrary, housing estates are an essential part of the solution to these challenges.
The film takes viewers on a European tour of housing estates in Vienna, Rome, Belgrade and Toulouse.
