Venice Architecture Biennale Creative Director Shortlist

Media release: 1 April 2015

Five finalists compete to represent New Zealand at world’s leading architecture event

Five entries have been shortlisted in the competition to select a creative director for the New Zealand exhibition at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale.

The shortlisted proposals were submitted by teams led by Anthony Hoete, a New Zealand architect based in London; Giles Reid and Jason Whiteley, also London-based New Zealand architects; Charles Walker, director of AUT University’s Colab research institute; Euan Mac Kellar, an Auckland architect, and Dr Anne Poulsen, a principal of Auckland research organisation Superstudio; and Alessandro Melis and Michael Davis of the University of Auckland’s School of Architecture and Planning.

The shortlisted contenders for the role of creative director of the New Zealand exhibition will present their developed proposals to the selection panel appointed by the New Zealand Institute of Architects on 1 May, and the creative director will be announced the following week.

The Venice Architecture Biennale is the world’s leading architecture event. It features more than 60 national exhibitions and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors. New Zealand entered a national exhibition into the Biennale for the first time in 2014.

“New Zealand’s exhibition at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale was a landmark event for this country’s architecture,” said Teena Hale Pennington, Chief Executive of the New Zealand Institute of Architects.

“Our 2016 exhibition will build on this success to showcase New Zealand’s architecture, raise its profile and promote its critical culture.”

-ENDS-

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