One of the critical categories with which one can give architecture back its political significance is that of the void. It is into this critical tradition of the void that Kersten Geers and David Van Severen breathe new life in the Belgian Pavilion at the International Architecture Biennale in Venice. The Belgian Pavilion is cut off from the dominant context of the architecture biennale by a seven-metrehigh wall. The floor of both the existing pavilion and the new ‘garden’ around it are strewn with a covering of confetti.
Opting for absolute emptiness in the Belgian Pavilion leads to the conversation there focussing on the bizarre ‘fullness’ of the late-capitalist design party that is taking place in the adjoining Giardini. It is a form of architectural self-definition that derives its right to exist from the abstract negation of the situation that currently prevails. A dialectic game of opposites is played with great pleasure — it is an after-party, after all.
