Virtual Australian Pavilion

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RESEARCH BACKGROUND This polemic virtual exhibition was held in the absence of a funded exhibition for Australia's pavilion at the 2004 Venice Architecture Biennale. It displayed a virtual exhibition curated by Andrew Benjamin, featuring work by leading Australian architects. Hosted by RMIT's Lab 3000, the collaboration united Tom Kovac's architectural pavilion design with a virtual exhibition designed by David Pidgeon and John Gollings and organisational support from Davina Jackson. Pavilion interiors/images/web were designed by Daniel Flood and David Liao. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION Although Australia did not receive government funding for its own pavilion at the 2004 Venice Biennale, this virtual composite was a convincing substitute. The project forges a strategic position for architectures of uncertainty, mediating between actual and virtual forms. The exhibition illuminates architecture as a creative cultural form that is not necessarily reduced to physical components or expected programmatic requirements. This is evident in the provocative guerrilla tactics by which the pavilion commandeers the site - itself a place of experimentation - and literally pushes the parameters of the built form, as well as in the content of its virtual exhibition. The pavilion robustly advocates architecture's re-engagement with a greater dimension of public meaning. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE The work exhibited at the 9th Venice International Architecture Biennale. It was reviewed by peers in several industry journals: by Martyn Hook in Monument magazine, by Andrew Mackenzie in the Architectural Review Australia and by Dale Jones-Evans in (inside) magazine. Davina Jackson featured the work in the acclaimed publication 10x10_2: 100 Architects, 10 Critics by Phaidon Press. and also featured in the Melbourne Masters Architecture exhibition, curated by Leon Van Schaik.