Human Scale: Project representing Romania at the Venice Architecture Biennale opens this weekend

Human Scale, the project representing Romania at the 19th edition of the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, opens to the public on May 10.

The project, by artist Vlad Nancă and architecture office Muromuro Studio (Ioana Chifu and Onar Stănescu) and curated by Cosmina Goagea, is presented in two venues, namely the Romanian Pavilion in the Giardini della Biennale and the New Gallery of the Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice.

Human Scale reflects on the intersection between visual arts and architecture through a dialogue between the drawings made by 20th-century Romanian architects and the works of the contemporary artist Vlad Nancă, a presentation of the exhibition explains. “Human Scale sheds new light on the Romanian architecture of the last century through architects’ drawings that reveal a vision of space and how people and public life were imagined. By examining the human silhouettes in these drawings, we gain new insights into how existing buildings could be adapted for the 21st century.”

In the Romanian Pavilion, the installation designed by Muromuro Studio offers an immersive route, highlighting human interaction. Large translucent sheets trace the movement of visitors between ten life-size sculptural silhouettes created by Vlad Nancă and inspired by architectural drawings. These are presented alongside a chronological selection of drawings by 20th-century Romanian architects and a selection of historical maps from the 16th–18th centuries, where human presence is represented allegorically.

At the New Gallery of the Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice, the exhibition continues in the form of an open archive: over 300 reproductions of architectural drawings are presented to the public.

The exhibition is open until November 23.

(Photos: YWP studio / Pavel & Petruța, courtesy of Human Scale)