From Central Pavilion: The OMA installation collects works of architecture by civil servants in five European countries driven by local authorities in the 1960s and 1970s. The mix is still modern and refreshing, featuring works made for the greater good, without personal ambitions. A legacy made with common sense, rigor, control and optimism. A selection of humble masterpieces achieved by bureaucrats.

From the Nordic Pavilion: Celebrating 50 years of the Nordic Pavilion designed by Sverre Fehn, 32 young architects from Finland, Norway, and Sweden expressed their ideas for a conceptual "Light House" that merges architectural character (site, material, tectonics, light) of the pavilion, the environmental/cultural character of the Nordic region, and the core principles and techniques of every participant and practice. The featured models seek to evoke feelings, sensory experiences, and concepts, rather than objectively describe reality. Openness, lightness, depth of experience, rest, emotional resonance, and "noble poverty" come to figure out the up-to-date assertion of an architecture identity in Nordic countries.

“I love the house more each day,” says Tamami Sylvester of her and husband Michael's home by Sebastian Mariscal in Venice, California. The kitchen, which includes all Miele appliances, is sheathed in custom woodwork from Semihandmade. Accessories from A+R complement the Caesarstone countertops and Franke faucet. A LifeSource Water System provides filtration. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

By superimposing an elevated, highly decorative surface onto the Lavanderia, Sigurdardóttir married the Palazzo Zenobio's two buildings, the pavilion and the laundry, as one. The pavilion, symbolizing the opulence and leisure of the owner, is contrasted by the laundry’s historic associations with labor. The surface pattern of the platform replicates artisanal tile construction and is all hand-worked. Sigurdardóttir chose to use art materials instead of traditional flooring materials to emphasize an understanding of the tiled surface as sculpture and a map of sorts that might be walked upon and experienced from shifting angles. Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

Iceland, the land of the midnight sun and geological hot spots, will have its own floating stage at the Venice Biennale's 55th International Art Exhibition which officially opens on Saturday, June 1st. Artist Katrin Sigurdardottir has created Foundation (2013), a site-specific sculptural installation for the Lavenderia/The Old Laundry at the Palazzo Zenobio in Dorsoduro—one of the six sestieri of Venice. Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

From the Central Pavilion: "40,000 Hours" is the estimated time that took the students to make this selection of models. It is showcased as a tribute to the collective effort at schools of architecture around the world. Same materials, similar dimensions, and anonymous models for the different projects let us take a look at upcoming ideas and tactics of new architects as well as the state of academic practice through diverse institutions. Finally, special mention deserves MVRDV architects alongside The Why Factory with their ‘Freeland’ video-installation. It presents a refreshing idea of urban planning in which government agencies are put aside to make way for the self-organizing ability of individuals, which have a lot of freedom but are also responsible for supplying their own needs and grant certain urban values and community services. Will we see the DIY urbanism in the near future? More than images or photos, here are the links to the videos: www.youtube.com/wat... www.youtube.com/wat...

Katrín Sigurdardóttir explains, “This work is about drawing. It’s about labor, and it’s about spatial immersion. I wanted to create a work that could be entered from different points, navigated in multiple ways, and viewed from several levels, so that the visitor is both in the work and at the same time able to observe herself in the work. This work is both new and familiar, familiar in that it will key into a twofold perception—to experience and concurrently observe oneself experiencing—a kind of existential trickery that I have played with in previous works. It is new in that it’s my first full-scale architectural interpretation." Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

From the Central Pavilion: The installation The Banality of Good - paraphrasing Hanna Arendt - by Crimson Architectural Historians presents an analysis of the New Towns evolution, a sample of six cities built from the '50s to the present, showing the inversion and subversion of New Towns' founding ideals of emancipation, social equality, and progress, where values as the "just", the "moral" or the "good" have been abandoned and replaced by process, profit, efficiency, and expediency. The exhibition is a well-founded critique of the drift that has taken hold of urban planning since the middle of last century to the present day.

Katrín Sigurdardóttir’s project for the Icelandic Pavillion at the Venice Biennale will be on view from 1 June to 24 November, 2013. Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

Visitors can also climb stairs to the roof of the building and look down on the sculpture’s large footprint and intricate patterns. The size of this architectural piece dwarfs the building, and thus takes on a familiar theme in Sigurdardóttir’s oeuvre, the playful manipulation of scale. Notably, Iceland lacks its own pavilion in the Giardini, and therefore the floating, disembodied structure of Sigurdardóttir’s sculpture takes on a special significance. The outline of the form becomes a metaphor for the outline of the national space. Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

The outline of the architectural structure takes its form from the footprint of a typical 18th century pavilion. It intersects both interior and exterior spaces of this auxiliary building in the garden of the Palazzo, with two sets of stairs for access by visitors. Upon entering the work, visitors will first climb the stairs leading from the garden to the platform, and then bend down to pass through the truncated doors of the building. The work extends beyond the confines of the Lavanderia’s walls on three sides and allows the public to navigate diverse interior and exterior spaces. Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

"We chose materials, which are all appropriate in indoor and outdoor conditions. The work will go from the summer heat of Venice, to the winter cold of Reykjavík before it will shown entirely indoors at the SculptureCenter. The materials in the work are sourced equally from tile and flooring suppliers—i.e. the substrate, the adhesive, the grout, and from sculpture compound suppliers, such as the various materials that compose the tiles themselves" —Katrín Sigurdardóttir Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

The glass panels are meant to be seen by moving clockwise along the curve. When you turn around and move counterclockwise, the images become pure abstraction. Photo by Paul Clemence.

2010 Venice Architecture Biennale attracts over 170,00 visitors.

In an anteroom, a glass chandelier, designed by Libeskind and produced in conjunction with Lasvit, conjures a sense of both the fecundity of geometry and the materiality of light. Photo by Paul Clemence.

Architectural designer Sebastian Mariscal and project manager Jeff Svitak created a house in Venice, California, for Michael and Tamami Sylvester. Known as Dwell Home Venice for its role as an exemplification of modern architecture, the house is an homage to indoor-outdoor living. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

A guest bedroom, with furniture from Room & Board, overlooks the bridge above the dining courtyard. The home’s landscape architecture is by Ventura, California–based Jack Kiesel. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

Operable panels of the built-in cabinetry, in chocolate and caramel colors, offer cues to the color palette of more mobile furnishings. Using the same panel material, the architect customized a West Elm couch for the living room.

The living and dining room look out to the central courtyard, promoting indoor/outdoor living. Here, five doors slide into a pocket in the wall to create a nearly 23-foot-wide opening on one side looking into the garden. Another set on the opposite side enhances cross ventilation.

Just outside the Venice Pavilion, visitors are greeted by a sculpture whose cross shape, says Libeskind, recalls the axis as fundamental to architectural drawing. Photo by Paul Clemence.

From the Central Pavilion: The winner of the Silver Lion, this installation features large scale models of the Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s Serra Dourada Stadium in Brazil and Grafton Architects’ UTEC university campus in Lima. The influence that the Brazilian Pritzker prize has had on the Irish architects is revealed by the researched subjects as “built geography," “abstracted landscape," “landscape and infrastructure,” and “the horizon and the human being” (suggestive of a comparison of the landscapes of Machu Picchu in Peru and Skellig Michael off the west coast of Ireland). It also explores the possibilities of the ‘Free Section’ as a representation and work resource for big scale projects that encourage fluid, generous, open, and massive spaces.

From Germany’s Pavilion: The Germany Pavilion focuses its impeccable Reduce/Reuse/Recycle installation on recent works in Germany that share a particular approach to Architecture as a Resource in times of austerity. It is a modest but intelligent intervention that invites us to rethink the concept of green architecture and the appreciation and care of relatively recent built heritage. A simple, clear and didactic installation, which is some relief in a biennial sometimes crowded by unprofitable information.

Requirements for licensed contractors depend on the scope of work and the location of the project.

The couple chose to contrast the wood in the master bath with a smooth Caesarstone counter in Organic White 4600, which was measured and cut specifically for the space. They added a bit of shine with polished-nickel Upton fixtures from Toto. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

The master bedroom leads to its own private courtyard. The rug is from Peace Industry; the Kelvin LED floor lamp for Flos is from Lumens. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

Denton, Corker, and Marshall have moved the pavilion’s main entrance from the less accessible canal side in order to link it more easily to the natural flow of visitors to the Giardini. A bridge will connect it to a busy footpath. Image courtesy Denton, Corker, and Marshall.

To create visual tension as well as to provide a covered space for outdoor evens, the building cantilevers right to the canal’s edge. Image courtesy Denton, Corker, and Marshall.

The pavilion’s most innovative feature: Panels of the façade can be opened to provide views into the surrounding gardens or to make art visible to passersby. Image courtesy Denton, Corker, and Marshall.

Michael and Tamami brought greenery to the master bath courtyard, which is lined with Eco Arbor Designs deck tiles, in the form of succulents in a ceramic Peanut planter by John Follis for Architectural Pottery from Vessel. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

The knotty cedar cladding from Crenshaw Lumber was pretreated with an ebony stain from Timber Pro UV—twice on both sides—prior to being brought to the site, where it was left for eight weeks so that it could adjust to the moist seaside air before installation. “Cedar siding swells or shrinks when it gains or loses moisture while it reaches equilibrium with the content of the surrounding air,” says Michael. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

The house rises to nearly the height of the neighboring structure. The plantings on the bridge, which connects the guest pavilion with the master bedroom and media room pavilion, will eventually grow in to create a privacy screen. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

The massing of the home is broken into a series of volumes featuring a palette of Mahogany and Ebony-stained Western Red Cedar. Polished countertops and backsplashes from Caesarstone are showcased in the kitchen and bathrooms and rounded out by custom-made mahogany cabinets.

The plantings on this footbridge, which connects the guest pavilion to the master bedroom and media room pavilion in this house in Venice, California, will eventually grow in to create a privacy screen. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

This is the sculpture Wings on the Fondamenta della Tana at the Venice Biennale, 5th International Architecture Exhibition in 1991.

Trellis-like balcony railing cue the exposed timber frame extending over the house. The balcony and fence are made from sustainably harvested ipe wood.

Ishigami was an architect at SANAA before founding Junya Ishigami + Associates in 2004. He won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2010.