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A fundamental question inspired Massimiliano Fuksas' curation of the Venice Biennale, Kester Rattenbury heard his talk at the RIBA
Introducing Massimiliano Fuksas' lecture at the RIBA, Cabe commissioner Paul Finch gave the audience a rave review of this year's Venice Biennale which Fuksas curated and directed. This covered both a series of astonishing components - the extraordinary effect of the 300m-long biggest video wall in the world; the brilliant reading of the ethics of Johannesburg's architecture by a South African practice; the range of uses of virtuality, the diversity of practices - and making up a whole "more than the sum of the parts".
It was a long and compelling introduction, and when it was over, Fuksas said Finch had just about covered everything, and he, Fuksas, could go home. This turned out to be a modest claim. On this showing, the Venice Biennale 2000 - still on till the end of this month - is an extraordinary and unusual event and perhaps one of those which gets marked as a watershed in the world of architecture.
It certainly seems to have been one in the career of Fuksas, who described a road to Damascus experience with his old tutor and sparring partner, Bruno Zevi, who seems to have caused Fuksas to pose the question "is it enough, to be an architect, to make good buildings?" Zevi, who died last year, had said something like: "You cannot be a great architect without being a great man. You could be a great man. But you want something easier." The quote, like the rest of Fuksas's talk, is best approached...