My Venice Biennale 2012 #1: Architecture’s mea culpa
Lord Norman Foster’s spectacular installation in the Arsenale is all about people; the buildings are the décor. At a heart-stopping pace images flash around the four walls, images of people sharing an experience. Those range from the ecstatic to the traumatic: a pilgrimage, a goal in the stadium, a charge by the riot police. Meanwhile the names of hundreds of architects from all ages and places – from Borromini to Bunshaft, from Sert to Fuller – swirl in white letters over the black floor.