London-based architectural firm Adjaye Associates have designed a temporary pavilion to house a selection of works at the 56th Venice Art Biennale.

The biennial event, which was first held in 1895, is a major contemporary art exhibition showcasing creativity from across the world including art, contemporary dance, architecture, cinema and theatre. The vast exhibition is made up of a central pavilion and the Venetian Arsenale (a complex of shipyards and armouries), surrounded by 30 national pavilions.

Adjaye’s pavilion for the exhibition “All the World’s Futures”, curated by the first African-born director of the event, Okwui Enwezor, explores the ways in which art can experience “an unfolding of typologies” and is the largest exhibition space at the event.

Adjaye’s temporary museum – housed inside a 316m-long (1,036ft) 16th century ship building warehouse known as the Corderie – covers 6,400sq m (68,900sq ft) and features a series of temporary interconnected spaces to house various artwork. The exhibition spans the length of the building, which is divided into a series of chambers. The curator has envisaged a ‘multi-nodal and multi-sensory’ vision, something the architects have tried to realise in their design, which seeks to offer multiple conditions for experiencing art. The chambers of the Corderie building vary in size from intimate to expansive, presenting varying spatial condition to mirror Enwezor’s theme for the exhibition.

The architecture firm has also designed ARENA, a satellite space within the main pavilion which will host contemporary performance art. The multi-directional space offers numerous viewing positions to place the exhibition as “an extension of the stage.” Among the various on-stage performances will be live readings of all three volumes of Karl Marx's seminal publication on economic theory Das Kapital, which will continue throughout the Biennale.

Both installations – which feature the works of 136 artists – opened to the public on 9 May and will remain on display in Venice until 22 November. The Biennale is expected to draw 300,000 visitors during its seven-month run.

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