The Polish Pavilion at the 11th International Architecture Biennale, which opened in Venice, has been awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation.
 
Danuta Isler reports

The exhibit by Jaroslaw Trybus and Grzegorz Piatek is entitled Warsaw's Polonia Hotel. The Afterlife of Buildings and presents six major architectural projects designed in Poland in recent years by famous architects. They inlcude Warsaw University Library, Sanctuary of our Lady of Sorrow in Lichen, the Metropolitan office building in Warsaw and recently opened Terminal 2 of Warsaw's Okecie Airport. Their facades represent different styles and artistic tastes. The buildings were photographed by Nicolas Grospierre while artist Kobas Laksa made their collages.

Grzegorz Piatek, one of the authors of the winning project explains: 'Our exhibition relates to the theme of this year's Biennale "Out there - architecture beyond buildings". We think that architecture should not be perceived only in the form that is given by the architect but we should also take a closer look at what happens with buildings after the architect leaves, when the passage of time and people who used to live in these buildings start to change it. We would like to broaden the definition of architecture.'
 
With the project the authors tried to imagine what could happen to the six buildings in the future once economic or social or environmental change occurs.  A similar concept was put into practice in the Polish Pavillion in Venice - a monumental building raised in the 1930s. Grzegorz Piatek again: 'For the first five days of the Biennale we turned it into a hotel hence the title of the exhibition - "Hotel Polonia. The Afterlife of Buildings". We are trying to imagine an alternative use for the pavillion in a city like Venice which is very crowded, very dense and it seems that every buidling has already been turned into a hotel. We also were trying to question the durabililty of buildings. Architecture is still dependent on very slow processes, very heavy materials, technologies which will make buildings outdate faster and faster.'
 
Agnieszka Morawińska is director of Zacheta Art Gallery which supervised the Polish pavillion. She says the names of other winners of the award this year prove its prestigous character: 'Frank Gehry, the author of, among other things, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement while Special Golden Lion for lifetime achievement was awarded to a Harvard historian of architecture, professorJames S. Ackerman. So the Polish Pavillion is in very distinguished company here.'
 
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years n Venice, Italy. Its 11th edition lasts till November 23rd during which time visitors have a chance to see 23 installations as well as discover the experimental work of 55 international firms . More information alongside the photos of the winning projects can be found at www.labienalle.art.org/en.