The British Council has appointed the award-winning architecture practice muf art/architecture Llp as Artistic Directors of the British Pavilion for the 12th Venice Architecture Biennale.

muf architecture/art Llp is a collaborative practice with a UK and international track record of process driven work with physical and propositional outcomes. Since 1996 muf has established a reputation for pioneering and innovative projects that address the social, spatial and economic infrastructures of the public realm.

muf’s philosophy is driven by an ambition to realise the potential pleasures that exist at the intersection between the lived and the built. Their extensive list of clients includes; St Alban's City and District Council, London Borough of Hackney, The City of Stoke on Trent, Tate Britain, The New Millennium Experience Company and The Museum of Woman's Art.

Instead of shipping the contents of the exhibition from  the UK, the British Pavilion has been developed by muf as a series of ‘Made in Venice’ collaborations:

The Lagoon Room
Collaborators: Environmental scientist, Jane da Mosto; life scientist, Lorenzo Bonometto; Venice Natural History Museum; Venice in Peril; Cambridge University.

The Ruskin Wing / The Gavagnin Wing (Done.Book)
Collaborators: Artist-philosopher Wolfgang Scheppe; cultural historian Robert Hewison; The Ruskin Library.

The Stadium of Close Looking
Collaborators: Specialist carpenters, Spazio Legno; Venice based collective, Re Biennale.

The Child in the City/The Schools of Venice
Collaborator: artist Lottie Child, working with the teachers and pupils of the schools of Venice.

The Pavilion, which has been ironically reframed as Villa Frankenstein, making direct reference to the work of John Ruskin, will act as a stage for drawing, discussion and scientific enquiry. It will put forward the proposition that meaningful strategies for development can only come from understanding a place in detail.

Villa Frankenstein will enable an exchange of ideas between Venice and the UK, examining not only the city’s relationship with the UK, but the situation of Venice itself as archipelago that has given birth to one of the most iconic and alluring architectures in the world.

Debates, workshops, drawing classes and scientific discussions will take place during the three months of the Biennale, which will lead to a catalogue, edited by Adrian Dannatt, to be published in three chapters across the period of the Biennale, acting as a further creative platform to inform thinking for London, as it moves towards 2012.

Date: 29 August - 11 September 2010

Location: Venice