Uzbekistan presents its modernist architectural legacy at the Venice Biennale, with a focus on one of the world’s largest solar furnaces and the future of sustainable design.
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00:00Why is it so important to conserve the work of the architecture of the past?
00:08Why can they help the architects to relever the challenges of today and tomorrow?
00:14To understand, I'm going to take a look at the pavilion of the Uzbekistan,
00:19here at the Biennale of Venice, which just came to open its doors.
00:22C'est l'un des trésors de l'architecture moderniste de Tashkent qui est au centre de cette exposition,
00:31le Sun Institute of Material Science, construit en 1987 l'un des plus grands fours solaires au monde.
00:38A l'époque, il servait à réaliser des études sur les réactions de divers matériaux à des températures allant jusqu'à 3000 degrés.
00:45La conception du pavillon a été confiée au studio Grace de Giacomo Cantoni et Ekaterina Golovaciuq.
00:51The difficulty was how to show this very complex infrastructure in a space that's actually not so big.
00:58So we decompose this place into fragments.
01:02And through series of fragments, we are narrating kind of the more interesting and the more ambiguous and provocative aspects of this technology.
01:12Plusieurs artistes ont aussi contribué, comme Esther Schenfeld.
01:16All these objects are brought from the Institute and I made a research to bring the most significant here.
01:26And to show that Institute is not only about modernism and architecture, but it's also about science and daily routine of scientists who work there.
01:40The Sun Institute is also the perfect illustration of an impressive work of research
01:45a research which has been made to preserve the heritage of 20 buildings built in the 1960s and 1990s in Tashkent.
01:52It took us almost five years to do the research on the 21 modernist building and to celebrate this, you know, the continuation of the project.
02:02And also, you know, to celebrate the energy, you know, the current theme of the Venice Biennial.
02:09It was very important for us to come here.
02:15This year, 2025, our president envisioned as a year of environmental protection and green economy.
02:22And it was important for us not just acknowledge this building, but also preserve it.
02:26So from this year, it will be included in UNESCO.
02:29And for us, it's a very special moment.
02:31This was not built for sustainability. It was built for space and military research.
02:38But now we're discovering its new relevance because humanity understood that sustainability is important.
02:44And all of a sudden, this place is becoming exceptionally relevant.
02:49The 19th Biennale d'Architecture of Venice will be completed until the 23rd November next.