Metamorph exhibition in the Arsenale and the Italian pavilion.

This article presents information on the Venice International Architectural Biennale. The exhibition showed evidence that at last architects, tossed between Modernism, Postmodernism, and Deconstructivism over the past 25 years, have arrived at a consensus rich and credible enough to explore for several Biennales to come. In September, architectural historian Kurt W. Forster, the director of the ninth Venice exposition, Metamorph, presented work that supports what he calls a new architectural era. In the extensive exhibition spaces for which he was responsible — the Arsenale shipyard and the Italian Pavilion in the Giardmi di Castello — Forster filled the halls with models and drawings characterized by complexity and an intense individuality, based on the concept of change and metamorphosis. Ham Rashid and Lise Ann Couture of the New York-based firm Asymptote illustrated the idea of an architecture of change with their installation in the Corderie of the Arsenale, where Venice once built the ships for its navy.