Venice Biennale 2025

PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity

“For the United States Pavilion at the 19th International Biennale Architettura of La Biennale di Venezia, the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, University of Arkansas, in partnership with DesignConnects and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, have been commissioned by the United States Department of State to organize and curate an exhibition focused on the representation of the United States of America, at its best, in architectural means and in national character, through the contemporary manifestation of “the porch” – of that quintessentially constructed American place that is at once social, environmental, tectonic, performative, hospitable, generous, democratic.”

“The American porch is the architecture of social negotiation and cultural exchange, where private lives interweave with public life, where relationships are calibrated, where we reach out to the neighborhood and interact with civic life. The porch is a generous place because it centers communal intimacy. Beyond its formal utility, the richness of the porch comes through the ways it is inhabited, occupied, and activated: the porch is the meeting of our public and private lives, the interior and exteriors of our homes, and between the shelter of architecture and the contingencies of weather, climate, and light.”

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