15 Biennale di Venezia. Australian Pavilion
The Pool
Curated by Aileen Sage Architects with Michelle Tabet.
Pools in Australia are currently facing significant challenges as social institutions. The threatened closure and demolition of Australian public pools is a perennial theme of community protest and activism and is an issue to which architects and urban commentators are inevitably drawn.
By identifying the pool’s cultural importance to Australia, we are pushing for a more critical engagement with the civic and social values that underpin our work as architects. The power and breadth of these places should not be underestimated nor simply jettisoned as uneconomical.
Architecture can and does have an impact that transcends conventional economic models.