Golden Lion for Kenneth Frampton, the critical voice of architecture

Kenneth Frampton, known by many as the author of "Critical History of Modern Architecture" will be awarded for his professional career with the Golden Lion on May 26 at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale.

 

Keneth Frampton, English architect, historian, critic and academic has been announced the winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2018. The recognition is not surprising, since it is almost impossible to conceive the history of architecture without one of its most acute critics.

Frampton analyzes architecture as a changing process, which responds to the progress of society, technology, ideology in a given time and space. His best-known work, Critical History of Modern Architecture, is an indispensable reference for architectural historiography; a book that does not finish being written and between revisions and extensions affirms that the knowledge, like the architecture, is in constant evolution.

Frampton's contribution to architectural literature goes beyond this work. In Towards a critical regionalism defends the idea that architects should revalue the context, place and culture. In Studies on the Tectonic Culture emphasizes the connection between the languages ​​of construction and architecture; and in A genealogy of modern architecture: a comparative critical analysis of the constructed form captures the internal workings of architectural projects to make them accessible to a wider public.

In the words of Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, curators of the Venice Biennale 2018:

Through his work, Kenneth Frampton occupies a position of extraordinary intelligence and intelligence combined with a unique sense of integrity. It stands out as the voice of truth in the promotion of the key values ​​of architecture and its role in society. His humanist philosophy related to architecture is present in his writing and he has consistently defended this humanistic component throughout all the various misguided "movements" and trends in architecture in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Coherence, clarity and critical look are contributions of Kenneth Frampton necessary in a moment of the humanity in which the stories abound on a heterogeneous, accelerated and unequal world. Architecture must question itself, analyze its past and from there, trace its future.

We leave a large part of the world. That you do not know something does not mean that it does not exist. It is necessary to be convinced that you have seen things that deserve to be told. And the humility to make it clear that what you tell is never the story. It is your story.