The meeting is attended by the President of the Venice Biennale, Paolo Baratta, accompanied by the Director of the 13th International Architecture Exhibition, David Chipperfield.

The representatives of 41 countries taking part in the next exhibition meet in the Biennale headquarters at Ca’ Giustinian. The representatives of Kosovo, Kuwait and Peru are also there for the first time.

The curator of the next exhibition, David Chipperfield, introduces the main theme of the event: Common Ground, that we could say is the focus of the entire Venice Biennale, not just of its architecture section. Yet Chipperfield says that he wants his Biennale “to celebrate a vital, interconnected architectural culture, and pose questions about the intellectual and physical territories that it shares. In the methods of selection of participants, my Biennale will encourage the collaboration and dialogue that I believe is at the heart of architecture, and the title will also serve as a metaphor for architecture's field of activity.”

So let's consider the title again, Common Ground: it also has a strong connotation of the ground between buildings, the spaces of the city. “I want projects in the Biennale” - Chipperfield continues - “to look seriously at the meanings of the spaces made by buildings: the political, social, and public realms of which architecture is a part. I do not want to lose the subject of architecture in a morass of sociological, psychological or artistic speculation, but to try to develop the understanding of the distinct contribution that architecture can make in defining the common ground of the city.”

Collaboration and dialogue as fundamental assets to the (Architecture) Biennale: “We will invite contributors to make a proposals for exhibits or installations but also ask them to propose others they want to collaborate with. In this way, the initial selection by the curatorial team is complemented by a further series of relationships initiated by selected architects.”

That is Chipperfield's hope. The depiction of a world that is already living in networks, that needs sharing and is interested in the common ground we may find for one another. A world that will try to discuss these topics during the next Architecture Biennale.