Building block

Britain’s architects can produce the best designs in the world, says Amanda Baillieu. So why aren’t any on display at the Venice Architecture Biennale?

Something has gone very wrong for the British at the Venice Architecture Biennale. This three-month event may play second fiddle to the older and larger Art Biennale, but for architects it is meant to be the only festival where they can let rip, free from the restraints of budgets, planning and bureaucracy. They come to gossip, to see what their rivals are up to and schmooze clients. Even Norman Foster has dropped by to talk up his firm’s plan for Hong Kong’s new £1.8 billion arts district.

Some 30 countries show their wares in national pavilions, slugging it out for punters and prizes. The British pavilion is managed by the British Council, a quango whose remit is to ‘increase appreciation of the UK’s creative ideas and achievements’. When it comes to architecture, however, the council struggles to do that.