For the third consecutive year, the Holy See will have its own pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy, one of the most emblematic and representative contemporary art events worldwide, to be held in the Italian city May 10 through Nov. 23. Last year, Pope Francis became the first pontiff to visit the event in its nearly 130-year history.
The project, which was presented at the Vatican press office on Thursday, April 9, will involve the restoration of the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice (Our Lady Help of Christians) building. It will also be used to host cultural events — primarily concerts — and will also include a space dedicated to solidarity projects and even a soup kitchen.
Visitors to the major exhibition in Venice will be able to see firsthand the restoration work on the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice complex, which was built in the 12th century to provide shelter for pilgrims on their way to Rome and was a monastery for Salesian nuns until the beginning of the 21st century.
In fact, it is designed to involve all the citizens of Venice and, specifically, organizations committed to the environmental sustainability of the iconic Italian city, which has been suffering for years from the effects of mass tourism. Visitors to the Holy See pavilion will be able to participate in the restoration work and climb the scaffolding to observe the progress up close.
As explained at the Vatican presentation by the prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, the pavilion, titled “Opera Aperta” (“Open Work”), was inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, published in 2015.
“It is a pavilion to stop and see, a work in progress, an ongoing process in which everyone is invited to collaborate: architects, thinkers, neighborhood residents, associations, and even the Biennale’s visitors themselves,” the prelate stated, highlighting the idea the pontiff emphasizes in the magisterial document that “everything is closely connected.”
As the prefect explained, the goal is for the pavilion presented this year by the Holy See to be “a concrete expression, in the field of architecture, of the prophetic intuitions contained in Laudato Si’ and to become an active laboratory of collective human intelligence, uniting reason and emotion, professionalism and conviviality, research and ordinary life.”
In this way, according to the Portuguese cardinal, through the renovation of the former oratory of Our Lady Help of Christians, “a parable will be told because, while the walls and architectural details of the building are being repaired, neighborly relations and intergenerational hospitality will also be healed, thus simultaneously rebuilding the physical and social space.”
The prelate said Pope Francis “continues to deeply inspire the Catholic Church” despite this period of illness he’s going through. “Today we need weavers of relationships, who believe in the value of repairing and caring,” he said, after noting that the Holy See’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale is a concrete example of this interaction.
Thus the Holy See’s pavilion is not a finished construction but rather a kind of open and innovative project, as its title indicates, in which the aspects of “repairing” and “caring” are very important, according to Mendoça.
Architect Tatiana Bilbao, born in 1972 in Mexico City, and Spanish architect Anna Puigjaner of the MAIO Architects group participated in this project.
Michele Coppola, executive director of arts, culture, and historical heritage at the Intesa Sanpaolo banking group, one of the main sponsors of the Holy See, also spoke at the presentation.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
