Alumna’s Architecture Firm in International Architecture la Biennale di Venezia

MAP, ‘This Future Has a Past…,’ 2016. | Image courtesy Christiane Robbins.

On May 28, the 15th International Architecture la Biennale di Venezia opened in Venice, Italy. The San Francisco Bay Area-based architectural firm Metropolitan Architectural Practice (MAP), composed of architects Katherine Lambert and Christiane Robbins (Film/Video MFA 88), is part of the prestigious show.

MAP’s installation, This Future Has a Past, is on view in the “Time, Space, Existence” exhibition. The cross-disciplinary installation reflects upon the elusive histories of Los Angeles and architect Gregory Ain, whose work embraced a progressive, hybrid approach to urban planning. Ain was working post-World War II, where a housing crisis was brewing all in the backdrop of the Gilded Age. The economic anxieties and the inequality are mirrored in our own time, thus making MAP’s biennale contribution all the more relevant.

This Future Has a Past, part of a larger initiative called Bauhaus Ranch Project, connects architecture to urban planning and to the sociological and political typographies of its time.

The 15th International Architecture la Biennale di Venezia, titled Reporting from the Front and curated by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, gathers more than 100 architects and designers from all over the world to present new projects. All exhibits are on view through Nov. 27.