Venice Biennale 2023 review – an important challenge to western architectural tradition

The Venice Biennale, a grand exhibition that concentrates on art and architecture in alternate years, has been until now a Eurovision of the visual. It is held partly in a series of national pavilions in specially dedicated gardens, originally laid out before the first world war, that reflect the evolving world order of the 20th century Britain, France and Germany are in pride of place, the United States off to one side, other European countries also prominent, plus some representation from Latin America and south-east Asia. Another part of the biennale is held in a relic of an older power…