Venice preview: Norman Foster

David Chipperfield’s theme of Common Ground can infer the body of knowledge passed on through generations of architects, critics, designers, landscape architects and planners. In a more physical sense, Common Ground is the communal gathering space that brings us all together socially - outside or inside buildings. The works selected for the Gateway installation bring together these two interpretations of the theme.

The site is a black box space. In it,Finnish-based artist Charles Sandison has created a site-specific work, which incorporates the names of the many individuals who, from antiquity to today, have influenced the design of our cities and buildings. The effect is of hundreds of words, constantly in motion. Overhead are projections of huge, constantly changing images. These range from the historic spaces of the western world to the booming new cities of asia and South america, as well as the favelas, which are an inseparable part of these emerging urbanities. in the spirit of Common Ground, these thousands of images have been solicited from a global network of architects, planners, photographers, critics, writers and artists.