Belgium pavilion for the Venice Biennale

The Belgium pavilion was designed by architect Léon Sneyers (1877-1949, pupil of the art nouveau architect Paul Hankar), built in 1907 and was the first foreign pavilion in the Giardini. The exhibition in the Belgian pavilion in 2008, is organised on the initiative of the Flemish Community, and shows the result of a design competition between thirteen young Flemish architectural firms who over the last few years have all taken part in the ‘35m³ young architecture’ exhibitions at deSingel in Antwerp (2005-2008). The figure in the title refers on the one hand to the year when the Belgian pavilion was built – the first foreign one in the Giardini, designed by the architect Léon Sneyers (1877-1949), pupil of the art nouveau architect Paul Hankar) – and on the other to the internal volume of the building in cubic metres, thus also making reference to a real physical space.