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The Museum of Copying, Venice Architecture Biennale

The Museum of Copying was an exhibition conceived and executed by FAT Architecture for the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012. It explored ideas of the copy as a way of establishing common ground between diverse publics over time. This represented a significant moment into themes that have been present in FAT’s work for the past 15 years. Its primary research questions were: Can copying be a creative technique in architecture? What potential does the figural section hold for architecture? How have photocopying, digital media and computer aided manufacture extended the repertoire of creative replication in architecture? Research methods included collaborative and curatorial work in conversation with the other contributors to the Museum: San Rocco and Ines Weizman. The museum challenged the idea of the copy as inauthentic pastiche and proposed ways of understanding and using it in more productive ways. FATs contribution, ‘Villa Rotunda Redux’ is a prefabricated replica of Palladio’s Villa Rotunda. This was designed by extraction and translation of essential information from the original Villa Rotunda into three dimensional material form using new fabrication techniques. It comprises two abstracted quarters of the Villa Rotunda, one a polystyrene mould, the other a foam cast. These were arranged diagonally across from one another, displaying not only the properties of the original, but also the process of their fabrication. This produced an iteration of the Villa Rotunda that was at once recognizable, yet utterly transformed and original. The project was seen by the 178,000 visitors who attended the biennale. It has also been widely reviewed in the popular and architectural press, including Phaidon, dezeen, Architects Journal, designboom, ArchDaily, Architectural Review, Los Angeles Times and Financial Times. On the basis of this project, FAT Architecture have been selected, to curate the British Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale with Crimson Architectural Historians and Owen Hatherley.