The Hungarian pavilion explores the simplest and most fundamental act of the architect: drawing. ‘Borderline‘ defines the line as the origin of the architectural idea as opposed to the house or space. Using the almost exclusively two-dimensional element as a focal point, the project utilizes nearly one hundred kilometres of thread to physically illustrate how lines are translated into architecture.
Curated by two young Hungarian architects, Andor Wesselényi-Garay and Marcel Ferencz, ‘Borderline’ uses thin taut ropes as an analogy for the line, by arranging them in groups and clusters, they become visual references to columns, creating not a definite space but more a spatial diagram of the process whereby the first gestures committed to paper evolve into a building. The installation is an interactive element, being continuously shaped and moved by the people walking in and through it. Projected through the installation medium and on to the walls are ‘drawing interviews’ that the team conducted with 40 foreign and Hungarian architects. Not only do the videos verify the basic proposition of the exhibition (that architects still draw), they offer a voyeuristic look into the very personal and idiosyncratic act of sketching an idea.
To go with this year’s biennale theme, ‘people meet in architecture’, the pavilion aimed to encompass a wide community in its making: thirty thousand pencils were collected from schools all over the country and hung on the ends of the ropes to serve as mementos of individuals, gestures and drawings. both Hungarian and foreign architects were involved with the video project, building on the notion that the act of drawing is the common denominator of the work of all architects.