The Nordic pavilion is celebrating its 50th year as the Biennale’s most beautiful with the exhibition Light Houses: On the Nordic Common Ground.

Designed in 1962 by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Sverre Fehn, the pavilion evokes sensations of light, material, structure, space, nature and atmosphere and embodies what might be called a metaphysical “house of the North”. This year it is a physical and metaphorical “common ground” for Finland, Sweden and Norway, as its architects participate in this celebratory exhibition. 

Thirty-two architects (eleven each from Finland and Sweden, and ten from Norway) have been invited to create a model of a conceptual “house” that reflects their personal philosophy of architecture. All are born after 1962, the year the pavilion was designed.  The exhibition also highlights topical social and environmental themes, looking at the sobering economic constraints and diminishing environmental resources that challenge architects all over the world in their efforts to achieve maximum quality in their designs.