The Uzbekistan Pavilion 2023 places heritage at the heart of their contribution to the Venice Architecture Biennale. Its creators take their cues from the festival's overall theme, 'The Laboratory of the Future', as envisioned by curator Lesley Lokko, who imagines the exhibition as ‘a kind of workshop; a laboratory where participants and the audience imagine what the future can hold’.
Responding to this, The Art and Culture Development Foundation under the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Uzbekistan (ACDF) in Tashkent has appointed French-Moroccan office Studio KO to curate their participation to the 18th iteration of the architecture biennale. The practice's previous involvement in Tashkent saw the transformation of a 1912 diesel station into the future Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) - the country's first contemporary art centre. It exemplifies the studio's ability to breathe new life into historic structures while preserving their essence.
