Venice Architecture Biennale will feature a “Cruising Pavilion”

The Venice Architecture Biennale will feature a Cruising Pavilion as part of its exhibit on disrupting the intended use of architectural spaces. The exhibit will run from May 24 to July 1 at Spazio Punch and will be curated by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos, Rasmus Myrup, Octave Perrault and Charles Teyssou.

“Architecture is a sexual practice,” reads the show’s press release, “and cruising is one of the most crucial acts of dissidence… Cruising usually describes the quest for sexual encounters between homosexual men in public spaces, but it cannot be reduced to neither men nor homos. This sexual practice generally takes place in public sites like parks, toilets, and parking lots, or in dedicated establishments like bathhouses and sex clubs.

“Relegated to the realm of depravity, it feeds off its most structuring disciplinary features. In the bathrooms built for cleanliness and the parks made for peacefulness, and also through the figures of the policeman and the flâneur, the modern city is cruised, dismantled and made into a drag of itself. The dungeon becomes playful, the labyrinth protective, and the baths erotic.”

While patrons might not get a chance to actually cruise at the pavilion, there will be poppers at the opening night party.