Page 45 - Studio International - November 1972

an exhibition in and around
the Austrian Pavilion,
Venice Biennale 1972

by Hans Hollein

bringing the coffin down the stairwell. The waste
disposal is well thought out, though. Today you
die on the corridor of a hospital.
Death garments.

The queue at the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow.
When I lived in Chicago, there were no parks
in the neighbourhood, and playing areas for
children were in concrete yards. But there were
beautiful arcadian cemeteries with lakes and
little temples — some by famous architects.
Good recreational value.

Subway construction: expropriation, eviction,
demolition, no quarter given. But suddenly an
iron hits an ancient grave, a roman wall.
Everything comes to a halt.
The grid, the millimetre-paper, the identical
mass products — disturbed by action.
A story by Henning Christiansen — 'The Tent'.
A childhood memory — sitting on a chair on a
raft with my father.
The raft with the tile chair in front of Santa
Maria Salute.
A Florida Indian chief on a nineteenth-century
etching.

The tile room — with naked female bodies on
the bed, the chair and the table. An erotic
moment.

A throne.
A sacred well.
Penetratable walls.
Departure.

Everyday situations :
You have a house, a room, a bed, a table, a chair.
You come by boat, you leave by car.
You rest, you work, you eat, you pray, you live,
you die. q
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