The Irish Times

Most of us now live in cities.This year, for the first time in human history, more than 50 per cent of the world's population (currently 6.5 billion) live in urban or suburban areas, compared to only 10 per cent just over a century ago. So the focus on cities in this year's Venice Biennale couldn't be more timely. Ricky Burdett, professor of architecture at the London School of Economics and adviser to Mayor Ken Livingstone, travelled all five continents to put together an exhibition under the title "Cities, Architecture and Society" with the avowed purpose of stimulating public debate about urban futures. Venews, Venice's "What's On" guide, suggested that his agenda is to seek "a new role for architecture in the great urban complexes of the future, which risk becoming even more bulimic and incontinent than what went before". As such, the 10th Architectural Biennale is "far removed from tomfoolery and the doodling of intellectualoids (sic)".