The Venice Biennale in 1980 held its first independent event dedicated solely to architecture, marking a watershed moment in architectural history. Through extensive archival material and oral histories, this monograph presents the hitherto undocumented history of this event that, despite its transient nature, remains vividly present in our collective memory, the culmination of a series of Italian exhibitions held in the aftermath of the 1968 unrests. It promoted architecture's autonomy from art, while ushering in a new interest in the city and its historical forms. It can be said to have marked both the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end of architectural postmodernism. This book examines exhibition techniques and exhibition spaces, institutional changes, and exhibitions as a site of confrontation between advocates of modern and postmodern architecture. Offering a meaningful contribution to the discourse of architecture as media and spectacle, it emphasises the canonical effect of cultural institutions, while looking more particularly at the interaction between architects and the creation of an international network of influences.
Finally, it sets a precedent for exhibition history as an historical method in architecture and initiates an overdue discourse in this burgeoning field.