The Zurich-based architects and partners Alex Lehnerer and Savvas Ciriacidis view their work as a cultural practice that fundamentally assumes a (self-)critical stance towards the present. In Chicago, for instance, the architects proposed filling a hole left over from an unfinished skyscraper with a gigantic hot air balloon, which would then rise up into the air as a satirical commentary on a construction project that failed due to the bursting of the financial and real-estate bubble in 2010. The two commissioners of the German pavilion interpret Artistic Director Rem Koolhaas’s theme of Absorbing Modernity 1914–2014 by examining the speculative reality of architecture through two protagonists, the Kanzlerbungalow [Chancellor Bungalow] and the German Pavilion. Their architectural installation in the pavilion transforms a historical retrospective into an experiment that is shaped by the intersection of material, space, and meaning. Exhibition: La Biennale di Venezia – 14th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice 7.6.–23.11.2014