The official opening of the 2020 Venice Architecture Biennale has been postponed due to coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak, the organisers have just announced on the Biennale's website. 

The opening of the exhibition was planned to take place from May 23rd to November 29th, 2020, with the pre-opening dates on May 21-22, 2020 in Arsenale and Giardini venues. 

But it has now been postponed to August 29th and it will continue until November 29th, 2020. The overall period of the exhibition was reaching to six months, but because of this postponment, it has been reduced to three months. 

As the event getting closer to its opening dates, the sharp rise of coronavirus cases in Italy also jeopardized the preparations of the teams for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2020. 

"The new dates for the Biennale Architettura have been established as a consequence of the recent precautionary measures in the matter of mobility taken by the governments of a growing number of countries around the world, which will have a domino effect on the movement of people and works in coming weeks," said the organization. 

"This period of time coincides with the delicate initial phase of setting up an international exhibition as complex as the Biennale Architettura, which involves architects and institutions from over 60 countries on all continents."

"This situation poses a risk to the realization of the Exhibition in its entirety in time for the announced opening date (May 23rd), thereby jeopardizing its quality." 

"Furthermore, a short-term postponement could be ineffective, considering the complexity of the organizational machine, the number and importance of the subjects involved and the probable absence of many of them."

"Unwilling to open an incomplete Exhibition, La Biennale, having heard the curator Hashim Sarkis and in consideration of the difficulties faced by the Participating countries and invited architects, has decided to postpone the inauguration until August 29th, bringing the duration of this year’s edition of the Biennale Architettura back to three months, from the end of August to the end of November."

"This way, considering that the following week, September 2nd is the opening date of the 77th Venice International Film Festival directed by Alberto Barbera (through September 12th), at the end of the summer, with the almost concurrent opening of these two historic exhibitions, La Biennale will offer Venice and the world a moment of great cultural interest and international appeal," La Biennale di Venezia continued.

The Venice Architecture Biennale 2020 is curated by Hashim Sarkis under the theme of "How will we live together?". 

Giardini, image © Andrea Avezzù, courtesy of Venice Architecture Biennale

The Venice Architecture Biennale 2020 is not only the event postponed due to the Covid-19. Many of the events have directly cancelled their upcoming shows or rescheduled their dates in the near future.

Milan's Salone del Mobile, Frankfurt's Light + Building trade fair and Art Basel Hong Kong, MIPIM are only few of international events, which were postponed or cancelled until now. Several Chinese events, trade shows and openings were already postponed in February, 2020. 

The coronavirus outbreak first was detected in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in China, on December 1, 2019. At the time of this writing, the outbreak of novel coronavirus killed 3,214 people and 94,250 cases have been confirmed around the world. 

At the time of this writing 2,502 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Italy and 79 death cases have been reported until now.

432 death cases were confirmed outside of China, including Philippines, Hong Kong, Iran, Italy, South Korea, France, Taiwan, Japan.

Top image:Arsenale. Image © Andrea Avezzù, courtesy of Venice Architecture Biennale

> via La Biennale di Venezia