PORCH: AN ARCHITECTURE OF GENEROSITY
The U of A invites the world to have a seat on the porch at the 2025 Venice Biennale
Experience the U.S. Pavilion in Venice with this Discover RED video.
Consider the humble American porch: a transitional space between inside and outside, where the public and private shake hands. Before the advent of air conditioning, it would have provided refuge from heat stored in the home and protection from the elements. It was a place to engage passing neighbors, to share news or a cold drink, whether from the comfort of a swing, rocking chair or wicker couch. It could also provide a safe space for young lovers to court, alone but not unobserved.
This quintessential feature of southern American homes is the inspiration for the United States Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibit, titled Porch: An Architecture of Generosity, was the work of many partners and collaborators. The winning concept commissioned by the U.S. Department of State was submitted by the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas, working with its co-commissioners Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and DesignConnects.
“The school and university were designated the lead commissioners on the basis of the proposal that we made to the U.S. Department of State,” explained Peter MacKeith, dean of the Fay Jones School. “The Biennale is arguably the world’s most prestigious cultural organization in the realms of the visual arts, performing arts, architecture and design, and arguably the world’s most important exhibition venue.”
“For us, this is exceptional,” he continued. “It puts a spotlight on what we are doing at the university, what we’re doing as a school and the work of our students and faculty — and, really, on the vitality of architecture in this state and region.”
The exhibit is an abstraction of the porch, a stylized celebration and meditation on its meaning and place in American life. The U of A’s biggest physical contribution to the exhibit resides, appropriately, at the entrance to the U.S. Pavilion, in a temporary addition to the permanent structure. This porch serves as a gateway to more than 50 other projects housed inside, winnowed down from more than 400 submissions from across the U.S. and its territories. These projects showcase the diversity of contemporary American design, each offering its own gloss on the concept of the porch.
Charles Hill, a 1973 graduate of the Fay Jones School, had a chance to visit the U.S. Pavilion in July 2025. He went to Venice with a group from MacKeith’s office to support the school and take in the city. He came away impressed.
“When I entered the exhibit area and looked around, there were lots of nice-looking pavilions,” Hill explained. “It was kind of exciting to see all that was going on, but nothing [looked] unusual until I saw the University of Arkansas porch and the use of wood and its inviting character: the unusual design of trusses that went up and down and forms that people don't normally see. It really let us stand out and be something special compared to the other exhibits.”
“Many would say that the United States is a nation of homes — that this is the American
dream. But if you think of the American Dream as the home, or even as a house, we
understand that we've always been in schoolhouses and houses of worship, in houses
of civic importance, and all of those constructions have a porch one way or the other.
So, this is a way for us to advocate that not only are we a nation of houses but a
nation of porches, and we live our best selves on that porch.”
--Dean Peter MacKeith
Design of the contemporary front porch was developed by Marlon Blackwell Architects — led by Blackwell, now a retired U of A professor — in collaboration with Stephen Burks Man Made, D.I.R.T. studio and TEN x TEN. Wood was chosen as a material for its low embodied carbon and cultural resonance. The cantilevered design eliminates the need for supporting columns, so it appears to float above a raised platform of wooden decking mounted on hand-packed blocks of Venetian clay. The underside is painted an inviting “porch blue.” Stairs to the platform and numerous chairs scattered throughout the area invite visitors to linger, rest and watch the world go by.
“It brings a spotlight on what we’re doing,” MacKeith explained, “pulls people into the pavilion, provides them shade, holds them there, and then they go into the exhibition. So, it’s intentionally a beacon-like structure, which is doing everything we hoped for.”
Jonathan Boelkins, an architect and U of A alumnus, was the design architect responsible for the interior exhibition space. As part of that, the U of A Community Design Center created a 132-foot researched exhibit, titled “American Porch Life,” that traces the history and genealogy of the American porch and its evolving role in American culture.
THE AMERICAN CANOPY
Another significant U of A contribution to the exhibit was the American Canopy installation inside the pavilion’s rotunda. If the exterior installation is an artistic abstraction of the porch, the American Canopy is an abstraction of the tree.
“We were thinking of it in the context of the porch,” explained Mary Beth Mashburn, a 2021 graduate of the Fay Jones School, who is now an architect project designer at the school. “The tree is nature’s porch. Trees have served as places of rest and shade for humans for centuries. The geometry is derived from a tree, so you have the trunk and then it expands out into the canopy. Within the trunk, there are places to sit.”
Mashburn worked with MacKeith, John Folan, head of the department of architecture, and colleagues at the U of A Rome Center, including director Francesco Bedeschi and instructor of architecture Vanessa Magliocci. They brainstormed concepts for the installation, worked out designs and mocked up models, until the fabrication was handed off to the Rome Center to oversee completion.
Mashburn found the experience gratifying: “We were fortunate to work with an incredible team at the Rome Center, who translated not only Italian to English between us and the fabricators, but also translated our design intentions into something that was constructible and worked within the rotunda.”
After months of long-distance design work, Mashburn was able to visit the site for the opening in May 2025. “It's always really exciting to see a project realized,” she said, “because the reason you become a designer is to make a difference and to impact people.” Mashburn said seeing people interact with the exhibit was rewarding, and more than 100,000 people from around the world have visited it so far. “Just thinking of that many people experiencing something that you had a small part in is inspiring to keep going and do something else,” she said.
BEYOND THE BIENNALE
With the Biennale ending in late 2025, what then becomes of the porch and canopy? MacKeith said they’re planning to bring some of the exterior porch’s construction back to Northwest Arkansas to serve the citizens of Arkansas as a stage and a platform. Most of the smaller, interior exhibits will also be brought back to various venues throughout the U.S. for the public to enjoy.
Mashburn said that while definite plans for the American Canopy have not been determined, they planned from the start for it to have an afterlife. The Rome Center will likely help in determining its final home. She said the U.S. exhibit at the Biennale in 2023 was taken down and reconstructed at a Roman high school. So, they hope to do something similar with the Canopy, because “the project is designed for deconstruction. It’s able to be taken and transported somewhere else, but we’re not sure what that looks like yet.”
That said, the afterlife of this year’s Biennale will not be merely physical. It will also be reputational, especially for the University of Arkansas.
“There was one critic who said he never thought he'd hear the word ‘Arkansas’ said so many times in the city of Venice,” MacKeith said. “And I said, ‘Exactly.’ That's exactly what we wanted from the start — to promote the state and to promote the university and to promote the school in ways that are clearly surprising to people.”
He also thinks this commission will help cement Arkansas as a center of design excellence in the United States.
“This is what the State Department saw in our proposal,” he said. “This is what animates what we're doing. And this is what I think every Arkansan should take pride in — that we have a state which is known for design excellence now, and it is a place where people should want to come and visit. And it's a place that Arkansans should take pride in as they travel out into the world.”
