When the programme for the German pavilion was presented on February 2020, we were still oblivious to what was brewing on the horizon. Still, the curators entitled their proposal "2038. The New Serenity", aiming to describe the bliss attained after having weathered the adversities of economic depression and ecological disaster experienced during the 2020s – crises that brought people, governments, institutions and companies closer together. A healthy mix of prophetic catastrophism and optimism for systemic change animated the international team formed by Arno Brandlhuber, Olaf Grawert, Nikolaus Hirsch and Christopher Roth in Berlin in 2019. 
Clearly, the premises of that research were already all in the theme set by the curator of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2020, later moved to 2021, from 22 May to 21 November. Hashim Sarkis had expressed it in that question - "how would we all like to live together?" - which we are all asking ourselves today with renewed vigour, and which we are addressing directly to 2038 (None of the members is a spokesperson. All answers are collective.)

To allow us to fully immerse ourselves in the distorted temporal dimension proposed by the curators of 2038, the large rooms of the German pavilion have been left completely bare, with white walls interrupted only by QR codes thanks to which we can watch and listen to the video-stories recorded in 2038 that explain how people, states, institutions and industries have committed themselves to fundamental rights and have created, together, vital systems and structures that have made it possible to create diversified models of coexistence, and how it was often the architects who gave the right answers. 

No superstructures, just us, our headsets and the reassuring voices of those who have overcome the worst, accompanied by the feeling of having made it through, incredibly, once again. This is how we overcome the shock and the alienating sensation that one feels when entering this large empty temple, but full of ideas. 

“First of all, it's a great title,” they point out. “The way the pandemic has accelerated both the good and bad aspects in the world, has made the title even better. All the problems were there before, all the problems are going to get a lot worse in the short term. But a lot of possibilities, ideas and concepts are on the table. Some of them for a very long time. Now we make them real for systemic change. Hashim´s question is so good because it says "will". Not "want" or "can". So let’s not talk about the "can't". And say that all human and non-human subjects are in the "we" and what "together" precisely means, both locally and in a planetary framework. We have made it a bit harder for ourselves and have chosen the perspective of the year 2038, retrospectively asking how we made it. Our project for the German pavilion in Venice is a filmic review from 2038 to 2020. In this review systemic change was only possible after an escalating series of social, political, economic and pandemic crises in the early 2020´s. Only then the world came to its senses and led to an era of new serenity.”

What kind of serenity will we have in 2038? “We will not change people. We will come up with systemic models which are viable and sustainable for everyone. There will be still bad people around. It’s like E. Glen Weyl said in “2038”: ‘It's like in Star Trek. People are still messed up and imperfect and all sorts of bad things happen. But it's also clearly a much better world. In some pretty profound and radical ways. But there's no sense in which we've reached anything like Nirvana.’“    

Meanwhile, we are far from serene and are grappling with the effects of the pandemic on the way we live and experience public spaces? What changes are there? “Here too, the pandemic has intensified the situation. We must be able to answer the questions that are now being asked so loudly. What about those who have no house and live in our public spaces? The difference between private and public is virtually imploding as we all become sensors for Big Tech. Data, statistics, algorithms, facility management, surveillance technology, and health apps increasingly organize social relations and hence create a new totalitarian space. Therefor we need to totally decentralize data. In the end, everyone must have a personal Al. And to paraphrase “2038”: "Houses themselves had to become models of democracy.’”

Of course, one wonders whether the virus can make such profound changes as those in security at airports, stations and public buildings following the collapse of the Twin Towers in 2001. “9/11 is a blueprint for how crises can be used and mis-used. Regarding the perspective of 2038 we are short term pessimists and longterm optimists.”
So, how can we make it through? "By being committed to fundamental rights; by creating self-sustaining systems on a universal basis; by giving local enterprise the space it needs,", say 2038. 
What role does architecture play in a virtuous society? How can it help? "It must exit its bubble without complaining," is the dry answer. "This is an attitude all of us can share, but architects must expand their scope to include the grey areas they have ignored for decades – bureaucracy, legislation, coding, social contracts, land reform – because this is where new architecture will be put into practice.

Much work is being done in this direction, according to 2038. The group points to Thomas Rau (an architect) and Sabine Oberhuber (an economist), the authors of the book Material Matters (2016) about the circular economy and value chains. It also mentions Diana Alvarez-Marin and V. Mitch McEwen, architects participating in 2038 who work on coding and digital literacy, and how this decentralised our society through social contracts (Diana), and how black Americans after the meltdown in 2023, started coding; . Sénamé Koffi Agbodjinou and his HubCité smart-city project in Togo; and the Baubotanik (architectural botany) concept followed by Ferdinand Ludwig and Daniel Schoenle, which explores the difference between the indoor and outdoor dimension of buildings. 2038 brands the era of star architects "obsessed with the architectural object" in decline. Instead of new museums, Olympic stadiums and opera theatres, they look for less visible megaprojects such as the Malaria Houses being built in Tanzania by a team of international architects: 110 housing units show how the mere design of a house can protect against malaria-causing mosquitoes. "The project is a kind applied medical research," says 2038. Then the group quotes Buckminster Fuller, who devised the World Game in the 1960s to "make the world work, for 100 per cent of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone."