2012 Architecture Biennale Venice: A10 pavilion picks

Artistic director David Chipperfield's call for commonality has indeed provoked a very wide range of presentations, but they prove more coherent than foreseen. Many of them are socially and environmentally driven, and many emphatically surpass the self-interests of the profession, or – in the case of the national pavilions – the country itself. The central exhibition, divided over the Arsenale and the Central Pavilion in the Giardini, is the most exciting. It parades a host of political statements about the face and use of public space, such as Norman Foster's dazzling multimediatic Gateway, Crimson's striking triptychs of so-called new towns around the globe, or Olafur Eliasson's highly abstract representation of the fact that 1.6 billion people in this electronic world live without access to electricity.

Less loud, but equally striking, is an open defiance of modernity, a first in the history of the Biennale on this scale. It ranges from poetic contributions that advocate tradition and historic continuity (a huge wooden Irish vessel, re-interpretations of Piranesi) to a straight plea for copying good concepts (the Villa Rotunda from London's Architectural Association, Hans Kollhoff models). Compared to the many strong and well-defined voices of the central exhibition, not all national contributions reach the same level, and their nationality is questionable, if sometimes deliberately so. Some countries reach out beyond their own borders to fill in Chipperfield's joint-ness. The British Takeaway presentation, for instance, researches foreign solutions to British spatial problems. Russia prides itself on the open Skolkovo Innovation centre project, almost fully designed by foreign architects and contrasted with Russia's former scientific secrecy.

Yet the relevance of national presentations remains intact. Some countries, often outside the architecturally dominant western hemisphere, have grabbed their chance to present their own, less well-known top architects. Korea's many flatscreens are well worth watching.  And some involve a national case of global importance. Perhaps the most eloquent of these is that of Denmark. The Danish pavilion is fully dedicated to the plight of its home-ruled constituent, Greenland: a vast, long-neglected part of the world, suffering ecological and economic problems, while also architecturally underdeveloped.

A10 was present at the Biennale with a pop-up symposium featuring presentations by ten correspondents from all over Europe, plus the attendance of many others. Our correspondents list their three favourite pavilions: