5 strangest pieces of architecture from this year's venice biennale

The Venice Arhitecture Biennale is back in full force this autumn. The event, which runs until November, is the largest architecture show in the world and this year throws up some even more striking designs and concepts than usual.

Here are the five most eye-opening things on display...

Numen/For Use

Part of the Time Space Existence exhibition at the biennale, the design collective's installation is a gigantic cube of moving lights, mirrors and foil, creating a box of shifting membranes and reflections.

Do say:
"It gives you a sense of the curvature of time and space."

Don't say:
"Ooo, look at the pretty lights."

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto built a glass tea house to contain traditional Japanese ceremonies. Stitting on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, the 2.5-metre cube hovers over water, combining a tranquil pool with an open window on an ancient tradition and culture.

Do say:
"It is a window onto history."

Don't say:
"Fancy a cuppa?"

Frank Barkow and Regine Leibinger

The German architects used motorised nodes and translucent, synthetic fabric to create a membrane that moves in and out in "peaks and valleys". A moving, disturbing, hypnotic wall.

Do say:
"Think of the potential the future of architecture holds..."

Don't say:
"Kinda kinky."

Heinz Mack

The German artist's installation is one of the biggest of the 2014 Biennale. Installed in the church square outside San Giorgio Maggiore, The Sky over Nine Columns is designed to highlight the column's importance within architecture as one of the most fundamental shapes and structures. Visible from St. Mark's Square and covered in 850,000 golden mosaic tiles, they are imposing, beautiful and majestic.

Do say:
"The column represents man standing upright – with dignity – in space."

Don't say:
"Gold, eh? Fancy."

Rem Koolhaas

Rem Koolhaas, curator of this year's Biennale, certainly has no problem taking Centre stage with this installation in the Central Pavillion. Focusing on the "elements" of architecture, rather than buildings themselves, he highlights the components used by architects in an increasingly changing, technology-driven world. How? By hanging a cross-section of a tiled office ceiling in mid-air underneath the glamorous, painted interior of the pavilion.

"The ceiling used to be decorative, a symbolic plane, a place invested with intense iconography," Rem Koolhaas tells the Guardian. "Now, it has become an entire factory of equipment that enables us to exist, a space so deep that it begins to compete with the architecture. It is a domain over which architects have lost all control, a zone surrendered to other professions."

Do say:
"It makes you think about how design and architecture are changing."

Don't say:
"It's like being back at work."

The 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale runs until November.

All images via Dezeen.