The Venice Architecture Biennale, first staged in 1980 and recurring every two years, has grown to become the world's largest and most influential gathering of architectural thought leaders. The event has come to be seen as providing a global snapshot of contemporary practice and as a weather vane of emergent currents. Yet for Rem Koolhaas, the curator of this year's Biennale, which opened June 7, these characteristics are precisely the ones that he has sought to disavow.