Hosting a dinner for 2,000 senior citizens or teaching 200 children to plant a garden is not most people’s idea of what constitutes architecture.

Often lost among the headlines about China's astonishing development—not least those covering its government's latest proposal to urbanize an additional 400 million people over the next decade—has been a growing interest in the corresponding transformation of the Chinese countryside.

Neither Venice nor architecture is particularly known for its nightlife, but the opening days of this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale offered ample excuses for loosening one’s collar. Former OMA architect Ole Scheeren's floating "Archipelago" hosted a screening of a film about, well, Ole Scheeren. A torrential downpour on Sunday didn’t keep a diehard crowd away from the Venice home of Washington lobbyists and art collectors Heather and Anthony Podesta, where Henry Urbach was being toasted as the new director of the Glass House, Philip Johnson’s former estate in New Canaan, Connecticut. “Please eat,” the hostess vigorously implored guests including architects

Our intrepid correspondent picks some of his favorite offerings from the national pavilions at this year's Biennale.