Pavilion Stasis

For centuries nature was viewed through two ideologies, subjective idealism and aestheticism. Nature was represented in the form of paintings, such as those of Friedrich, throughout the Romanticist works of the 18th century, where artists responded against the scientific rationalization of nature during the Enlightenment. Architecture was absent, or if at all present, was represented in the form of ruins hidden in the background. German philosophers introduced interpretations of nature that would reverberate through the sciences, and particularly the biology of the next century. Over the years, forests and gardens have ‘housed’ activity similar to what architecture was capable of. But what does ‘nature’ means to us today? Modern readings of nature differ greatly from the previous respected or romanticised ideologies of our elders. Younger generations define nature as a commodity, serving as backdrops to scenes from daily life. The conditions we currently inhabit in cities exhibit a nature in contained environments. Whether this type of nature comes in the form of display (greenhouses, garden balconies) or appropriation (byproducts of urbanism), each reflect how the human race has radically altered the earth’s terrestrial biome. The relationship between nature and architecture shifted from architecture making appearances in nature to nature making subtle appearances within architecture.

“The fundamental concept, not totally new yet always interesting, is that in the Anthropocene period we are living in – dominated by human actions that cause the major landscape, structural and climatic changes on our planet – architecture can be a means by which to establish a fruitful relationship between human activities and nature, aimed to create a symbiotic environment instead of an anthropocentric one...”

Eero Lundén, curator of Nordic Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia 2018

Then and Now

Mapping how humans have changed the earth.

The state of Croatia’s anthropogenic biomes, during the year 1800 (far left), were predominantly agriculture, croplands, pasture and grazing territories with few urban settlements. In the maps third from left, it’s clear that growing city centers replaced what was once ‘natural’ and agricultural zones border current cities. The maps to the far left show Europe’s dramatic transformation from predominately pasture land-use to almost entirely croplands

Ellis, E.C., and N. Ramankutty. 2008. Putting People in the Map: Anthropogenic Biomes of the World. Frontiers in Ecology and the Enviroment 6 (8): 439-447. SEDAC.

At a larger scale, the anthropocene summarizes the extent to what we define as nature or rather, what’s left of it. Many contemporary biennales, triennales and events often point out this phenomena but few offer an architectural solution. Specific to this narrative, Rijeka’s composition offers a range of anthrome typologies, with industrial manufactured landscapes contrasting the purity of the Dinaric Alps. The form of our pavilion is derived from extracting a pixel from the mountains and grafting it on the beach adjacent to the ExportDRVO. This allows visitors of Rijeka 2020 and locals to read the pavilion form dialectically. Through this pavilion, we are proposing a new geology that curates methods of architectural and natural tectonics that exist symbiotically. Standing as a metaphysical volume, our pavilion exists as a monument to Rijeka’s conditions and as an urban strategy for design in the post-anthropocene era where nature and architecture coincide into a language of ‘new geology’ allowed through technologies.

Grafting a pixel, roughly 0.2 hectares, from a foreign environment implies a translation of hierarchies or data encompassed within. While this action was used as a tool for exhibiting geologies in juxtaposition, the default architectural design would act more as a solid monument to nostalgic geologies. This removal of material and placement on the beach would result in a void at the original location. This developed a consciousness of dual readings of natural territories and implications of humans as geomorphic agents. Within the context of Rijeka, land use ranges from predominantly urban with mixed croplands, agriculture and village biomes. Carrying out the concept further, a taxonomy of pixels was created that documented variances in land area. This offers a new way to classify the earth and create future parallels. From this catalogue, the pixel with lowest value of land area impacted by roads, buildings, etc. was selected as a resemblance of pure ‘nature’. The duality between natural and artificial is enforced and interrogated through architectural translations