Chile Pavilion, Alejandro Aravena's country, exhibits fragmented pieces showing the efforts of young generation architects, who have conceived, designed and constructed works of architecture, presented at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice Biennale. Titled 'Against The Tide', the exhibition considers young architects' struggle in the construction of their new works while also financing and contracting for them, in order to earn their professional degree in architecture. 

All they have in common is that they belong to the Central Valley of Chile, where they have returned following their academic training to contribute to their communities, creating architectures which trace a filigree of places where the region’s campesinos and their families can live and work.

Image © Andrea Avezzù, courtesy of Venice Biennale

These architectures have been erected with minimal resources, with the residues of agricultural processes and with readily available local materials, contributing value and inserting the territory into a global context through aregional—but not a costumbrista—approach. Out of this rural landscape and environment, in constant transformation due to agricultural activity and urban development, there emerges a series of pavilions, rest stops, miradors, lunch shelters, and plazas, or simply places for shade and social encounter, ephemeral or permanent, explicit or abstract.

Image © Andrea Avezzù, courtesy of Venice Biennale

Against the Tide speaks of a contrary direction that things can take. This exhibition moves against the tide of those urban battles—perhaps more global in scope—waged to improve the quality of our built environment. It puts the accent rather on the customs and landscapes of the rural world, a world of fields and forests, helping through architecture to improve the everyday quality of life of its people.

Image © Andrea Avezzù, courtesy of Venice Biennale

Curated by Juan Roman and José Luis Uribe, Against the Tide consists of the following elements:

A hanging table achieves stability by means of the water contained in a canoe made of radiata pinewood. On the upper surface are ten buckets of material from the Central Valley of Chile, which bring to Venice a sample of what the territory where the projects are located is made of.

Image © Andrea Avezzù, courtesy of Venice Biennale

A pentagon supports the fifteen maquettes which constitute the exhibition. The maquettes are made of fibreglass reinforced with lacquer and wire and placed on bases of rusty tins, debris from the roofs of the houses that collapsed in the 2010 earthquake in Talca. Small videos show scenes of everyday life in the territory. A screen shows five of the projects in the territory in which they are located.

Image © WAC

A collective lawn chair, four metres wide and four metres high, made of 2-x-1-inch slats of radiata pinewood, a material which, owing to its fragility, is expressive of the reiteration and superposition of the elements. A mantle made of 7,000 polyethylene bags, of the kind used for fruits and vegetable in the market fairs in Chile. This contrasts by its lightness and economy with the venerable walls of the exhibition hall.

Image © WAC

Image © WAC

Image courtesy of Chile Pavilion

Image courtesy of Chile Pavilion

Top image © Andrea Avezzù, courtesy of Venice Biennale

> via Venice Architecture Biennale