53,86% Uruguay, Land of Water explores the intrinsic relationship between architecture, territory, and water in a country where its maritime territory (53.86%) is larger than its land territory. Water is not only a natural resource, water is an element deeply rooted in Uruguay’s history and culture and has been fundamental to the country’s development.
Possibly, we are facing the age of water – the “Hydrocene” – where the way we manage and conserve it will shape humanity’s future. Water is a finite resource, the total amount of water on Earth has remained the same since the planet was created; while we cannot create new water on a large scale, we can destroy it through technology and pollution.
Historically, territorial conquests aimed to gain minerals and natural resources. Currently, we witness a model where companies and states generate a “peaceful conquest” of territories, through agreements to access resources, such as gold, oil, radioactive minerals, minerals for technological use, and also water. These approaches create challenges that affect the economy, the built environment, and the well-being of societies, and they should be addressed through regulations and public policies for the management and preservation of water that promote the intelligent and collective use of this resource.
Architecture is a complex process that involves living beings, materials, and resources, with water playing a crucial role at every stage. It has the potential to address water-related challenges through infrastructure designs that promote conservation and efficient use; this ensures a reliable water supply for human consumption, agriculture, industry, and energy production.
Water in the territory opens up innovative urban planning and design possibilities, acting as an element that unifies and invites us to rethink how we inhabit our environment. It highlights the temporary and fragile nature of flood-prone lands and areas reclaimed from the sea—an approach that has expanded habitable and productive land.
Rain, waves (water at its wildest) and the forces of nature, such as wind and sunlight, are some of the few ways we still experience the power of nature in our cities.
The Uruguay pavilion is an immersive experience where water manifests itself, a sound and visual device. The pavement is a great walkable work of art, an estuary landscape where fresh and saltwater face each other in a battle during a storm. A factory of drops, an inverted spring, where the amethysts —crystallized water from another time— float like suspended drops, generating volumetric tension in the textile ceiling from which they hang, where the actual drops drip. The dripping evidences gravity —literally and metaphorically— and gravity creates the sound as it falls into the metallic containers that resonate in space, reverberating. On the walls are projected intentional graphic evidence that give an account of part of the argument —an open-ended argument— of this intervention. Interviews, photographs, videos ,and artworks shape this expanding discourse, letting the water guide the auditory experience. In the pavilion, every drop, every echo, and every bucket tells a different story, inviting contemplation and dialogue on how we inhabit, enjoy, and protect our water resources.
The 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective, invites us to explore —through our project 53,86% Uruguay, Land of Water— the intelligence of water as a natural force, as a built system and as a common good in dispute. In a world where water defines territories, cities, and ways of life, at a time when water management and its symbolic value are essential for life. Uruguay is presented as a space for experimentation, a place to rethink the architecture and territory of the future from a liquid, flexible and ever-evolving perspective.
Commissioner: Martín Craciun
Curators: Katia Sei Fong, Ken Sei Fong, Luis Sei Fong