NATIONAL PAVILION OF SAUDI ARABIA
THE 18TH INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE
LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA, 2023
In response to the theme, the Laboratory of the Future, Architect Albara Saimaldahar, Managing Partner of Dahr Studio, “examines the converging point” between tradition and innovation, material and immaterial, pondering the future through nostalgia for the past. As a result, the space that has transpired is a homage to Saudi vernacular architecture and the evolution of the country’s landscape. The pavilion design encapsulates the interplay of cultural legacy and progress through the intricate wood and earth artifacts. It takes traditional patterns from Jeddah’s old town, a coastal city west of Saudi Arabia where Saimaldahar was raised and had his initial architectural influences. It morphs these elements into fluid forms in an attempt to challenge the evolution of heritage as a progressional trajectory with a singular point of arrival. Instead, it purports a disruption of linear inclinations towards a more pluralistic and adaptive perspective that accounts for the intangible as much as the tactile and apparent.
| INSPIRATION |
| DESIGN |
The design is anchored by two volumetric typologies. The journey within it crosses a series of arched gateways that lead to a central, immersive node, with coral skeleton installation as a focal point. It traverses tonal differences between inland and coastal regions. The earth is both a structural element and a cladding layer. The gateways comprise a system of 3D-printed ceramic tiles that, when assembled, convey both mass and lightness. The tile’s textures and varying densities follow the lines of sand dunes. Mass is conveyed through earth and its voluminous density, depth of hue and large continuous surface forming a palpable presence. The mass further renders contextualisation, with the vault space reminiscent of the architecture of heavy materials, stones, and underground spaces carved into the mass, the stone, and the ground. The crevices between every tile and its porosity create passages for luminosity to seep through. Its presence and absence erode the surfaces progressively until it disappears. The structure and timber cladding stream in horizontal lines with small interstices where the gaze and light can travel.
| THE DESTINATION |
The central space is an immersive sensory node, offering a glimpse of the future through the lens of tradition with a focal installation that consists of an octagonal column of 3D-printed ceramic illuminated by interior lights, unique in texture and the size of the cavities. These differences are revealed by the luminous patterns projected beyond the piece onto the floor, walls and ceiling of the pavilion. The destination itself is not the end but rather a call for reflection and eventual examination of how one’s senses take and generate imprints within space and time. It is here that architecture contemplates the value of the unseen. Triggering the olfactory through scents derived from culturally resonant notes enables an existential experience, embedding a memory of the pavilion that would be unique to each preceptor, dictated by inhabitants’ distinctive response to the culmination of architectural stimuli.
Upon completing the Pavilion’s showing, the piece will be serving as an extension to the natural reef at sea to stimulate the growth of a marine ecosystem. Underwater structures play a pivotal role in habitat formation. Slowly, as more columns are printed, this first object will be joined by new neighbors. One, six, thirty, and so on until the image of a single object artificially present in the natural environment gradually transforms into a field, a labyrinth, a maze of vertical lines from which corals and other life will spring. The contrast of the pure shape of the columns and the biological growth within it visually depicts something made and brought by man being reclaimed by nature to embody a vision of balance or equilibrium that is at once fragile and durable. A network of sometimes broad, sometimes narrow cavities that hold multiple entryways and perspectives to the viewer and endless possibilities for underwater life to develop habitation patterns. Today on show in Venice, and tomorrow standing in the Red Sea.
