Inhabiting the desert

Participating at Venice for the first time, the curator of the Moroccan pavilion Tarik Oualalou – with a degree from Harvard and already president of the FADA Foundation (Foundation for Arts, Design and Architecture) – has chosen a title that offers an ironic response to the theme chosen by Koolhaas for his Biennale “Fundamentals 1914-2014”, calling the Moroccan exhibition “Fundamental(ism)s”.

At the Arsenale, inside the new pavilion, Morocco describes itself as a territory of exploration of extraordinary potential, looking at its exceptional practical contribution to the “Modernist project” thanks to original research not only in terms of form and architecture – in the sphere of social and private housing – but above all for the strong vision of a country that has absorbed and metabolised modernity and radicalism, reworking it and integrating it into its own territory.

The main theme is Inhabiting the Desert, a narrative (and non) device to open up a universal debate on the project of society tomorrow and on scenarios – positive, we hope – after the crisis, debunking commonplace stereotypes to make the most of a diversified cultural heritage with the hope of a genuine rebirth of the kingdom ruled by the “moderniser” Mohammed VI. Based on traditional urbanism, the investigation looks forward and effectively compares past and future: Oualalou presents this dichotomy by dividing the 200 mq space into two distinct sections, one looking at the past, the other the future. An architect himself and founder with his wife Linna Choi of the studio KILO based in Paris and Marrakech, Tarik Qualalou, has brought to the lagoon a hundredweight of sand from the Sahara desert (or Great Desert) and lets the atmosphere of the environment seduce the visitor (some even take their shoes off to access the pavilion).

On the ceiling – that has become a mega-screen extending over 120 mq suspended from lattice-beams at the Arsenale – is projected a film in two sequences: one nocturnal, that invites introspection and even reproduces that starry sky that only the desert can offer; and another daytime, with actual images of projects presented nearby with the models that each occupy a cubic metre, arranged according to a regular grid that recalls a geographic infinity: close to us the architectural designs as originally conceived, above us we see them as they are actually lived today: in other words “how it ended up”.

Past and present are signs of cultural continuity but also accidental development generated by the life of things – one project among many is the traditional medina of Fez (begun in the 18th century with an area of 375 hectares on which stand 13385 buildings) perched on the hills and able to accommodate twice as many people as the rationalist buildings at the end of the last century; the medina wins. In addition to the sky and earth, essential bases for designing the future, eight international practices were called upon including X-TU architects, Tarik Oulalou and Linna Choi – KILO, Mikou Design Studio, Menis arquitectos, Groupe 3 Architectes, Stefano Boeri Architetti, BOM architecture and BAO + Ultra Architettura, asked to dig beyond the dunes of the desert to try and steal even just 1 square metre and explore how to inhabit nothingness, the desert in fact, where potentially there is still much to imagine – and make. KILO present a city that unfolds on two levels that looks to verticality while maintaining the idea of the horizontal (the super-crowded medina returns) as an interpretation of nid d’abelille buildings – an example is that of Casablanca, with five floors and 40 dwellings (1951).

Oualalou explores the theme of discovery and architectural experimentation in nothingness in an evocative way strongly emphasising the unique contribution of his country of origin in the great adventure of 20th century architecture, combining tradition with research. “Morocco has always been a country open to opportunities, with a highly complex and articulated cultural identity: it has been above all a land of exploration, a veritable laboratory for the modern project. The Moroccan territory has sparked unique architectural research (in terms of construction, materials, form and the architecture of private and social building) that has made a tangible contribution to the history of architecture, metabolising external suggestions and making them their own”.

The fundamental question of the habitability of difficult areas places in parallel the practice of globalisation and identitary resistance within a historical journey of urban planning that accommodates contemporary thinking for new development, in the sense of original. “It is a question of maximum attention: the architects project their personal ideas onto others, on to the next person” adds the curator. “We want to demonstrate that thanks to the people that live there, architecture is to be considered a living material”.
Situated between Africa and Europe and looking out onto the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Morocco is a country with a diverse and millennial urban fabric; its pavilion is presented as a contemporary snapshot of a country that looks to the sand of the Sahara – reinstated in the national territory since 1975 – no longer as a limit to liveability or an insurmountable margin but as a resource. The desert is a territory able to bring to the present situation a chance to reclaim the radical, combining the universal with the authentic.

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Morocco
Fundamental(ism)s
Commissioner: Hassan Abouyoub (Morocco's Ambassador, Rome)
Curator: Tarik Oualalou
Location: Pavilion at the Arsenale

Until 23 November 2014
14. Biennale di Architettura
Fundamentals
Arsenale, Venice