In response to the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, The Laboratory of the Future, the Saudi Pavilion examines the symbiotic relationship between material and immaterial. The cohesion of both informs perception and generates the interpretation and response to the situatedness of a nation’s inhabitants.
This interactive journey brings to the surface the narratives embedded within materials–the tangible and intangible qualities which define the character of spaces, places, and things. Earth is used as the primary focal point for exploration and organic material experimentation to create a slate upon which future-proofed legacies and practices can be built.
The multi-part exhibition allows the visitor to experience the curatorial brief from multiple perspectives and engage the vernacular of Saudi architecture and its core building blocks.
The intent is to present the empirical as a window into the essential, allowing visitors to access a raw sensory experience and urging them to draw introspective conclusions stripped of conscious and unconscious biases.
The pavilion brings to the forefront the notion of collaborative practice as a foundation of the laboratory of the future. It invites visitors to breach their role as spectators and become active agents of the process. The experience mirrors the future of architecture and materiality as a work in progress, determined by the practitioners and its occupants.
In exploring the notion of the laboratory of the future in relation to materiality, the curatorial team engaged with various institutions, local organizations, architects, and individual practitioners to gain insight into the different experimentations and innovations being conducted in Saudi Arabia and the wider region.
Our challenges are universal, and searching for one’s place, legacy, and belonging is human. And perhaps, it is in this shared vision of the future that our diverse identities, realities, and point of view can find common ground in answering the conundrums of tomorrow.
