National Pavilion UAE at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 presents Aridly Abundant

The exhibition will explore architectural possibilities within dry settings in the UAE’s desert plateau, wadis, and coastal plains inside the Al Hajar Mountain range and its environs to evaluate how arid areas may be spaces of abundance. The show will emphasize the integration of land-based techniques in design with contemporary technology, displaying themes, lessons, and questions derived from the UAE’s desert nature. It will investigate how similar methods might be shared with other areas of the world threatened by aridity and desertification, such as countries in Africa, Asia, and Southern Europe.

Aridly Abundant will transform the pavilion space at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia into an environment that exhibits the spatial, material, and tactical qualities of arid environments, creating a backdrop for architectural provocations suited for future global arid contexts; thus responding to the theme of the Biennale Architettura 2023, The Laboratory of the Future, curated by Ghanaian-Scottish architect, academic, educator, and be

The exhibition, which focuses on the relationship between architecture and arid landscapes, challenges the perception of arid environments as scarcity spaces by exposing ongoing arid land-based practices that rethink mainstream material practices, while highlighting aridity within architectural production and discourse.

This year’s magazine, envisioned as a travelogue, will push for a shift in how we view aridity by studying it as a concept; a dynamic condition that can be a state of mind, a practice, or a shared identity. The journal will use the UAE’s allegedly parched landscapes as a case study to identify aridity as a shared and common cultural space through a variety of pieces, including fiction and poetry, scientific studies, travel stories, and photography. Faysal Tabbarah and Meitha Almazrooei co-edited the book. Almazrooei is a PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture, a graduate of Columbia University, and the founder of WTD Magazine.

The installation Aridly Abundant will be on display at the 18th International Architectural Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, from May 20 to November 26, 2023 (pre-opening May 18 and 19) in Venice, Italy. The UAE will participate in the International Art and Architecture Exhibitions held by La Biennale di Venezia for the twelfth time since 2009, and for the fifth time in the International Architecture Exhibition.

The Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation commissioned the National Pavilion UAE, which is backed by the UAE Ministry of Culture and Youth, with a permanent pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia’s Arsenale – Sale d’Armi.