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This edition of the International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale has been the most active and representative yet for Mexican architecture. This biennale brings together the largest number of Mexican participants across various fronts and collaborative projects. The Mexican Pavilion, “Echoes of a Land”—located in the Sale d'Armi of the Arsenale—presents an approach to architecture that goes beyond form and programmatic function, associating it instead with geography, culture, and identity.

The Mexican Pavilion presents a creative process in which architecture embraces geographic sensitivity and diversity. The exhibition visualizes the territory, its layers, and cultural expressions through sixteen murals that showcase architectural abstractions, intentions, and contextual appropriations for each work.

Curated and designed by Gabriela Etchegaray and Jorge Ambrosi, the exhibition establishes sequences that reveal a dialogue between natural phenomena, geographic formations, and design solutions. Each stone panel shapes the space, highlighting cross-cutting readings: a country vulnerable to natural disasters due to its geological conditions; a highly diverse architecture in terms of scale, site, and integration; and a critical reflection on architecture's role in relation to the Freespace theme of the 16th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale.

On Monday, November 18, the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (INBAL), through its Department of Architecture and Conservation of Built Artistic Heritage, announced the official selection that will represent Mexico at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale 2020. Chosen from 153 submissions across 14 Mexican states, the final selection of 12 proposals features the following participants:

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For Gabriela Etchegaray, curator of the Mexican Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, “the exhibition draws on the language of muralism as a fundamental element in Mexico's history to reactivate reconstruction processes and collective identities. It represents the search for a shared perspective to confront the constant imbalances the country is forced to address. The disasters experienced in recent years emphasize a broader, mandatory ethical role for architecture; they urge us to build upon the territory with attention to the physical and cultural variables that determine design processes. The formulation of desires and fantasies is shaped by the echoes of its land, demonstrating that architecture should not be a reality in itself, but rather a discourse derived from reality.”

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The curatorial proposal for the Mexican Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale emphasizes the geographical, imaginary, and cultural weight of Mexican architecture. The pavilion responds to the theme Freespace—set by the Biennale's Artistic Directors, Irish architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara—and establishes the connections expressed through interaction with the intangible and the integration of cultural heritage in
architecture.

The Mexican Pavilion in Venice not only highlights the echoes between the territory and architectural thought of 21 participants, but also the voice and vision of those whose careers have listened to and captured the understanding and vulnerability currently represented by the morphology of a challenging territory for architecture.

The 21 projects making up the Official Selection of the Mexican Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale converge in latitudes, geographic regions, and echoes of the territory, responding to the curatorial theme of “Freespace.” In four installments, we will share the work and philosophy of each of the participants representing Mexico in Venice. Read on to discover the first part of the projects.