Floornaturelive at the Venice Biennale. Mexican pavilion.

“Condemned to be Modern” is the title of the Mexican pavilion at the 14th international architecture exhibition, Venice 2014. The pavilion curators are architects Gaeta and Springall and the title references a quote from Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Octavio Paz.

“Absorbing Modernity”, the theme of the 14th international architecture exhibition at the Biennale of Venice 2014, is a unique opportunity to see the many different faces of national modernity through the pavilions of the individual participating nations.



The Mexican pavilion, curated by architects Gaeta and Springall, draws its concept from a famous quote by Mexican Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Octavio Paz. Where modernity is not so much a choice but a fact, something that must be faced, obviously in line with the social, cultural and political developments in Mexico over the last century. Modernity seen as an “attitude”, not as the end of a journey, in the words of the curators.

So the pavilion is in two parts – one static with eight panels that acts as doors opening onto the conceptual research of Mexican architecture on its pathway towards modernisation. The other element is dynamic, in the centre of the exhibition space – an audiovisual installation taking the form of a luminous ellipse. Architectural works, interviews and projects from significant moments in Mexican modernity are screened here.

A balanced mix of tradition and progress that draws visitors into the highly complex history – architectural and non – of Mexico, often only known for its great icons. 

The curators posed many, many questions. Does a specifically Mexican traditionreally exist? What does it actually mean to be modern in times like ours, where everything is constantly changing, where we are living in an uninterrupted continuum of time? 



, as Luby Springall writes at the end of the introduction, in the end pre-modernist tradition becomes modernist tradition. The famous Ouroborus in architectural form.

Christiane Bürklein


Mexican Pavilion

…condenados a ser modernos

Curador / Curator: Julio Gaeta, Luby Springall 

Comisario / Commissioner: María Margarita Segarra Lagunes 

Deputy Curator: Jesica Amescua

Deputy Commissioner: Dolores Martínez, Donata Cherido, Alice Durigato 

Assistants of the Curator: Catherine R. Ettinger, Gustavo Avilés, Salvador Quiroz 

Consultants: Carolyn Aguilar, Fernanda Canales, Alberto Kalach,  Juan Palomar, Javier Sanchez

Equipo de producción: GAETA-SPRINGALL arquitectos / Jesica Amescua, Tiago Pinto de Carvalho, Jorge Torres, Daniela Dávila,  Oscar Juarez, Raul Soria, Carlos Verón, Mario Pliego, Eugenia Diaz, Bruno Gaeta

14th International Architecture Exhibitions – Fundamentals

dates: 7 June - 23 november 2014

Location: Venice (Italy)
http://www.labiennale.org/

Images: © Julio Gaeta and Gianluca Giordano

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