The Land Remembers: Lebanon’s Collective for Architecture Lebanon Reclaims Ecological Memory at Venice Biennale

A Ministry of Land Intelligens. A pavilion made of living bricks. A call to heal the soil before we build upon it. At this year’s Biennale, Lebanon doesn’t just exhibit—it activates.

In the face of devastation, some build monuments. Others plant seeds. This year at La Biennale di Venezia, the Lebanese Pavilion—curated by Collective for Architecture Lebanon (CAL)—does both. Titled “The Land Remembers,” the installation blurs the line between architecture and activism, drawing on a national memory that is both buried and blooming.

Selected by Lebanon’s Ministry of Culture and the Order of Engineers and Architects, CAL (co-founded by Shereen Doummar, Lynn Chamoun, Edouard Souhaid, and Elias Tamer) was chosen to lead this year’s pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition, under the Biennale’s wider theme: Intelligens—Natural, Collective, Artificial.

A Ministry for the Soil

CAL presents the Lebanese Pavilion as a fictional yet all-too-necessary entity: The Ministry of Land Intelligens. Comprising four departments—Ecocide Reports, Counter-Mapping, Endemic Species, and Strategic Healing—the Ministry operates as a space of knowledge, resistance, and repair.

Visitors are not passive observers. They are asked to reckon with Lebanon’s ecocidal realities: olive groves deliberately burned, soil laced with white phosphorus, entire ecosystems displaced. The memory of this destruction isn’t just archived—it’s embedded in the very architecture of the space. Made from compacted earth bricks infused with wheat seeds (a nod to the region’s agricultural legacy), the pavilion grows throughout the Biennale—literally. Over six months, the bricks will sprout, transforming the exhibit into a living act of regeneration.

Beyond the Pavilion: A Living Archive

A striking component of the pavilion is its accompanying publication, designed as a land memory box. Part research document, part protest archive, it features voices like political scientist Karim Emile Bitar, ecologist Rami Zurayk, Public Works Studio, TheOtherDada, Leila Darwish, and many more. From forensic cartographies to sound maps of drone activity, the contents offer a powerful mosaic of Lebanon’s wounded yet resilient land.

But this isn’t just about Lebanon. As CAL reminds us, the Lebanese landscape is a microcosm of global ecological collapse—and its revival, a potential model for what healing could look like elsewhere. The Ministry of Land Intelligens doesn’t end in Venice. It continues as an evolving knowledge network, calling for international solidarity and actionable change.

CAL’s Mission: A Platform for Radical Reimagination

Founded in 2019 in Beirut, Collective for Architecture Lebanon is more than a curatorial body—it is a cross-disciplinary platform merging architecture, urbanism, and the humanities. Through exhibitions, publications, and public programs, CAL is empowering a new generation of architects to reclaim authorship over the narratives that shape their built and natural environments.

With The Land Remembers, CAL doesn’t just represent Lebanon at the Biennale—it reframes what architecture can do. Before we build, it tells us, we must remember. And then, we must act.

Support the Lebanese pavilion by donating to their fundraiser, here