The Latvian National Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale explores how national defence policies are transforming the physical, social, and ecological landscapes of Latvia. The exhibition examines the intersection of military infrastructure, rural life, and architectural responsibility, offering a spatial reading of what it means to live on NATO’s eastern border under the shadow of geopolitical tension.
Latvia spans 64,594 km², with a population of just under two million. While the majority of people live in the capital and regional cities, the vast majority of the land is defined by forest, farmland, and scattered homesteads. These dispersed rural areas may seem empty to the outsider—but they remain lived-in, worked, and tied to strong place-based identities.
Since the full scale russian invasion of Ukraine, Latvia—alongside other EU and NATO member states bordering russia—has intensified its national defence strategies. In 2025, defence spending will exceed 3.65% of GDP, with major investments in physical and organizational infrastructure. This includes the development of a 30 km-wide defence zone along Latvia’s eastern frontier. Within this corridor, various elements—barbed wire, tank obstacles, dragon’s teeth, trenches, patrol routes, military camps, housing units, and training facilities—are being rapidly deployed.
These interventions are not abstract—they are shaping around 15% of the national territory. They cut through forests, fields, and homes. They alter how people live, move, gather, and perceive space. As architects, we argue that this is not solely a question of security, but a question of design. Defence is a spatial project.
Our exhibition presents the evolving border defence system not through diagrams of military logic, but through its spatial implications: the changing character of inhabited landscapes, the vacancy of rural settlements, the heightened surveillance of public space, and the psychological atmosphere of perpetual readiness. These dynamics are subtle but far-reaching—reshaping the lived experience of territory long before any physical conflict unfolds. We show how these conditions affect local communities—those who remain, and those already displaced by economic or demographic forces.
We are inviting ideas on how architecture can support positive transformation in the border region — contribute yours.
We are inviting ideas on how architecture can support positive transformation in the border region — contribute yours.
But we do not stop at observation. We see this moment as a call to action. We ask:
What does architectural responsibility look like in a militarized democracy?
How can spatial planning support both security and civilian quality of life?
What forms of design can reinforce social cohesion, counter disinformation, and reimagine border territories as sites of agency, not abandonment?
The exhibition is an invitation—to architects, urbanists, defence planners, and policymakers alike—to rethink the role of spatial disciplines in shaping geopolitical futures. We advocate for architecture not as a passive witness, but as an active participant in building resilience, care, and sovereignty from the ground up.
In the current climate, national defence is no longer confined to bunkers and border fences. It is embedded in the choices we make about land use, infrastructure, public space, and rural vitality. For our office, the exhibition is a first step toward establishing a design-led dialogue on defence—rooted in place, shaped by empathy, and guided by civic responsibility.
We invite you to get part of the dialogue and contribute your ideas to the discussion.
Exhibition Overview
The Latvian Pavilion is located in the Arsenale in Venice, in the Artiglierie wing — a former workshop used for building the Venetian military fleet, dating back to 1560.
In the exhibition, we highlight the tension between the comfortable feeling of being at home and the striking presence of military structures appearing in the landscape.
The exhibition is structured into two main zones. Upon entry, visitors encounter the Info Curtain, which provides basic information about the exhibition’s topic and introduces the Latvian border region through a large-scale military inspired map.
Stylized exhibition furniture, referencing military and security items, obstructs and guides the visitor's movement into and through the second part of the pavilion, which features a large Panorama Curtain. Stylized log benches invite visitors to sit, immerse themselves in the landscape of the border region, and watch interviews and security footage recorded in the area.
The entire exhibition is built using a minimal amount of material — flat-pack furniture, curtains, and a demountable structure — to ease transport and allow reassembly, either in full or in parts, back in Latvia after the Biennale.
Border Zone Map
The military-inspired map covers 13 square meters of the Info Curtain. It shows the 30-kilometre border zone along the Latvian-Russian and Latvian-Belarusian borders — the area most affected by the construction of the Baltic Defence Line, which covers around 15% of Latvia’s territory.
As in military maps, various symbols are used to represent natural and built features of the landscape. Integrated into the map are small scenes and some notes with observations and information we gathered during our visits to the border regions and conversations with local residents about the specific conditions faced in the border zone.
Military Item Drawings
The illustrations are placed on the side of the Info Curtain, near the exit. They show some of the most common military items currently deployed along the border, along with brief explanations of their purpose and characteristics.
The dragon’s teeth, hedgehogs, and a camera post also appear elsewhere in the exhibition — reinterpreted as stylized furniture pieces. By the time visitors leave the pavilion, they can recognize and better understand the meaning of these initially unfamiliar objects.
Panorama Collage
80 square meters of printed curtain display our photo collage, created from images taken during our trips through Latvia and the border region. The curtain hangs in an oval shape, with one side open toward the Info Curtain.
Both ends of the curtain depict the entry into the border zone, showing street signs alongside early warning signs, communication towers, and anti-vehicle obstacles stored along the roadside. Moving deeper into the pavilion — toward the center of the curtain — the border itself is shown, with ditches, watchtowers, and the border fence.
Various local animals appear in the scene, bringing a sense of life to the landscape. People, however, are absent (except for a russian soldier in the background) — a metaphor for the fact that they still need to be brought into the discussion.
Exhibition Furniture
The furniture is a stylized interpretation of anti-vehicle obstacles, surveillance infrastructure, and the kind of log benches commonly found in the countryside. All of them are shown in life-size, but their neon color and clean, geometric shapes draw attention — prompting arriving visitors to pause, wonder what these objects represent, and look more closely at the exhibition’s content.
Security Tape Movie
Six screens display a series of video clips, including interviews with local residents sharing their experiences of life in the border region, as well as scenes that reflect typical security and surveillance camera footage.
Leporello
A series of postcards shows images from the border zone — an area that can only be accessed with a special permit. Designed to resemble a passport, the set is given to visitors at the entrance of the pavilion.
Exhibition Setup
The exhibition was assembled in Venice over four days by our two offices — NOMAD architects and Sampling — together with Ansis Bergmanis. Our office took care of the work at height, including hanging the structure and curtains from the historic wooden beams.
Competition Entry
The origin of the theme traces back to a modest construction workshop in the beautiful Latvian countryside. In the summer of 2024, we were working on-site in Līvani, helping to build a small artist’s cabin. For several weeks, we were immersed in rural life—appreciating the freedom that physical and spatial emptiness can offer. For creatives and craftspeople, rural Latvia offers rare opportunities of space to experiment and to be unconventional.
Yet even in this seemingly remote setting—just 100 kilometers from the Belarusian border—geopolitical tensions were inescapable. Military convoys carrying anti-tank obstacles known as “dragon’s teeth” passed us en route to the eastern border. NATO fighter jets could be heard overhead. When we flew the drone to photograph the building progress, a local became very concerned—having only seen such technology in news footage from the war russia started in Ukraine.
This dissonance between calm and crisis became the foundation of our inquiry. Marija —whose interest in defence is shaped in part by her voluntary service in the National Guard—came across a publication by the Ministry of Defence outlining plans for the Baltic Defence Line: a 30-kilometre-wide strip along Latvia’s borders with russia and Belarus, designated for intensified military readiness. The illustration described not only the defensive objects and infrastructure to be installed, but also confirmed that existing homes are meant to remain interspersed among this new defence zone.
This was the point where we clearly saw the linkage between defence and its direct relationship to architecture, as well as its pressing spatial and civic issue. The experience sparked intense conversations between our office and Sampling. Out of this exchange, the theme Landscape of Defence was born and proposed for the Latvian Pavilion.
Project in collaboration with Sampling.
Exhibition Concept and Layout
Marija Katrīna Dambe + Florian Betat (NOMAD architects),
Liene Jākobsone, Manten Devriendt, Solvita Kārkliņa, Zane Saulīte-Zvaigzne (Sampling)
Co-curator: Ilka Ruby
Border Zone Map
Florian Betat + Marija Katrīna Dambe (NOMAD architects)
Military Items Drawings
Florian Betat (NOMAD architects)
Panorama Curtain
Photography and design: Marija Katrīna Dambe + Florian Betat (NOMAD architects)
Exhibition Furniture Design
Design: Manten Devriendt (Sampling)
Execution: Ansis Bergmanis, Ģirts Kalniņš, Juris Austriņš, Aigars Maģītis
Security Tape Movie
Filming: Florian Betat (NOMAD architects), Manten Devriendt (Sampling)
Editing: Liene Jākobsone (Sampling), Una Cekule + Aleksandrs Okonovs
Leporello
Text: Liene Jākobsone (Sampling)
Photography: Reinis Hofmanis
Publishing: Ruby Press
Fashion Design
Laima Jurča
Exhibition Structure
Design: Manten Devriendt (Sampling), Florian Betat (NOMAD architects)
Engineering: Normunds Tirāns, Jans Veļičko, Marco Peroni, Andrea Cassani
Execution: Ansis Bergmanis
Lighting Design
Siim Porila, Laura Mārtinsone
Exhibition Photography and Film
Ādams Muzikants, Marija Katrīna Dambe + Florian Betat (NOMAD architects)
Comissioner
Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia
Jānis Dripe
Sponsors
Partners
