“This architecture exhibition does not present beautiful buildings but shows how architecture helps us understand that the sea is a place we all inhabit.”
André Tavares, co-curator
We are faced with an environmental emergency and the sea is a location where the fundamental forces of change are played out.
The sea determines how we live on land. Faced with this fact, a group of architects has developed an original perspective on the sea; deducing from its natural dynamics the coordinates to understand – among other critical aspects to everyday life – coastal erosion, the relationship between cities and the sea, port trade flows, the sea as a global communications route, and the infrastructures that exploit marine resources.
The exhibition Our Land Is the Sea invites us to shift our usual point of view, and think about land from the perspective of the sea. What can we learn from this perspective, which, instead of contemplating the horizon, examines the relationships between natural forces, human activities, and the functioning of ecosystems?
This exhibition highlights the need to better understand the spaces in which we live and to adjust the ways in which we transform them. Inverting our perspective requires us to think about what we build in relation to one of the planet’s critical spaces: the sea.
Exhibition content
The exhibition is organised in several sections: Sensitive Line, Sand, Rock, City, High, Shore, Legislation and Surf. The examples are concentrated, mainly but not exclusively, on the Portuguese coast.
A set of fifteen films is presented that highlights the dynamic relationship between human activity and maritime flows. In parallel with this video installation, the exhibition rooms showcase projects for dune and port constructions, connecting them to natural phenomena ranging from coastal geomorphology to the Azores Peak.
This underlines the relationships between two types of coastline – sand and rock – and the shape of the waves that the combination of these dynamics produces; as well as our different ways of negotiating the water (inshore and high-sea navigation) and of building the territory associated with each of these modalities.
These observations converge in a synthesis – city – that is presented in two project proposals for the coastal city of Figueira da Foz. These projects reveal how architectural thinking is fundamental to determine and transform the relationship between the city and the sea.
These proposals and the legal protection of the most unique waves in Portugal (the longest, the highest and the most tubular) are examples of the need for citizen participation in configuring the spaces in which we live.
The exhibition concludes with an observation of the cultural proximity between traditional xávega fishing and surfing, highlighting the direct relationship between humanity and the sea. The way in which we deal with the ocean swells and waves influences how we build our homes and the spaces in which we live.
![Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira and Fernando Galhano, boat and house, from the book Palheiros do Litoral Central Português [Palheiros of the Portuguese Central Coast], 1964](/sites/default/files/metalocus_our-land-is-the-sea._the-sensitive-construction-of-the_coastline_02-a-barco-e-casa_boat-and-house.jpg "Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira and Fernando Galhano, boat and house, from the book Palheiros do Litoral Central Português [Palheiros of the Portuguese Central Coast], 1964")
![Nunes Fernandes, surfboard construction at Figueira da Foz beach, in Trabalhos Manuais [Handicrafts], 29 May 1942](/sites/default/files/metalocus_our-land-is-the-sea._the-sensitive-construction-of-the_coastline_a_cruz_figueira-da-foz_1950_afmff.jpg "Nunes Fernandes, surfboard construction at Figueira da Foz beach, in Trabalhos Manuais [Handicrafts], 29 May 1942")
