At the Biennale in Venice, A Fantasy Island Imported from Mexico

The small urban farms of Mexico City, known locally as Chinampas, practice a kind of agriculture in reverse: instead of bringing water to land most farms, Chinampas leads to the water.

The Chinampas in use today date back to about a thousand years, when Aztec farmers began building rectangular fields on the lakes and growing food for what was the city of Tenochtitlan. There were tens of thousands of Chinampas at one point, arranged in strict networks with narrow channels between them, although many were destroyed or abandoned (along with the rest of the Mesoamerican metropolis) after Cortérs and Hipc 1521.

But the chinampas who work continue to exist in the Southern neighborhood of Mexico City in Xochimilco, despite continuing the currese by developers and the competition of factoring farms, which operate mainly as family businesses they produce and other lettuce. Latey, the friendly forms with the irrigation of farms are receiving new attention in a world shaken by climate change and the suffering of generalized droughts.

Could other places around the world take the idea of ​​creating “floating islands”, as are sometimes called the fields, which are wrapped by water? A team of Mexican designers, landscapes and farmers believes that ancient technology can be widely adaptable, enough to recreate a Chinese for the pavilion of their country at this year’s architecture biennial in Venice.

“Chinampas has a simple and intelligent design, created collectively not only to people but also to all surrounding living beings,” said Lucio Usobiaga, a team member who has spent the last 15 years defending the festfos through land.

The Pavilion of Mexico is a good adjustment for the main exposure of the Biennial, “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective”, which is intended to show design projects that address climate change in a creative way. Chinampas are both made by man and organic and can succeed only if there is cooperation between farmers, political leaders and the growing number of tourists who float in the popular people traveled by canoes, looking at the corn and movie fields.

Promotion La Chinampa As an inspiration for ecological design, it was an obvious option for the Biennial, team members said. “Venice is also built on water and has the same son of vulnerabilities that Xochimilco has,” said Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo, a founder of the design firm Pedro and Juana.

They pointed out that Venice and Xochimilco were added to the list of Unesco World Heritage sites in the same year, 1987, and both places are island communities navigable by boats and that work to balance the positive and negative aspects of tourism.

Venice has its iconic gondolas, while Xochimilco has its trajineros, flat background containers, bright color decorated and false flowers that lead visitors to excursions with party themes. Both ships are operated by pilots that push them along the channels using long posts.

As for how recreation of a chinampa on the site, that toks some imagination. And commitment.

The Aztecs built their islands approximately time, already using and branches to make fences at the bottom of the Mucky lake. These formed limits for multiple layers of sediments and decomposition vegetation (and sometimes the human spirit) until the islands rose enough like the water of the rise to be cultivated. In addition to growing crops such as corn, beans and pumpkin, using the traditional milpa Agricultural method that naturally retains nutrients in the soil: they planted trees in the corners of the islands to stabilize the earth.

The Pavilion of Mexico, within the Arsenal Complex of the Biennial, will have a stripped version, much narrower than the 500 square meters (0.12 acres) or a typical chinampa. The exhibition will be improved by videos produced in Mexico City with real chinamferos, as farmers are called, and the stands will be installed along the walls. Artificial lighting will replace the sun.

In the center there will be a work garden planted with vegetables, flowers and medicinal herbs. (The crops began in an Italian nursery and transferred to Arsenale by boat in mid -April). The duration of the Biennial matures, which continues until November 23.

“At the end of the Biennial, we can reap corn and make tortillas,” said Mr. Usobiaga. “Before that, we can reap beans, pumpkin, tomatoes and chiles.”

Visitors will learn about special seed cultivation techniques that are exclusive to chinampas and will have the opportunity to plant seedlings.

In a wink to local agriculture, Chinampa will also use a version of Vite Maritata“ A practice established in the old Etruscan agriculture that requires planting grapes around trees, which serve as a natural lattice system for vines. The exhibition team sees a link between the two forms of agro-forest, combined trees and crops in an ecosystem.

“We are going to see this dialogue between two ancient cultures that so much about how we can advance,” said Usobiaga.

Exhibition team members said they wanted to be careful not to romantize too much chinampas because they are not easy to double on a scale that could feed a large population today. The farms work in Mexico City sit on a lake that lacks an exit for another body of water, which makes water levels relatively easy to control. The opposite is true, of course, in Venice, which is in a lagoon near the sea and always threatens the floods.

In addition, the economy of small farms (high production costs, low yields due to their size) makes it difficult to obtain profits. The salaries of agricultural workers are generally too low to support people in urban areas, and the exhausting work of planting and harvest has lost prestige.

“This is a big problem here, that the people, specific, young people, no longer want to work the ground in Chinampas,” said María Marín de Buen, the graphic designer of the team.

Only in Xochimilco, many Chinampas lie fallow because their owners cannot make a living. Some have become the leg in football fields, which are interested in the community; Others are places for events where people celebrate weddings or birthday parties. Official, the country is restricted to development, as well as cattle grazing and hunting in endangered animal species, although these things happen with frequency of alarm.

Even so, the team sees something inspiring in play: a connection between nature and the built environment, between existing water resources and the need to build houses and schools. It is possible that the architects who visit the Biennial do not design large ranges of cultivation lands, but can replicate the idea on a smaller scale using the conditions that exist, said Jachen Schleich, a team member who is director of the Cityocyo Cityocyo of Mexico Cityocyo Cityocyo Cityocyo Cityocyocyo.

“Even if someone does this in his backyard, at least he can feed his family or people on the four floors of his building, Schleich said.” It could be like a micro intervention in the landscape or a public space. “