"Siestario," the proposal for the Argentine Pavilion designed by Juan Manuel Pachué and Marco Zampieron for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia 2025, redefines the value of the siesta. In this sense, the pavilion presents itself as an ode to the momentary break from routine, a refuge where time dissolves.
As the centerpiece of the room, an inflated and extended silo bag becomes a support for sleep, like a soft, motionless plastic mattress into which calm bodies sink. The silo bag, a vestige of the Argentine economy, appears decontextualized from its original function, redefining its purpose.
"Siestario" Argentine Pavilion by Juan Manuel Pachué and Marco Zampieron. Photograph by Federico Cairoli.
Its surreal and strange presence invites a collective experience of leisure, where time seems trapped in an instant. In the act of resting, a transition begins toward sleep, toward an indefinite time. In this state, the dreamlike permeates the walls, desires and dreams seep through the bodies, suspended in the air. The atmosphere transforms into a landscape, the possible and the uncertain coexist in the indeterminate.
As part of the installation, projectors hanging from the ceiling sketch out diffuse images, like a fog drifting over the space. Fleeting flashes and fragile whispers mingle in the darkness. Almost imperceptibly, dreams, memories, ambitions, and desires for something that never happened invade the atmosphere.
"Siestario" Argentine Pavilion by Juan Manuel Pachué and Marco Zampieron. Photograph by Federico Cairoli.
Additionally, drawings, models, renderings, and photographs converse in the space without a pre-established order. No exact logic is discernible; the architects and artists are absorbed by the whole, diluted in the collective. The exhibition is conceived, in an erratic and scattered way, as traces of ideals and ambitions of a memory under construction.
