University of Luxembourg researchers design Luxembourg Pavilion

Congratulations to Francelle Cane and Marija Marić from the Department of Geography and Spatial Planning. Their project “Down to Earth” has been selected for the Luxembourg Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.

The project, focused on the question of extraterrestrial resources, their exploitation and the narratives that underlie the resulting economy, was chosen for both the topical and speculative nature of the theme, the clarity of the proposal, the precision of the reflections, sourced and referenced and the societal issues it raises. The jury felt that the straightforwardness of the message, supported by a simple scenography, articulated around a model of the Moon, a collection of “take-away” essays and three narrative videos, should allow the Biennial’s audience to enter the subject head-on.

The project highlights a topic that remains invisible to our eyes through a critical approach; it raises the issue of the resources of the Earth’s soil at different scales, but above all it raises the issue of the future world that we are creating by pushing back the limits of the spaces colonised and exploited by man beyond the Earth.

Francelle Cane is an architect and a PhD candidate at the University of Luxembourg. Her practice focuses on transversal and multidisciplinary research activities tied to the question of the ruin: she advocates for a critical spatial design approach, concentrating on issues such as late capitalism, climate change or the man-altered landscape. She studied at the National School of Architecture of Versailles and the TU Berlin.

Marija Marić is an architect, researcher and postdoctoral research associate at the Master in Architecture programme, University of Luxembourg. In 2020, she obtained her doctoral degree from the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta), ETH Zurich. Marija’s research is organised around the questions of architecture, real estate, media, and the production of built environment and urban imaginaries in the context of global capitalism and global flow of information.