Landscape of Defence, Latvia Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale – Photos by ©Michiel De Cleene.

Architecture. There is a 30 km-wide militarised border zone at the Latvian eastern frontier. Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the small Baltic state has intensified its national defence strategies with tank obstacles, barbed wires, and checkpoints, altering the landscape with a strong psychological impact on the residents within the corridor. What does it mean to live on NATO’s external border in times of geopolitical conflict? At the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, SAMPLING and NOMAD Architects narrate how the Russian threat affects the lives of those who live at the frontier. The Landscape of Defence exhibition features defence elements reinterpreted in bright yellow soft shape, video interviews and security footage, a Panorama Curtain of the frontier’s landscape, and a large-scale military-inspired map.

• RELATED STORIES: Read more about the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale on Archipanic.

The corridor spans 15% of the small country’s land, featuring forests, lakes, farms, villages, roads, and cottages. Barbed wire, tank barriers, dragon’s teeth, trenches, patrol routes, military camps, housing units, and training facilities have been rapidly established, changing how residents live, move, interact, and perceive their surroundings, with access restricted through checkpoints requiring special permits.

At the Artiglierie wing of the Arsenale, a former workshop for building the Venetian military fleet, the Latvia Pavilion is organised into two main zones. Upon entering, visitors are greeted by the Info Curtain, which presents the Latvian border region through a large-scale military-inspired map.

Map of the Latvian border with Russia by SAMPLING and NOMAD Architects – Courtesy of NOMAD Architects.

Bright yellow, stylised soft seating resembling military and security elements such ad tank obstacles and dragon teeth, obstructs and guides the visitor’s movement through the pavilion’s second section. A prominent Panorama Curtain displays a collage of images depicting a typical border zone landscape. Yellow log benches invite visitors to sit and view interviews along with security footage captured in the area.

“As architects, we argue that building a defence zone is not solely a question of security, but a question of design. Defence is a spatial project,” explain the curators Liene Jākobsone of SAMPLING studio and Ilka Ruby.  “With the Landscape exhibition, we want to trigger a design-led discussion and have a fair attitude towards the people who live on the border,” NOMAD Architects told Archipanic.

The Latvia Pavilion encourages architects, urbanists, defence planners, and policymakers to actively engage in fostering resilience, care, and sovereignty from the ground up. What does architectural responsibility look like in a militarised democracy? How can spatial planning enhance both security and the quality of civilian life? What forms of design can strengthen social cohesion, counter disinformation, and reimagine border territories as sites of agency, not abandonment?

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• RELATED STORIES: Discover more architecture and design from Latvia on Archipanic.

All photos are by ©Michiel De Cleene; the drawings are by SAMPLING and NOMAD Architects.