Canary Islands Pavilion by Estudio Latente Represents the Anthropocene

De Roca Madre — Photo © María Rodríguez Cadenas

Architects & Firms

De Roca Madre, a temporary pavilion erected this fall as part of the TAC! Festival in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, takes on an unusually difficult task: using architecture to lay bare the environmental degradations of the Anthropocene—the contemporary era during which humans have become the primary force affecting the earth.

Photo © María Rodríguez Cadenas

Designed by the newly formed Estudio Latente, an office led by RECORD contributor Alberto Martínez García along with Andrea Molina Cuadro, Alejandro Carrasco Hidalgo, and Eduardo Cilleruelo Terán, the pavilion consists of two almost-parallel gabion walls framed in wood and filled with layers of local stone that reference the Canary Islands' geological formation. Above the stone, suspended within the gabion mesh, are found plastics—bottles, bags, fragments, most carried by ocean currents to the shores of the islands, that were recovered through a series of beach cleanup campaigns that the architects organized earlier this year.

Photo © María Rodríguez Cadenas

The aim of the project is "not to replicate exactly the geological section of the island," says Martínez García, "but rather to create a collective discussion" around environmental shifts currently underway in relation to the slow, often invisible forces of geological change. To that end, Estudio Latente sought to make De Roca Madre into a gathering space within the Plaza de Stagno, with a lattice spanning between the two walls and built-in benches turning the center into a comfortable, shaded area, and openings in the walls allowing for cross-grain circulation.

Estudio Latente won a competition to design the pavilion in April 2025; it opened to the public in October and was disassembled in December.