A World Previous to Ours
The Perimeter of Architecture: Amid the Elements, La Biennale di Architettura di Venezia, 2025
Project Team:
Rania Ghosn + El Hadi Jazairy
Ekin Bilal (Design, 3D Model), Monica Hutton (Text), Jabari Canada (Sound), Qilmeg Doudatcz (web interface), Joyce Tullis (prototype), Sylvia Lavin (Narrator)
“A World Previous to Ours” by DESIGN EARTH is at “The Perimeter of Architecture: Amid the Elements,” in the James Stirling book pavilion in Giardini at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Beginning with the Mastodon tooth drawing through which Georges Cuvier articulated his theory of extinction, DESIGN EARTH constructs a sectional model of a stratified earth, into which is inserted a series of cavities that bring attention to missing narratives from the historical record. Each cavity is a miniature-room that traces the physical displacement of the tooth and other old bones – unearthed from the New World, moved through colonial outposts to presidential, royal, and natural history museum collections. This journey reconstructs a history of speculative accounts through which the fossil form was put to do work in the world – mythological tales of First Americans, Founding Narratives, and political and racial theories that legitimatize power to rule over lands, bodies and lives. This brings us to the present moment of what stories to tell in the midst of another mass extinction on planet Earth.
The seven cavities: 1. Big Bone Lick, 2. Niagara Femur, 3. Monticello Jaw, 4. White House Fangs, 5. Menagerie Trunks, 6. Evolution Ribs, 7. Mission Extinction.
With Support from: Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; MIT Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Grant; Princeton School of Architecture.
You can listen to the fable “A World Previous to Ours” at andotherfables.org.
Last image: a drawing of a fossil molar tooth of the “Ohio animal” from North America, sent to Cuvier in 1801 by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach of Gottingen. From: Martin Rudwick, “Georges Cuvier’s paper museum of fossil bones.”
Click for more information about the Venice Architecture Biennale exhibition.