Location: Venice, Italy
Date: 2019
Programme: Urban Planning
Client: Polish Pavilion
Status: Completed
Area: N/A
Budget: Confidential
Team: Traumnovelle (architects)
Photography: Jacopo Salvi

Contribution to TROUBLE IN PARADISE. PAVILION OF POLAND AT THE BIENNALE DI VENEZIA curated by Prolog+1.

EURECA: EU Climate Resistance Agency

Victoria Nowakowa
1st Prime Minister of the European Union
Nomination speech
Official broadcast

Dear European Citizens,
Thank you for your trust. I am honored that you have seen in me the first Prime Minister of the European Union. I do solemnly swear that I will be up to the task and I will do justice to every vote.

My thoughts tonight go to all of the victims that recent years. The thousands of deaths due to COVID-19 and following epidemics which give us no respite. The drought of 2021 and the Afsluitdijk leak which left us struggling to feed ourselves for over a year. The Kozloduy nuclear catastrophe which has rendered much of Bulgaria, Serbia and Poland uninhabitable. The earthquakes of Southern Italy and the terrible floods of Transylvania. My thoughts go out to those who died of starvation or dehydration in the aftermath. Those who lost their jobs, their homes, their loved ones.

This is the European Union that our forefathers have handed us!

Your behaviour, when facing these catastrophes, has been heroic. The world thanks you for your deep involvement. You have dealt with these crises with honor and solidarity. You have fought back, rebuilding what was destroyed and sharing what had to be shared with those hit by hardship. You acted with dignity when you held climate strikes, the values of which you have led all the way into your private lives with strength.

Citizens of Europe, I hear your voice loud and clear and on this day of my election, I will make a solemn promise to you. I swear that I will protect you, that I will protect your families, that I will protect your businesses and homes from the threat of climate change. I will do this at any cost.

We are at war. Throughout this campaign, Europe has ceaselessly been struck by ecological catastrophes and it is our duty to fight back. To protect our land and to protect our people, collectively. To construct a brighter, more secure future for ourselves, for our children.

For these reasons, my first action as Prime Minister of the European Union is the creation of EURECA: the EU Climate Resistance Agency. At its head I have named our most valued scientists and engineers. EURECA will be working hard in the next weeks, months and years, in full collaboration with the regional and national governments of Europe.

EURECA will set up a continent-scale plan of climate-resistant infrastructure. It both addresses specific threats such as the rise of sea levels, drought and wildfire; as well as it anticipates and counters future hazards by expanding forest coverage and CO2 absorption.

EURECA will increase civilian resilience by empowering localities. EURECA will deploy actions akin to those of a benevolent father for his children.

The Polish Region has been selected for the implementation of a pilot project due to its widespread population and medium density, its strong community-building involvement and its historical economic ties with the EU, making it homogeneously developed. It is also afflicted with low-intensity occurrences of the climate catastrophes which burden the entire territory, making it ideal for measurement and trial-testing. For all of these reasons, Poland will serve as a prototype for the infrastructural defense system of the EU.

Dear citizens, we are at war, but we have hope. We have each other. We have EURECA. We will prevail!