Salt is a fundamental resource in the history and economy of San Fernando. It is an element that has transformed the peri-urban territory of the city into a place where seawater combines with the sun and the wind to dry and create a new material. The salt that covers the territory of the salt pans is raked and slowly accumulates in the dunes that have characterised the imaginary of the city in the past and continue to characterise the landscape of San Fernando today.
The salt landscape develops from the tides and solar cycles, and is shaped by human needs. In this way, the salt dunes become an informal architecture characteristic of the place and already part of the local tradition, a tourist and economic resource that symbolises the reciprocal relationship between man and nature.
The SAL! project aims to enhance the value of this resource and its current characteristics, but at the same time to explore new possibilities for the material. Salt is thus transformed into a constructive element with a “bearing” capacity, and blends into the urban environment, creating a temporary pavilion for San Fernando. A new urban landscape that recalls the salt context, but at the same time creates a place of encounter, of shade, of passage, of relationship with the square and with the water of the fountain. A pavilion that takes the local history to write a future of new possibilities.