Public showers at a beach in Brazil and an unoccupied plinth excavated out of a public plaza in Mexico City may appear to have nothing in common. But an installation on view at LIGA Space for Architecture in Mexico City puts the unlikely objects in dialogue with one another, providing commentary on the function of public spaces. Gru.a, an architecture practice based out of Rio de Janeiro, is behind the causally executed, but well-thought-out work that combines the ordinary to make sense of urban spaces.
With Plinth for No Thing, Gru.a has explored “empty monumentality,” as a curatorial statement put it. The paired objects, staged within a room in LIGA’s gallery, both hail from historic narratives rooted in public spaces in Latin America: the shower, or chuveirão, from Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro; and the stone plinth, or zócalo, from Plaza de la Constitución in Mexico City.
The story behind each of the objects presents a perspective for understanding the collective power of public spaces. For the nozzle and its accompanying hose, it’s the bathers who washed with its water, among them former democratic president of Brazil Juscelino Kubitschek and military generals of the country’s dictatorship. Hygiene may not be a uniting force, but it is a public need.
For the plinth’s lore, one has to dig a little deeper, specifically underneath Mexico City’s Plaza de la Constitución, where in the 19th century a circular pedestal for a monument was erected but never topped with a statue. Instead the built platform was buried away until 2017 when archaeologists unearthed it.
Plinth for No Thing occupies an entire room amid LIGA’s industrial backdrop. At the center of the exhibition space, a circular cutout in the pavers forming a pool of water is the stand in for the unearthed Mexican pedestal. Stretching out of the water is a shower, its blue hose has been artfully curved and capped with a metal nozzle.
The mechanics pumping the operation are in full public view. Water streams out of the head and down into the water, making for both a visual and auditory experience. The sparse furnishing and subtle motion of the installation make it simultaneously inhabited and capable of transformation, much like public spaces.
Plinth for No Thing is on view at LIGA through March 2026.
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