Curated by Carlo Ratti, director of the Senseable City Lab and a founding partner of the architecture and innovation office CRA – Carlo Ratti Associati, the theme of the 19th Venice biennale is “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.” Says Ratti, “To face a burning world, architecture must harness all the intelligence around us.”
THE CORDERIE
The Corderie opens with a stark confrontation: global temperatures rise while global populations fall. This is the reality architects must face in a time of adaptation. From here – explains Ratti – visitors will traverse three thematic worlds: Natural Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, and Collective Intelligence. The Exhibition culminates in Out, and asks: can we look to space as a solution to the crises we face on Earth? The answer is no — space exploration is not a way out but a means to improve life here, on the only home we know.
Each section is conceived as a modular, fractal space — an organism that links large and small-scale projects, creating a web of dialogue. The Exhibition design by architecture and design office Sub, directed by Niklas Bildstein Zaar, and the graphic design by Bänziger Hug Kasper Florio mirrors the interconnectedness we need to survive. Digital layers amplify and expand conversations, adding a new dimension to the exhibition.
VENICE AS A LIVING LAB
With the venue of the Central Pavilion under renovation in 2025, Venice will not just host the Biennale Architettura — it will become a living laboratory. The city itself — one of the most imperilled on Earth in the face of a changing climate — will serve as the backdrop for a new kind of Exhibition, where installations, prototypes, and experiments are scattered across the Giardini, the Arsenale and other neighbourhoods.
NATIONAL PARTICIPATIONS
66 National Participations will organize their exhibitions in the historic Pavilions at the Giardini (26), at the Arsenale (22) and in the city centre of Venice (15). Among them are four new participants: Republic of Azerbaijan, Sultanate of Oman, Qatar, Togo.
COLLATERAL EVENTS
The Collateral Events will take place in several locations around the city of Venice, offering a wide range of contributions and participations that enrich the diversity of voices that characterizes the Exhibition.
SPECIAL PROJECTS realised by La Biennale di Venezia
The project Margherissima, exhibited inside the Austrian armoury (Polveriera austriaca), Forte Marghera in Mestre, focuses in the area of Marghera and the contaminated territory located near Ponte della Libertà. It is designed by Nigel Coates and the Architectural Association with Michael Keverne, Guan Lee, John Maybury and Jan Bunge, participants in the International Exhibition competition.
La Biennale di Venezia and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London present for the ninth consecutive year the Applied Arts Pavilion Special Project titled On Storage, curated by Brendan Cormier, in collaboration with Diller, Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). It explores the global architecture of storage in service of the circulation of things, and features a newly commissioned six-channel film directed by DS+R.
