Venice Architecture Biennale: A brief retrospective

This year’s Venice Architecture Biennale—curated by Carlo Ratti—is a feast of fascinations. 

From the macabre squadron of whirring air-con fans hovering over black pools in the dark entry zone of the focal show at the Arsenale, through a dense promenade of provocative displays in the 316-metre-long Corderie (old navy ropemaking) building, to the finale gallery imagining lunar and Martian habitats, this is an amazing exploration of architecture’s current flows and frictions.

Ratti’s Biennale broadens to include independently curated exhibits at most of the 26 national pavilions in the Giardini (although Czechoslovakia, Israel and Russia were shuttered); at least 40 national shows in borrowed spaces around the main precinct; and even a Holy See (Catholic government) presentation that coincided with the election of Pope Leo XIV.

Separate but synchronised attractions included the European Cultural Centre’s eclectic Time Space Existence displays at palazzos Mora and Bembo plus the Marinaressa Gardens; Jean Nouvel’s next Paris museum scheme with fondations Georges Cini and Cartier on the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore; a Rem Koolhaas-led AMO/OMA display of antique infographics at Fondazione Prada on the Grand Canal; and surveys honouring Australia’s Harry Seidler and Korea’s Jung Youngsun in the brand-new San Marco Art Centre. 

For his Biennale umbrella title, Ratti exploited the Latin word gens—originally meaning particular families of Roman Empire society—to propose a globally inclusive, ‘fictional’ theme: Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. In the press kit distributed to hundreds of vernissage scribes, he spruiked ‘a future of intelligence that is inclusive, multiple, and imaginative beyond today’s limiting focus on AI’. 

Above: Entrance to the British Pavilion. Installation view, GBR - Geology of Britannic Repair, British Pavilion, 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, 2025. Chris Lane © British Council.

In a cultural context where some influential architects—notably ZHA’s Patrik Schumacher—have claimed that Biennales are dominated by ‘politically charged, non-architectural agendas’, Ratti reassured his professional audience that this show is ‘about the built environment and the many disciplines that shape it … [with] architecture at the centre … but not alone’.

His appointment to curate the 2025 Biennale was always likely to produce a milestone event because he is the quintessential innovator of the post-internet geospatial systems that defined the last quarter-century of the discipline’s history. 

While a PhD student at Cambridge, then a professor at MIT, he pioneered the 21st century movement that I have termed ‘Astrospatial Architecture’ and (for planners) ‘Data Cities’—a science-led phenomenon where physical structures are virtually visualised and really elaborated using satellite-mediated, electromagnetic fluxes of light and data. His MIT Senseable City Lab galvanised this technological turn at Venice in 2006, with a magical, neo-cartography display of mobile phone geo-coordinates dancing across Rome street maps on frameless, floating screens.

Nearly two decades later, Carlo’s 2025 Biennale is far more diverse and comprehensive: showing more than 280 projects from over 750 international teams. It’s impossible (and specious) to precisely classify every unique contribution, but at the main press conference, he listed 10 general concerns of exhibitors. These included learning from nature, designing habitats and solutions for harsh environments (such as disaster sites, threatened coastlines and other planets), and devising data-responsive methods to help automate management of cities.

Also evident around the venues were clever architectural ideas for staying cool on the fast-warming Earth; managing floods and famines of food and water; inventing and applying biomaterials; harnessing creative and useful robots; recycling materials to support circular economy strategies; and collaborating with differently skilled design teams.

One of Ratti’s intentions was to trigger ‘chain reactions’ among attendees and their professional networks. To encourage intellectual refreshment, his team installed a prominent structure for discussions. Located at the final juncture of the Corderie tunnel—marking a departure from earthly ideas to the outer-space exhibits—his brightly lit ‘Speakers Corner’ became a popular venue for talkfests. 

Looking like a 3D pizza slice from a Socrates-era amphitheatre, the Speakers Corner magnetised theory acolytes to hear stalwarts like Koolhaas, Diller, Coates, Betsky, Colomina and Wigley, and this year’s winner of the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement, Donna Haraway—as well as many emerging professionals and scholars. During the 8-9 May preview days, RMIT ran a session there, and dozens more international architecture schools, including Monash, have booked Arsenale seminars and workshops before the Biennale closes on 23 November.

Above: Cave_bureau, Owen Hopkins and Kathryn Yusoff, Double Vision (detail)

Installation view, GBR - Geology of Britannic Repair, British Pavilion, 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, 2025. Chris Lane © British Council.

Visitors to Venice vernissages are always quizzed back home for their views on the best and worst exhibits—and the answers are always personal and arguable. At the Arsenale, I was buzzed by After the End, a post-apocalyptic video directed by Brisbane artist Liam Young and written/narrated by actor Natasha Wanganeen. Aesthetically inspired by Fritz Lang, George Miller and William Gibson, this futuristic morality movie was shot around South Australia’s desert, mining, and nuclear bomb sites, then post-produced in Los Angeles. It brilliantly applies fresh visions—young, indigenous, creative, ethical, and historically and technically savvy—to the key environmental and architectural challenges of this century. Developed with curators from the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, this cinematic marvel might become a classic reference for architects around the world.

The Corderie included several dozen demo structures made with novel, eco-ethical materials. One highlight—winning a Silver Lion award—was ‘Elephant Chapel’, a sequence of 11 catenary arches made from baked elephant dung, produced by Bangkok architect Boonserm Premthada. 

Another biogenic exhibit, Local Resource / Collective Knowledge by CITA with GXN/3XN and the Royal Danish Academy, is a 6-metre-high wigwam comprising three panels made with blue biomass (algae and shells), biopolymer composite, bio cement and woven palm-leaf materials. The panels were locally made in Jutland, the Veneto and Cuba.

At the Giardini, 23 of the 26 permanent national pavilions were open this year. Spain hosted the most revelatory show, Internalities, which highlighted how the nation’s emerging architects have been seriously reducing carbon emissions in construction processes. Yet it remains difficult to ignore the reality that constructing this exhibit—and all the others in any Biennale—inherently wastes resources.

Canada promoted ‘ecology-first design practices’ via robot-printed structures impregnated with a pico-plankton that gradually strengthens each host material by absorbing and storing airborne carbon dioxide.

Above: Room 6: “Vena Cava,” Mae Ling Lokko and Gustavo Crembil Installation view, GBR - Geology of Britannic Repair, British Pavilion, 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, 2025.Chris Lane © British Council.

Britain won a jury special mention for its Geology of Britannic Repair exhibition. Highlighting recent collaborations by English and Kenyan curators sharing ecological concerns about colonial desecration of geology in Africa’s Rift Valley, this was a Venice Fellowship project funded by the British Council. 

While the French pavilion was closed for internal renovations, its curators showed notable new urban housing projects on a temporary outdoor scaffold structure.

Other national pavilions exemplified Schumacher’s recent complaints about a Biennale bias towards socio-political concerns rather than architectural designs and constructs. For example, Olanda—The Netherlands—pavilion graphically caricatured the banal décor and alienating atmosphere of a typical city sports and gaming bar. The Nordic pavilion—Finland, Sweden, and Norway—highlighted trans-sexual politics via androgynous couples enacting provocative scenes of battle and amour.

Australia’s Home exhibition, produced by a ‘creative sphere’ of Indigenous practitioners led by Michael Mossman, Emily McDonald, and Jack Gillmer-Lilley, also avoided contemporary architecture. Instead, they emphasised the emotional satisfactions of belonging to Country. They contrasted Denton Corker Marshall’s square-ish black pavilion with an orbicular interior of bench seats around a traditional sand circle, with a curved entry barrier emulating the monumentality of rammed earth (albeit necessarily lightweight on the elevated floor). Around the walls, niche shelves contained small expressions of the ‘belonging to home’ theme; these were created by students from 11 Australian universities.

This year’s Venice Architecture Biennale is the 19th edition since its inauguration in 1980 with a post-modern homage to Italy’s ancient classical monuments. Every event is idealistically ambitious and impressively comprehensive, a triumph of delivery by the host organisation, La Biennale di Venezia. Every visitor goes away with thrilling, disappointing, sometimes disgusting, yet useful impressions. And every edition is a unique barometer, and historical marker, of architecture’s shifting culture. Even when the very solidity of architecture seems to be threatened.

Main image: Room 5: “Lumumba’s Grave,” Dr Thandi Loewenson Installation view, GBR - Geology of Britannic Repair, British Pavilion, 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, 2025. Chris Lane © British Council

Sydney author Dr Davina Jackson chaired the 2003-2006 Venice Architecture Biennale Task Force which brokered a reliable alliance for Australia to exhibit architecture in the nation’s Giardini pavilion. She attended Carlo Ratti’s Biennale Salon consultation in Sydney in January and was a member of Australia’s Brickworks Club. davina@davinajackson.com