Venice Architecture Exhibition 2025: Insight, Creativity, and Mutual Reliance
Venice Architecture Biennale 2025: A Regenerative, Collaborative, and Inclusive Vision
The 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, titled "Intelligens: Natural. Artificial. Collective.", is set to take place from May 10 to November 23, 2025. Curated by Carlo Ratti and his team, the Biennale will explore how architecture can evolve by learning from three types of intelligence: natural, artificial, and collective.
The focus is on how architecture can respond to increasingly unstable environmental conditions through cross-disciplinary collaboration, emphasizing adaptation rather than mere mitigation in the face of climate change and rising temperatures. The Biennale highlights science-driven approaches to transform challenging environments into habitable spaces and to address issues like climate resilience, spatial equity, and circularity.
Collaboration is emphasized by exploring collective intelligence, engaging social systems and community participation alongside natural systems and artificial systems to create integrated and adaptive architectural solutions. Ecological interdependence is a key aspect, illustrated by projects such as the Kingdom of Bahrain's Heatwave pavilion, which blends traditional cooling methods with modern engineering to generate public spaces that are both resilient and socially interactive.
The Space for the Planet features projects that directly engage ecological systems, from bio-materials to planetary urbanism. The Mexico Pavilion focuses on informal housing and community-led renovation, and the Polish Pavilion examines post-pandemic domestic architectures.
The Biennale proposes a regenerative, collaborative, and radically inclusive vision of architecture. This is evident in the Circularity Manifesto, co-developed with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Arup, which challenges the Biennale to lead by example in regenerative exhibition-making. The manifesto includes the use of recyclable scaffolding, mushroom-based insulation, and AI-generated, fully demountable structures.
The city of Venice itself is a significant part of the Biennale, with installations and events occurring in various venues throughout the city. The Hong Kong Archive, a collateral event, explores the urban palimpsest of the Pearl River Delta, while the Space for Collaboration is a platform for interdisciplinary work, highlighting shared processes between design and other fields.
The Space for Ideas is a curatorial showcase of architecture's intellectual and speculative potential. Notable participants include Stefano Mancuso, a botanist honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award, who argues that plants possess their own form of intelligence, challenging the anthropocentric bias in architecture.
The Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 also features the first open call in its history, allowing lesser-known collectives and emerging studios to exhibit. Countries like Togo, Qatar, and Oman present Biennale debuts, signaling a shift in who defines architectural relevance.
However, the Biennale invites criticism, with some questioning the performativity of "green" aesthetics and others raising concerns about intellectual density and public connection. Regardless, the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale advocates for architecture as a science-driven, collaborative practice that integrates natural intelligence, artificial intelligence, and collective intelligence to address environmental instability through regenerative design and ecological sensitivity.
For more information about the full program, including opening hours, ticketing, and event details, visit labiennale.org.
[1] Ratti, C., & Ratti, C. (2025). Intelligens: Natural. Artificial. Collective.. Venice: Venice Architecture Biennale.
[2] Terrain Lab GEOBODIES. (2025). Transitional Territories: Venice's Lagoon Ecosystem. Venice: Venice Architecture Biennale.
[3] Ratti, C., & Ratti, C. (2025). The Circularity Manifesto. Venice: Venice Architecture Biennale.
- The 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, with a focus on regenerative, collaborative, and inclusive architecture, will explore how design can adapt in the face of climate change and rising temperatures, even extending to travel and lifestyle choices, as it emphasizes the integration of ecological systems into building solutions.
- Global design and travel industries can take inspiration from the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025, as it demonstrates the potential of cross-disciplinary collaboration, merging natural, artificial, and collective intelligence to create adaptive architectural solutions, which, in turn, can influence news and lifestyle trends worldwide.
