The 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, curated by Italian architect Carlo Ratti, opened its doors on May 10, 2025. The exhibition, titled “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.”, transforms Venice into a global stage for architectural innovation and critical discourse. During the preview days, visitors encountered thought-provoking installations that confronted the urgent issues of climate change and the role of architecture in shaping our future.
The entrance to the exhibition left a strong impression, with a thick, hot, dark room emphasizing architecture’s response to climate. The Biennale featured over 300 innovative projects from 750 participants across diverse fields, including architects, artists, climate scientists, chefs, and philosophers. The exhibition examined how architecture can create new ecologies of intelligence that are material, collective, and urgently needed to address the climate emergency.
Ratti, in an interview, explained the theme of the Biennale: “It’s basically about how we can use different disciplines and forms of intelligence to tackle the most important problem today: adaptation. In short, architecture is survival.”
The exhibition encouraged bold, cross-disciplinary thinking to reimagine architecture as a living, evolving force.
Climate-focused architectural innovations
Projects ranged from wildfire-resilient structures to water-sensitive urbanism, showcasing the diverse approaches to addressing the challenges of our time. The Biennale also featured national pavilions from 66 countries, with debut entries from Azerbaijan and Oman. The pavilions embraced the theme of adaptation and survival, contributing to the overall discourse of the exhibition.
One of the key aspects of this edition was the blending of natural, artificial, and collective intelligences into cohesive ecosystems of coexistence. Ratti explained, “Because of the subject’s density, we thought it was important to separate them as a tool to clarify the exhibition. But they all stem from one notion of intelligence.”
The curatorial process for the Biennale was open and accessible, with salons held around the world playing a vital role in engaging local communities and fostering a chain reaction of ideas.
The 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale promises to be a landmark event, pushing the boundaries of how we think about and practice architecture in a rapidly changing world. The exhibition runs until November 23rd, inviting visitors to explore the future of architecture and its role in shaping a more resilient and sustainable future.
