Theme of Biennale Architettura 2025 announced
The President of La Biennale di Venezia, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, and the Curator of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition, Carlo Ratti, announced the title and theme of the Biennale Architettura 2025, which will take place from 10 May to 23 November 2025 (pre-opening 8 and 9 May) at the Giardini, the Arsenale and various venues in Venice.
The title of the Biennale Architettura 2025 is Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. Explaining his choice Carlo Ratti said that «the title of the International Architecture Exhibition is usually announced both in English and in Italian. In 2025 it will be condensed into a single word for both languages via the common Latin precedent: intelligens. The title Intelligens is linked to the modern term “intelligence,” but it also evokes a wider set of associated meanings. In fact, the final syllable, “gens” is Latin for “people”. A new, fictional root emerges, suggesting a future of intelligence that is inclusive, multiple, and imaginative beyond today’s limiting focus on AI.»
«The 19th International Architecture Exhibition will be about the built environment and the many disciplines that shape it. Architecture is at the center – Curator explained – but not alone. It is part of an extended sphere that integrates art, engineering, biology, data science, social and political sciences, planetary systems sciences, and other disciplines – linking each and all of them to the materiality of urban space.
The built environment is one of the largest contributors to atmospheric emissions, placing architecture among the main culprits in the degradation of our planet. As the climate crisis accelerates, must we resign ourselves to this role, or are we still able to offer solutions, substantial and non-cosmetic, effective and quick to achieve?
The Exhibition will search for a path forward, proposing that intelligent solutions to pressing problems can take many forms. It will present a collection of design proposals and many other experiments, exploring a definition of “intelligence” as an ability to adapt to the environment with limited resources, knowledge, or power.
Objects, buildings, and urban plans will be arranged along the axis of a multiple and widespread intelligence – organized as natural, artificial, collective, and combinations of the three. While some ideas are destined to fail, others may point us toward redemption.
The Exhibition will cast architects in the role of “mutagens” stimulating natural evolutionary processes and sending them off in new directions. Learning from many sciences, this exhibition hopes to accelerate the transformation of the present through fearless trial and error, and to find a better future in the process».
AN EXHIBITION FOUNDED ON FOUR METHODOLOGICAL PILLARS
Transdisciplinarity: architectural projects will be collaborations between multiple professionals, with the objective of advancing scientific knowledge whenever possible.
Living Lab: as the Central Pavillion at the Giardini will be under renovation in 2025, it will be replaced by a number of special projects that will leverage Venice and the outdoor areas of the Biennale Exhibition venues as a Living Lab, merging interacting forms of intelligence.
Space For Ideas: at a time of crisis, we need to embrace a collaborative approach to design. As of May 7, 2024, a public venue for the submission of ideas is open on the website of La Biennale, fostering an expansive heterogeneity of voices, visions, and suggestions.
Circularity Protocol: the Exhibition aims to set unprecedented goals for circularity. A Circularity Manifesto will be developed to define clear directions and a new standard for the future of cultural events.
Photo: Central Pavilion , Giardini della Biennale, photo by Bartosz Górka/Zachęta archive