Professor in Residence, Department of Architecture, GSD, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA
Policy
Open Access
Type
Exhibition Review
Section
CRITICISM
Keywords
The 2025 19th Venice Architecture Biennale (curated by Carlo Ratti and open from May 10, through November 23, 2025) offers a rich program of collateral events, such as conferences, round tables, workshops, collective actions, performances, etc., expanding on past editions efforts. Aligned with the general theme of the Biennale, Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective, these events aim at putting the current collective intelligence on architecture, design and urbanism at work. If not to implement (which is beyond the scope of an organization such as the Biennale), at least to frame, reconnect, redefine, re-envision questions and possible answers for our current and future challenges.
Among these events, of particular interest is the series of workshops and conversations within the “GENS Public Program.” As Carlo Ratti put it:
The Biennale Architettura 2025 aims to convene various intelligences to confront today’s challenges. Both the Exhibition Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. and the “GENS Public Programme” reach out beyond architecture, bursting its bubble through cross-disciplinary dialogues and international collaborations. Collectively driven workshops will coexist with academic institutions and global non-profit organizations, creating spaces and conversations that are open to all.1
[…] Ultimately, the Biennale Architettura 2025 is more than an exhibition; it is an experiment in uniting different voices and forms of intelligence. Some will resonate louder than others. Nonetheless, we hope that this choral effort will offer new insights into one of the defining challenges of our time: adapting to an altered world.2
Among the partners that have been involved in organizing these events, particularly the Conferences, are Davos Baukultur Alliance, EPFL Media x Design Lab Switzerland, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, The Bartlett School of Architecture, Venice Climate Week, Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, The Aspen Institute, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Politecnico di Milano, and UN Habitat. This array alone indicates the outreach of the 2025 Biennale across the world and the disciplines, in order to include and give voice to an ample diversity of perspectives.
The events spread out across Venice, from Ca’ Giustinian (Biennale’s headquarters at San Marco) to the Teatro Piccolo dell’Arsenale, near the historic complex where part of the exhibition is hosted, to inside the Corderie itself, thus becoming part of the show, with the “Speakers’ Corner.” Curated by Christopher Hawthorne and Florencia Rodriguez, Speakers’ Corner aims at “mobilizing collective intelligence to transform our built and natural environments, in response to the climate crisis, in addition to broadening the meaning of intelligens through public discourse.” 3 With the support of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Workshops include discussions, film projections, labs, lectures, collective actions, narrations, and choreographed performances.
In addition to the merit of the topics discussed through the program, the physical space itself dedicated to these events wants to convey the idea of inclusivity and multiplicity of interactive discourse which is the core of Ratti’s vision for this Biennale. Conceived by Hawthorne, Rodriguez, and Johnston Marklee & Associates, the little grandstand, with seating for up to sixty people, is a timber structure installation within the last few bays of the long Corderie building, which is part of the Arsenale complex. Shaped as a broken diamond in plan, with steep seating areas (of different capacity) fronting each other, with the discussants table and entry points in the middle, the structure, at the same time, participates of, and breaks, the geometry and spatial order of the repetitive monumental masonry structure of the Corderie. Conversations and ideas seem to bounce within the temporary structure through multiple trajectories, while capturing the attention of the exhibition visitors passing by. (Fig. 1.)
Figure 1.
1
Christopher Hawthorne, felicia Rodriguez, and Johnston Marklee & Associates, Speakers’ Corner, Corderie building, Arsenale complex, Venice.
Within the Speakers’ Corner initiative is the series of conversations “Restaging Criticism,” curated by Hawthorne and Rodriguez. The series is being articulated through four themes as they relate to contemporary architectural criticism: Modes & Platforms, Territories, Operative/Operation, and Emerging Voices. To launch the series, Hawthorne, Rodriguez and Marklee hosted a conversation during the pre-opening days of the Biennale, on May 8, with Rem Koolhaas. As brief as it was, Koolhaas contribution was as interesting and stimulating as ever. Challenged by the moderators to talk about the role (if any is still left) for architectural criticism, Koolhaas indeed lamented the lack of provoking and impactful critical voices in our time, capable “to show the way forward,” of the likes, for example, of Sigfried Giedion during the early phase of the Modern Movement. (Fig. 2.)
Figure 2.
2
Speakers’ Corner, opening conversation for “Staging Criticism,” with (left to right): Felicia Rodriguez, Mark Lee, Christopher Hawthorne, and Rem Koolhaas.
We concur with Koolhaas on this one. If we think of what other critics in the past, beyond Giedion, have meant for the advancement of our field, such as Bruno Zevi and Manfredo Tafuri in Italy, Ignaci de Solà-Morales in Spain, or Kenneth Frampton for the New York Fives first and then for Critical Regionalism later, we can easily realize how, currently, we are missing such powerful voices. Bruno Zevi went as far as stating that “architecture and architectural criticism are the same thing,” 4 and we can think for example of Ernesto N. Rogers as the very embodiment of that idea through his professional career and his social engagement as a public intellectual.5
Another important conversation hosted at Speakers’ Corner during the pre-opening days of the Biennale (on May 9) was a roundtable on “Collective IntelliGens: How Diversity in Architecture Shapes the Future.” Moderated by Julia Roever and Marina-Elena Wachs, from the leadership team at DIVIA (DIVersity In Architecture), the panel aimed at discussing gender diversity among the finalists of the DIVIA Award 2025 and Martha Thorne (Architecture Consultant and former Dean at the IE School of Architecture and Design, as well as former Pritzker Prize Director), by “sharing experiences and knowledge… [while bringing] together international voices to help shape a more inclusive, sustainable, and equitable built environment.” 6 The finalists were:Trần Thị Ngụ Ngôn (Founder, Tropical Space, Vietnam – who eventually went on to be recognized with the award on May 10), Patcharada Inplang (Founder, Sher Maker, Thailand), Izaskun Chinchilla (Founder, Izaskun Chinchilla Architects, Spain), Cazú Zegers (Founder, Cazú Zegers Architecture, Chile), Carolina Rodas & Carla Chávez (Founders, Rama Estudio, Ecuador). Besides celebrating all the outstanding accomplishments of such diverse ways to pursue a career as women architects, the discussion revolved around how a diverse gender perspective can enrich the practice and the discourse in our fields. In her concluding remarks, Thorne aptly noted, though, that it is not enough for women to be recognized for their achievements in the profession, but they need to acquire roles of responsibility and leadership also in collateral spheres to architecture, such as civic administration, real estate, and education. (Fig. 3.)
Figure 3.
3
Speakers’ Corner, DIVIA event “How Diversity in Architecture Shapes the Future,” moderated by Julia Roever (standing, right) and Marina-Elena Wachs (standing, left), with Martha Thorne (speaking).
Speakers’ Corner has already offered a number of stimulating discussions. Among those are: “Cities: Lessons from Microbes as Humans Adapt to Rapid Population Decline” (May 8), with, among others, Beatriz Colomina, Mark Wigley and others; “Synthesizing Complexity for Regenerative Futures” (May 8), with, among others, Claudia Pasquero (ecoLogicStudio) and Winy Maas (MVRDV); “The Exhibition as Critical Platform”(May 9), with, among others, Francisco Diaz, Sarah Herda (Grahama Foundation), and Lesley Lokko (curator of the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale); “Intelligens for Urban Regeneration” (May 9), with, among others, Cino Zucchi, Francesca Molteni (MUSE Projects Factory) and Valerio Paolo Mosco (IUAV); “The L.A. Fires and Architecture in the Age of Climate Shock” (May 10), with, among others, Michael Maltzan; “Circular Economy & Design: A Conversation with Arup” (May 10);“Designing Ecosystems of the Future” (May 10), with, among others, Deborah Berke (Dean, Yale School of Architecture); “Critical Futures” (May 11), with, among others, Shumi Bose, Sam Jacob, Samuel Medina; “Manifesto for the Rights of the Venice Lagoon” (May 14). Among the forthcoming events (at the time of this writing) are: “Collective Artificial” (June 13), an interdisciplinary conversation on collective intelligence and AI; “Italian Architects and Collective Intelligence” (June 20), with, among others, Guido Canali, Alessandro Scandurra, Susanna Tradati and Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi; “Climate Adaptation by Learning from the Global South” (June 22). Former Italian magistrate, MP and Speaker of the House Luciano Violante will deliver a lecture on “Domicide” (June 13), by which, as explained by Balakrishnan Rajagopal (MIT professor and UN special speaker on the right to freedom), the annihilation of buildings (domus) comes along with genocide and mass exterminations, as “a typical mode of modern warfare” (Violante). More to come, throughout November 23.
Inevitably questions and notes of criticism on the exhibition per se have been raised: too many contributions (300) from too many participants (750)? Too much emphasis on data mining and processing at the expense of actual design synthesis? Not sufficient clarity on the theme (intelligence? “One Place, One Solution”?) supposed to tie together national and curatorial exhibits? The debate is open. However, among the merits of this Biennale is undoubtedly that one of stimulating a relevant (intelligent) discourse across the design fields. In and of itself, that is already a commendable achievement.
Notes
2
Carlo Ratti, “A Time of Adaptation,” in Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. – Short Guide, catalog of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale (La Biennale di Venezia, 2025), 42–49 (48).
4
Bruno Zevi, “Un’ idea di scuola di architettura,” in LIA (Lezioni Italiane di Architettura): https://www.liaplatform.it/lezione/unidea-di-scuola-di-architettura-2/.
5
Cfr. Maurizio Sabini, Ernesto Nathan Rogers. The Modern Architect as Public Intellectual (Bloomsbury, 2021).
Credits
Figure 1: courtesy of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Figures 2 and 3: photos by © the Author.
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Print Publication Date
July, 2025
Electronic Publication Date
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
