What to See at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025

The Airbnbs are booked up, the Aperol has been ordered, the awards have been polished. The 19th Venice Architecture Biennale will soon be upon us, and this intense jamboree of architectural thinking and making comes at a fraught time for the discipline. Following the 18th edition – curated by Lesley Lokko – with its focus on decolonization and decarbonization, this year’s curator Carlo Ratti is batting away claims of a ‘tech bro biennale’ with its catchily titled theme ‘Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.’ The finer details of the exhibitions are still closely under wraps, but what we do know is that there will be mountains of work attempting to grapple with our damaged planet, and architecture’s uncertain role in its future. As usual, the biennale will be spread across a central exhibition, curated by Ratti, as well as 66 national pavilions with contributions from over 750 participants. Heading into the opening week, I pick out a handful of pavilions to look out for if you’re heading to La Serenissima this Spring.

Brazil | ‘(RE)INVENTION’ | Giardini | 10 May – 23 November

Following a Golden Lion-winning contribution in 2023, Brazil’s pavilion this year with its new curatorial team (Eder Alencar, Luciana Saboia and Matheus Seco) explores the relationship between architecture and infrastructure for more ecologically sound ways of living. Drawing inspiration from recent discoveries by archaeologists of careful landscape management by Indigenous populations in the Amazon, the team proposes new ways of understanding contemporary infrastructure through projects by major Brazilian architects, such as Lina Bo Bardi and Oscar Niemeyer.  For Saboia, the project is about ‘mapping actions that build our cultural heritage’ and establishing ‘a link between tradition and invention’.

Great Britain | ‘Geology of Britannic Repair’ | Giardini | 10 May – 23 November

For this year’s British pavilion, the British Council took the unusual decision of running an open call for curatorial teams comprising both British and Kenyan members, leading to an intriguing lineup of Nairobi-based architects Cave_bureau with curator Owen Hopkins and renowned theorist Kathryn Yusoff. The resulting exhibition brings together practitioners working across the Great Rift Valley, from Gaza to Nairobi, and projects considering how architecture plays a role in the ‘geological afterlives of colonialism’, a welcome continuation of some of the major themes of the preceding biennale.

Lebanon | ‘The Land Remembers’ | Arsenale | 10 May – 23 November

In June 2024, Human Rights Watch reported the Israeli military’s widespread use of white phosphorus munitions in southern Lebanon over the preceding eight months. Such incidences of ecocide inspire ‘The Ministry of Land Intelligens’, the fictional organization at the heart of Lebanon’s contribution to the biennale. Curated by Collective for Architecture Lebanon, the ‘ministry’ responds to those acts that threaten the future of Lebanon’s once-thriving landscapes, by documenting environmental destruction, preserving seeds and developing methods for ecological restoration. The pavilion itself will be constructed from earth bricks embedded with seeds of wheat which will gradually sprout over the course of the biennale, in a poetic nod to the regenerative potential of the natural world. 

Architectural Association and Nigel Coates | ‘Margherissima’ | Forte Marghera | 10 May – 23 November

With its gathering of participants from all corners of the globe and World’s Fair-like collection of national pavilions, the city of Venice itself tends to be a scenic backdrop rather than the star of the show at the biennale. A project by London’s Architectural Association and architect Nigel Coates bucks this trend with ‘Margherissima’, a speculative proposal for the future of the Venetian borough of Marghera. Displayed via a walk-through model, the project sees the neighbourhood renowned for heavy industry transformed into a climate-conscious city built around the needs of its occupants. Through the project, Coates asks, ‘Could Marghera be a beacon for cities around the world, especially those in danger of being consumed by their own success?’

Nordic | ‘Industry Muscle’ | Giardini | 10 May – 23 November

If architecture is the organizing of bodies in space, what do we learn about the discipline when thinking from the perspective of trans bodies? This question is the focus of Finnish artist Teo Ala-Ruona’s work for this year’s Nordic pavilion; his five ‘scores’ prompt visitors to consider the relationship between architecture – specifically the modernist architecture of the pavilion itself – and the body. As trans rights come under attack in the UK, US and beyond, the exhibition presents a welcome opportunity to consider how gendered norms manifest in different activities and spaces, including in the built environment. The display aims to ‘start new conversations’, Ala-Ruona explains, ‘by exploring the possibilities of an architectural practice that contrasts sharply with the status quo.’

Germany | ‘STRESSTEST’ | Giardini | 10 May – 23 November 

A successful pavilion at the Architecture Biennale usually combines insightful research with an impactful spatial experience. With ‘STRESSTEST’, the curators of this year’s German pavilion (Nicola Borgmann, Elisabeth Endres, Gabriele G. Kiefer and Daniele Santucci) are certainly aiming for the latter. The exhibition explores global heating, and how extreme heat in cities impacts human health as well as more-than-human life. ‘STRESSTEST’ lays this out in tangible ways with a STRESS room, where visitors will experience the reality of extreme urban heat, before cooling down in DE-STRESS, which models some ways that architects and urban planners are responding to urban extreme heat with more resilient design approaches. 

^{Main image: Teo Ala-Ruona, ‘Industry Muscle’, 2025, installation view. Courtesy: the artist; photograph: Venla Helenius}