On May 10, 2025, in the city of Venice, Italy—currently home to the ongoing Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 (VAB)—the International Jury for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition announced the Golden Lion for Best National Participation: the Kingdom of Bahrain. The Gulf nation was recognised for its pavilion titled Heatwave, curated by architect Andrea Faraguna, which addresses the architectural implications of extreme heat and shifting climates. The award was conferred by a jury chaired by Swiss curator and art critic Hans Ulrich Obrist, with South African architect and curator Mpho Matsipa and Italian curator Paola Antonelli. The recognition arrives within the framework of this year’s central theme, Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., curated by Carlo Ratti, who positions the biennale as a platform to explore intelligence not solely through technology, but as a distributed and interconnected practice.

The awards ceremony of the exhibition took place at Ca’ Giustinian, the headquarters of La Biennale di Venezia, recognising creative voices that reflect how architecture can respond to contemporary challenges. The international jury reviewed a range of national pavilions, curated exhibitions and collateral events, selecting winners and special mentions across multiple categories for their distinct perspectives.

Kingdom of Bahrain

Golden Lion for Best National Participation

Bahrain’s national pavilion, Heatwave, curated by Faraguna and commissioned by His Excellency Shaikh Khalifa Bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, offers a clear architectural response to the looming reality of rising global temperatures. Installed in the Artiglierie section of the Arsenale, the pavilion design showcases a modular outdoor passive cooling system inspired by traditional Bahraini techniques, reinterpreted through geothermal and solar technologies. Its spatial language is defined by a suspended ceiling and floor of identical dimensions, supported by a single column, forming a scalable unit suited to diverse public spaces. The installation explores the discipline’s role in social equity—focusing particularly on outdoor workspaces in high-heat regions—and extends its impact through accompanying research, essays and data-driven analysis on climate resilience.

The Holy See received a special mention for Opera aperta, a project that transforms a deconsecrated church into a space of collective care, restoration and cultural exchange. Referencing Umberto Eco’s 1962 book, it engages multiple forms of skilled labour to create an evolving architecture of participation. Great Britain was also awarded a special mention for its collaboration with Kenya for GBR – Geology of Britannic Repair, exploring the extractive histories that shape architecture and the environment. The pavilion proposes reparative futures and was noted by the jury for its engagement with the Venice Fellowship Programme, fostering cross-cultural knowledge exchange.

Canal Café

Golden Lion for the best participation in the 19th Exhibition Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.

Canal Café, by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Natural Systems Utilities, SODAI, Aaron Betsky and Davide Oldani, is a working installation that explores how Venice can serve as a testing ground for rethinking life on water. Located within the city’s fabric, the café functions as both a public amenity and a speculative intervention into the future of lagoon living. Drawing on nearly two decades of development, the project reflects a long-standing trajectory in DS+R’s practice while proposing a model for sustainable urbanism that interweaves infrastructure, ecology and civic space.

Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500

Silver Lion for a promising participation in the 19th Exhibition Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.

Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler’s Calculating Empires is a large-scale visual investigation tracing the entangled evolution of technology and power since 1500. Structured as a monumental diagram, the work makes visible the often obscured infrastructures—social, political and digital—that have shaped the contemporary world. It draws clear lines between historical systems of colonialism, militarisation, automation and enclosure, showing how they co-evolved with technological development. Both spatial and temporal in scope, the piece functions as a tool to decode the present and open possibilities for more equitable futures, positioning historical awareness as a critical component of architectural and technological discourse.

Tosin Oshinowo’s Alternative Urbanism: The Self-Organized Markets of Lagos was awarded a Special Mention for its documentation of informal markets that recycle the waste of industrial economies. These self-regulated systems offer valuable insights into adaptive reuse and circularity, serving as functional prototypes for innovation within African urban contexts. A second special mention went to Elephant Chapel by Boonserm Premthada, recognised for its environmentally integrated architecture using elephant dung as a primary building material. Located in Thailand’s Elephants World sanctuary, the project reflects a longstanding human-elephant coexistence and explores sustainable construction through local knowledge and ecological sensitivity.

In addition to the main exhibition and national participations, the 19th International Architecture Exhibition also celebrated two individuals for their lifelong contributions to the field. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement was awarded to American philosopher Donna Haraway, whose work has critically shaped contemporary understandings of technology, ecology and collective agency. A Special Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Memoriam was conferred on Italian architect and designer Italo Rota (1953–2024), honouring his enduring influence on architecture and design culture. These awards were approved by the Board of Directors of La Biennale, chaired by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, following the recommendation of Ratti.

The 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia is open to the public from May 10 to November 23, 2025. Follow STIR’s coverage of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 (Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective) as we traverse the most radical pavilions and projects at this year’s showcase in Venice.