Should biennales be informative, reflective, focused on the object of architecture (in itself a contentious term) or serve as laboratories for experimentation and radical positions? This question reveals some of the tensions that underlie the very formulation of the Venice Biennale overall, and the Venice Architecture Biennale in particular. Moreover, the role of design events in setting the agenda per se for the discipline is problematised when considered from the position of national representations. While the events—ever more spectacular each year—offer a global stage for emerging and renowned designers alike, for participants meant to raise the baton for entire countries, they become a means for the proliferation of soft power. They offer a space to foster a country's desire for cultural recognition, while generating rhetoric on its economic and social advancement, as well as knowledge and technological production.

To this end, La Biennale Di Venezia continues to be one of the most important platforms for negotiations between discourse and practice, society and culture, individual perspectives and collective desires—filtered through what is supposed to be the best of the arts from the last two years. It was in 1901 that foreign countries were first invited to build national pavilions within the Giardini, mirroring World Expositions in centring displays of nationalism within the showcase. It bears noting that there continues to be a glaring imbalance between the countries that can boast of permanent structures and the ancillary exhibitions scattered in the Arsenale and throughout Venice, not just in terms of engagement.

It also becomes interesting to observe how each country reinterprets the curator's call—with countries from the Global South more inclined to focus on notions of resource efficiency and indigenous knowledges, and former colonies more invested in questions of comfort or regenerative practices—a more obvious indictment of the entrenched violence of capitalism's extractivist culture and resulting imbalance in powers. Of the 30 permanent structures in the Giardini, more than half are from Europe, with Qatar set to be the first country to get a permanent pavilion (designed by Lina Ghotmeh) within this parliament.

This year, Carlo Ratti, the curator of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition, invites participants to think through different intelligences (natural, artificial and collective), using these as springboards to question conventional architectural practices. While a call to reposition interdisciplinarity as the need of the hour is cast as an overriding concern for all participants, it is important to consider what such a proposition looks like on a more particular scale (or the nation). Sixty-six countries will showcase projects for Intelligens: 26 of which are in the Giardini; 22 in the Arsenale and 15 in different locations throughout the city. Apart from Qatar, three other countries are presenting inaugural pavilions (Togo, Oman and Azerbaijan). Unlike Lesley Lokko's exposition in 2023, which hosted a majority of exhibitors from Africa or the African Diaspora, this year such diversity is conspicuously absent. Instead, voices from the Middle East will foreground Global South narratives, reflecting on issues of resource efficiency, sustainability, community orientations, vernacular design and heritage as alternative architectural positions.

Debates continue to rage about the obsolescence of national participations for a biennale of such a nature, with the simplest contention being how one can represent a nation with only a few voices, and what the nation itself represents in a post-globalisation world. Countering this, Ratti aims to champion adaptation as a design strategy for a dynamic future. This means the particular conditions and architectural responses from national participants (now reduced to a simplified abstraction) are meant to uphold lessons for the world at large, apart from highlighting a country’s ingenious architectural systems.

In response to Ratti's theme, countries are taking the opportunity to speculate on alternative architectures; how nature or technology could provide a counterpoint to how the built environment is conceived, or even how collectives and indigenous communities organise spaces and environments. With Intelligens.Natural.Artificial.Collective set to open from May 10, 2025, STIR presents a selection of the most radical projects by national participants that consider questions of resource efficiency, relationship to landscapes, climate resilience and the community.

Architectures of care

1. Finland

Giardini

Finland’s contribution to the biennale this year hopes to underscore the often disregarded idea that architecture (as a project and discipline) is a deeply collaborative endeavour. The exhibition, curated by Ella Kaira and Matti Jänkälä, traces the histories and continuing refurbishments of the pavilion originally designed by Alvar and Elissa Aalto. By foregrounding the invisible labours of maintenance, The Pavilion–Architecture of Stewardship considers the collective intelligences required to produce architecture and to preserve it for posterity.

Adding to this, Jänkälä comments in the official release, “The built environment is treated as a collection of pavilions characterised by ephemerality…Our exhibition explores the stewardship of our built environment that enables its continued use from one generation to another.”

2. United Kingdom

Giardini

Curated by Kabage Karanja and Stella Mutegi of Nairobi-based architecture studio Cave_bureau, UK-based curator and writer Owen Hopkins and professor Kathryn Yusoff, in a unique UK-Kenya collaboration, the former colony’s pavilion reflects on the slow violence of colonialism. Through the project commissioned by the British Council, the curators hope to explore how architecture can become a tool to reverse some of the destruction wrought by the UK, with the Great Rift Valley becoming a conceptual spine for the exhibition. Installations by various designers will propose possibilities for planetary repair through vernacular-based intelligences.

“GBR – Geology of Britannic Repair aims to re-centre architecture’s fundamental relationship to geology, shifting how we see its past and present and re-orienting its future otherwise,” the curators state.

3. Denmark

Giardini

Curated by Danish architect Søren Pihlmann, Build of Site looks at the process of renovations for the Danish Pavilion as a means to think about alternative and circular design techniques. The refurbishment process of the pavilion, which began in December 2024 and will be completed after the 2025 biennale is over, will become the exhibition, blurring the lines between spectacle and architectural process. The construction site will be accessible to visitors who will be able to witness typical building elements such as ramps, benches and tables built from surplus materials.

"It should be clear to most people by now that, going forward, we'll have to think constructively with regard to what we've already put into the world," Pihlmann reiterates on the exhibition’s crucial message in the official release.

Architectures of precarity

4. Latvia

Artiglierie, Arsenale

Located on NATO's external border, Latvia occupies a precarious position in a world rife with geopolitical tension. This condition forms the linchpin for the Latvia Pavilion at Intelligens, Landscape of Defence. Exploring the interrelationships between military defence and spatial morphologies, the curators of the exhibition, Liene Jākobsone and Ilka Ruby, urge visitors to dwell on how the requirement for defence and strengthening physical borders impacts territories.

“It's about transforming fear into reassurance. National defence is an ongoing process to be acknowledged and accepted,” says Jākobsone in the official release. Ruby adds to this, stating, “Our goal here is to understand the effects that such fortifications can have on landscapes and lives.”

5. Taiwan 

Palazzo delle Prigioni

NON-Belief: Taiwan Intelligens of Precarity marks the country’s official presence in Venice. The exhibition reflects on conditions of precarity—unpredictable natural disasters, geopolitical tensions, the threats of globalisation—as ‘precarious intelligens’ shaping the built fabric of Taiwan. Rendering precarity as a means to foster sustainable and efficient design thinking, the showcase highlights examples of the island’s resilient building cultures.

Architectures from (and of) the earth  

6. Türkiye

Sale d’Armi, Arsenale

Turkey's project at the biennale is grounded in the country’s terrain. Driven by intensive research and traditional building techniques, the exhibition brings together plural perspectives on soil, considered here as embodying ecological and cultural memories. The natural intelligence of soil becomes a medium for Ceren Erdem and Bilge Kalfa, the curators of Grounded, to foreground the issues of the loss of biodiversity and the erasure of cultural histories.

“With Grounded, we invite visitors to view soil not as something separate, but as an integral part of the same fabric of life that surrounds us. It’s not merely a surface beneath us or a resource to be extracted; rather, it’s a dense, intelligent world in its own right. [...] The exhibition encourages us to recognise the structures we erode and the possibilities we often overlook. In doing so, it suggests ways of living and building that don’t impose themselves but instead listen to and engage with the environment,” the curators elaborate.

7. Kosovo

Sestiere Castello Campo della Tana 2169, Arsenale

Kosovo’s project at Intelligens examines moments of rupture and reconfiguration in the country’s landscapes. Lulebora nuk çel më. Emerging Assemblages focuses on the state’s particular terrain to bring to light the slow erosion of traditional ways of being and intricate relationships with ecology due to modern extractivist cultures. The immersive exhibition will feature different soil samples from two major Kosovar plains, reflecting on both the constraints and possibilities presented by an altered landscape. Curated by Erzë Dinarama, the project is a result of extensive fieldwork with farmers across the country.

8. Belgium

Giardini

Centring plant intelligences, landscape architect Bas Smets and neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso reconceptualise the design of interior environments. Countering the conventional methods of artificial temperature regulation for interiors, through Building Biosphere, the pavilion for Belgium is conceived as a prototype where buildings become active biospheres. Plants from the subtropical region will occupy the central hall of the pavilion, and data will be harvested to ensure they are cared for. Commissioned by The Flanders Institute, the pavilion envisions a symbiotic future for nature and the manmade.

Architectures and agencies

9. The Netherlands

Giardini

The Netherlands Pavilion, curated by Amanda Pinatih, is conceived as a sports bar for the biennale. Rotterdam and Paris-based designer Gabriel Fontana uses the lens of sports to investigate social dynamics and how these are reinforced or subverted in the built environment. Two of Fontana’s projects will take over SIDELINED: A Space to Rethink Togetherness, which reimagines conventional game dynamics as more inclusive and pluralistic. Presented by the Nieuwe Instituut, the exhibition hopes to challenge the existing logic of sports and, through this critique, the ways in which architecture regulates spaces, bodies and behaviour.

10. Nordic countries

Giardini

The Nordic countries pavilion, Industry Muscle: Five Scores for Architecture, has been created by performance artist Teo Ala-Ruona. It will combine architecture, performance and installation, proposing five ‘speculative scores for the architecture of the future’. Critiquing the normative understanding of the body incumbent in conceptualising modernist architecture (Le Corbusier’s modulor man and the championing of the heterosexual male body as prototype). Instead, Ala-Ruona proposes an alternative architecture that expands our understanding of who occupies space and how.

Architectures and identities

11. Singapore

Arsenale

To celebrate 60 years of independence, Singapore Pavilion, RASA-TABULA-SINGAPURA, brings the idea of city-making through food, culture and collective design to the table. With a spin on the Latin notion of tabula rasa, the team of curators for the South East Asian country’s showcase will display a selection of architectural and urban planning projects that offer a glimpse into what constructs Singapore.

“Illustrating Singapore’s superdiversity, we are highlighting seven ‘main courses’ at RASA-TABULA-SINGAPURA—each offering a taste of how Singapore plans for life at every scale,” noted Prof. Khoo Peng Beng, co-curator for the Singapore Pavilion, in an official release.

12. Togo

Squero Castello, Salizada Streta 368

For its debut pavilion, Togo’s project, Considering Togo’s Architectural Heritage, will platform Togo’s iconic architecture, focusing on narratives of conservation and transformation. Curated by Studio NEiDA, the showcase spans various scales of built forms, from ancient Nôk cave dwellings to modernist architecture, in a bid to depict the rich built heritage of the West African country. On representing the country for the showcase, the curators told STIR, “For this edition, Togo is one of the only three African national pavilions. That gap makes our presence not only important but urgent.”

Architectures with indigenous knowledges

13. Mexico

Arsenale

The Mesoamerican agricultural system called chinampa informs the curatorial approach for Mexico’s representation at the biennale. The indigenous system is construed in conjunction with natural elements, with each component granted its own agency within the assemblage. The curatorial team believes that the forebearing relationship of structure and nature exemplified by the chinampas could serve as a model for the future, with Chinampa Veneta divided into seven parts. For the show, the design team reinterpreted the traditional structure, combining it with another indigenous system of extraction practised in the Veneto, la vite maritata. A chinampa prototype will also ‘float symbolically’ in the Venetian Lagoon, with its form referencing Aldo Rossi’s Teatro del Mondo.

14. Brazil

Giardini

Juxtaposing ancestral infrastructure in the Amazon to contemporary architecture in Brazil today, (RE)INVENTION examines how architecture for the future can draw on existing knowledge systems. Foregrounding concerns for the immense biodiversity in the region, the curatorial team (Luciana Saboia, Matheus Seco and Eder Alencar, of the Plano Coletivo group) asks visitors to rethink acts of construction, taking into account natural landscapes and the more-than-human.

Andrea Pinheiro, President of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, the organisers of the showcase, states, “(RE)INVENTION invites us to learn from ancestral practices and to explore the symbiosis between humans, land and nature as a path to a more sustainable future.”

Architectures from atmospheres

15. Uzbekistan

Quarta Tesa, Arsenale

For the Uzbekistan Pavilion commissioned by Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF), Milan-based architecture studio GRACE will present Uzbekistan’s modernist legacy as exemplified by The Sun Institute of Material Science (or the Sun Heliocomplex), built in 1987 near Tashkent. One of the only two solar furnaces in the world, the structure was also one of the last major scientific projects of the USSR. With A Matter of Radiance, the curators hope to explore the potential this seemingly obsolete architecture presents.

16. Estonia

Riva dei Sette Martiri 1611, Castello

Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva and Helena Männa will be representing Estonia with their project, Let me warm you, questioning if renovations carried out to comply with European energy targets are effective in enhancing the spatial and social quality of mass housing districts in the country. The installation highlights the issue of climate change by covering a Venetian building facade with insulation panels (the same technology the architects want to dwell on). On the ground floor, an exhibition brings to light the various social dynamics involved in shaping these decisions.

“With this project, we [aim to expose] the clash between bold global ambitions and the everyday realities of people navigating collective decisions,” the curators note in the official release.

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.