Biennale Architettura 2025

The 19th International Architecture Exhibition, curated by Carlo Ratti, to be held from 10 May to 23 November 2025 in Venice, is titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. The Exhibition, as the Curator himself explains, “will search for a path forward, proposing that intelligent solutions to pressing problems can take many forms” and “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” (Carlo Ratti).

The Catalogue is printed in two volumes and follows the Exhibition itinerary accompanying visitors and art lovers through the exhibition spaces of the Giardini and the Arsenale and presenting other projects on display in various locations around the city of Venice and Forte Marghera, in Mestre.

Volume I of the Catalogue is dedicated to the International Exhibition, curated by Carlo Ratti. The first pages of the volume open with the statement by President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and the presentation by the Artistic Director of the Architecture Department Carlo Ratti, and then presents the Circularity Manifesto. Volume I is then divided into two parts. Part one, titled Intelligens, is dedicated to presenting the sections of the International Exhibition, Natural Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, and Out. Each project on display in the Exhibition is accompanied by a critical text and a rich apparatus of photographs. Part two of the volume, titled Venice as a Living Lab, presents “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”. The volume is enriched with a series of critical essays and interesting “Impossible Conversations” that explore the themes of the Exhibition in depth. Volume I ends with the biographies of the participants and a detailed register of the projects on exhibit.

The National Participations and the Collateral Events participating in the 19th International Architecture Exhibition are gathered in Volume II and presented with illustrated texts that explore the projects proposed by the National Pavilions and the Collateral Events at the Giardini, the Arsenale and in various spaces throughout Venice.

Author Biography

An architect and engineer by training, Professor Carlo Ratti teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at the Politecnico di Milano. He is the director of the Senseable City Lab and a founding partner of the architecture and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati (Torino, New York City, and London). Carlo graduated from the Politecnico di Torino and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, and later carried out his MPhil and PhD work at the University of Cambridge, UK – completing his PhD thesis as a Fulbright Scholar at MIT.