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Iceland will flow into 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale with 'Lavaforming' pavilion

2024-10-31T10:49:00-04:00

Lava will shape Iceland's official entry Lavaforming at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, showcasing how its density and other natural properties can become a viable future building material for designs as far-ranging as small residential structures, cityscapes, and more.

Image render courtesy s.ap architects

Arnhildur Pálmadóttir, founder of the s.ap architects, is responsible for the curation of the pavilion’s story arch, which is set in the year 2150. She says: "Lavaforming is exploring a building material that has never been used before. The theme is both a proposal and a metaphor – architecture is in a paradigm shift, and many of our current methods have been deemed obsolete or harmful in the long term. In our current predicament we need to be bold, think in new ways, look at challenges, and find the right resources."

Image render courtesy s.ap architects

Iceland Design and Architecture director Halla Helgadóttir says also that this presentation has the potential to "draw a...

U.S. Pavilion co-commissioners make the American porch a focus at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale

2024-08-14T14:07:00-04:00

A delegation from Arkansas will be traveling to Italy to represent the United States in its official pavilion at next year’s Venice Architecture Biennale.

The announcement was made Wednesday by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The group includes presenters from The University of Arkansas's Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design in Fayetteville, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, and the independent consultancy DesignConnects, which is based in New York City.

Guided by co-commissioners Peter MacKeith, Susan Chin, and Rod Bigelow, the U.S. Pavilion will showcase their presentation, PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity, which focuses on porches' role as a social and environmental space in the American context.

A "dynamic showcase" of projects and practices from around the country, the exhibition proposes a "positive, productive" presentation of American architecture that emphasizes both empathy and education.

Rela...

Carlo Ratti presents theme and title for 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale

2024-05-07T14:38:00-04:00

Curator Carlo Ratti has announced the title and theme for next year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. The 19th International Architectural Exhibition will advance under the banner Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., a portmanteau title representing different forms of intelligence supported by four pillars: Transdisciplinarity, Living Lab, Space For Ideas, and Circularity Protocol.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and director of Carlo Ratti Associati says he wishes for curators of individual National Pavillions to consider his prompt “One place, one solution,” which asks for an attempt at coherence between theirs and the International Exhibition. He added: “Showcasing how local ingenuity can address our time’s existential challenge that can only be tackled in a cooperative manner, reflecting a multiplicity of approaches. If every country brings one success to the table, together we can assemble a global kit for adapting to the future.”

“The 19th Internat...

Carlo Ratti will curate the 2025 Venice Biennale Architecture exhibition

2023-12-21T13:16:00-05:00

Carlo Ratti has been named as Director of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2025 La Biennale di Venezia by the fair’s Board of Directors and at the recommendation of current and future Presidents Roberto Cicutto and Pietrangelo Buttafuoco.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and director of Carlo Ratti Associati follows Lesley Lokko’s turn as the 2023 Venice Biennale Architecture curator.

Ratti will lean on past curatorial experiences with the Future Food District pavilion at Expo 2015 Milan; the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow; and the second Porto Design Biennale in 2021 to inform his creative direction for the exhibition. A focus on the growing influence of technology on design and urban planning will most likely follow, culminating in an impressive intellectual output that has seen him write or co-author more than 750 different research publications.

Previewing his direction, Ratti said: “We architects like to ...