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 International Architecture Exhibition will be about the built environment and the many disciplines that shape it. Architecture is at the center but not alone,” he explained further. “The built environment is one of the largest contributors to atmospheric emissions, placing architecture among the main culprits in the degradation of our planet. As the climate crisis accelerates, must we resign ourselves to this role, or are we still able to offer solutions, substantial and non-cosmetic, effective and quick to achieve?”

Of interest are the renovations of the Central Pavillion at the Giardini, which makes possible the Living Lab’s activations exhibiting special projects in outdoor areas throughout the exhibition. 

A special open submissions portal called the Space for Ideas will take proposals and other ideas before the fair begins. The second edition of the Student Biennale will also ask its participants to make responses under the three thematic groups before displaying eight winning proposals. 

“The Exhibition will cast architects in the role of 'mutagens' stimulating natural evolutionary processes and sending them off in new directions. Learning from many sciences, this exhibition hopes to accelerate the transformation of the present through fearless trial and error, and to find a better future in the process,” Ratti said finally.

The Biennale begins on May 10th, 2025, and runs through November 23rd at various locations across Venice.