INTERVIEW WITH VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE CURATOR CARLO RATTI
The 19th Venice Architecture Biennale opens its doors from May 10th to November 23rd, 2025, transforming the city into a global stage for architectural innovation, critical discourse, and creative exchange. Titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., this year’s exhibition is curated by Italian architect and MIT professor Carlo Ratti, who reimagines the role of intelligence in shaping the built environment. During designboom’s interview with Ratti in Venice, he reflects on the urgency of adaptation across disciplines. ‘It’s basically about how we can use different disciplines and different forms of intelligence in order to tackle the most important problem today: adaptation. In short, you could say architecture is survival.’ he notes.
Set across Venice’s iconic Biennale venues, the Giardini, Arsenale, and Forte Marghera, the 2025 edition hosts national pavilions from 66 countries, including debut entries from Azerbaijan, Togo, Qatar, and Oman. As climate change looms large over the city and the planet, the exhibition frames architecture as an active participant in this global condition as a practice of transformation. Through exhibitions, installations, and dialogues, the 2025 Biennale examines how architecture can help shape new ecologies of intelligence, ones that are deeply material, inherently collective, and urgently needed.
The Central Pavilion is currently closed for renovations | image © designboom
Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. OPENS ON MAY 10TH
Rooted in the Latin word gens, meaning people, the theme calls for a redefinition of intelligence as a shared, evolving force, transcending binaries and embracing collaboration across disciplines. Visitors will encounter a deeply interdisciplinary approach, where architecture meets data science, biology, planetary systems, and engineering to envision a more adaptive and resilient urban future. ‘Architecture is kind of at the center, with other disciplines supporting it’ Ratti tells designboom.
At the heart of Carlo Ratti’s curatorial vision is the climate emergency: a force already reshaping how we live and build. From wildfire-resilient structures to water-sensitive urbanism, the Biennale encourages bold, cross-disciplinary thinking to reimagine architecture as a living, evolving force. The 2025 Biennale becomes a dynamic platform for over 750 participants, from architects and artists to climate scientists, farmers, chefs, programmers, and philosophers. Selected through an open and decentralized process led by an interdisciplinary curatorial team, the contributors range from emerging talents to renowned figures such as Patricia Urquiola, Kengo Kuma, and Boonserm Premthada. ‘For the first time in the history of the Biennale, we launched an open call—for people from all over the world to submit ideas,’ explains the curator. This radical inclusivity challenges traditional notions of authorship, favoring collaborative models more akin to scientific research than solitary design genius. ‘It’s a bit like a chain reaction,’ he adds. Read on for our full conversation with Carlo Ratti, where we delve deeper into the ideas behind this year’s Biennale.
Carlo Ratti | image by Jacopo Salvi
RATTI ON THE 19TH INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE EXHIBITION
designboom (DB): The exhibition brings together over 300 contributions from more than 750 participants, from architects to artists, chefs, photographers, coders, fashion designers, and many more. What does such an interdisciplinary selection, a first for the Venice Biennale, bring to the conversation around the future of architecture?
Carlo Ratti (CR): That’s really one of the key points, and I think it’s very important. In the past, architecture has looked at different disciplines—think politics, the arts, and so on—but usually by venturing out into those areas. Now it’s almost the opposite. Architecture is focusing on the built environment because, when it comes to adaptation, the built environment is the key mechanism through which we can respond to a changing climate and a changing planet. Other disciplines are now coming in to support that. Architecture is kind of at the center, with other disciplines supporting it. And the reason is – you know Herbert Simon, who won the Nobel Prize last century – he wrote a beautiful book called The Sciences of the Artificial. In it, he says science looks at how the world is, and architecture and design look at how the world could be or ought to be. When you put the two together, you combine the creativity of architecture with the grounding of physical laws and other constraints of the planet. That way, other disciplines can support how we adapt.
ELEPHANT CHAPEL by Boonserm Premthada | image © designboom
DB: The theme identifies three inteligence directions, natural, artificial, and collective, and sets a clear path structure inside the Arsenale. Yet walking through the exhibition, it often feels more like a weaving of the three into ecosystems of coexistence. Was that sort of blending intentional, and what does it achieve?
CR: Because of the sheer density of the subject, we thought it was important to separate them, more as a tool to clarify the exhibition. But they all stem from one notion of intelligence. Take the ‘artificial’ for example. First, we look at the natural and artificial together. One project explores AI but with the aim of better understanding nature. Or take the ‘collective’ – there are projects using different technologies to understand favelas. So yes, there’s a lot of blending. That was intentional.
The Other Side of the Hill by Beatriz Colomina, Roberto Kolter, Patricia Urquiola, Geoffrey West, and Mark Wigley | image © designboom
DB: How do you see the national pavilions’ response to the theme?
CR: I was really pleased with the work done by the National Pavilions, all 65 of them this year. Every year they bring strong contributions. But often there’s no common theme, so while everything may be beautiful, it can feel like a hodgepodge. The first person who really tried to create a common thread was Rem Koolhaas in 2014. I was lucky enough to be invited that year, and I remember him telling me about it—and he achieved it, to a certain degree. This year we tried something similar, but in a more bottom-up way. We gave a theme: one place, one solution. Then we held a number of meetings with the National Participants, where curators presented their ideas. Slowly, the excitement around the theme grew, and most of them engaged with it deeply.
At the press conference tomorrow, I won’t be able to show 700 slides for 700 participants, but we’ll talk about themes that cut across everything – national participations, collateral events, and more. This helps illustrate the ‘chain reaction’ we’re aiming for – from salons to submissions, to the whole collaborative process.