Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 is full of untruths seeking to convince us that architects will solve more problems than they really can, writes Fabrizio Gallanti.
My architecture will grow your hair back.
Many articles about the ongoing architecture biennale in Venice have been illustrated with pictures of the same contribution: shots of the first space at the Arsenale, where exhibition curators often showcase a sort of opening statement.
On this occasion, it is an installation by an assembly of rather well established – and, one might say, “cool” – people: Transsolar, Bilge Kobas, Daniel A Barber and Sonia Seneviratne. Together they presented Terms and Conditions (pictured top), a comment on the increasing use of air conditioning (AC) to cool interiors on a warming planet.
It turns out that the warmth is not really caused by the waste heat dissipated by the AC units
The part of the AC system that usually goes outside the building is here brought inside and thus, in the words of the biennale’s website, “confronts visitors with the waste heat resulting from cooling the exhibition rooms beyond”.
For the multitudes at the biennale opening days passing through that space, the physical impact of a very hot environment was remarkable: the feeling of discomfort due to the high temperature was immediately palpable, pushing visitors to hurry across it.
That feeling might explain the popularity of the installation, as a truly memorable experience, juxtaposed with the ensuing cacophonic mess of the wider Arsenale, where hundreds of contributions became unnoticeable, lost in a numbing daze of diagrams and sounds.
But, actually, as pointed out by a few more careful observers, it turns out that the warmth is not really caused by the waste heat dissipated by the AC units, most of which are just hanging there for decoration. The torrid ambience is in fact generated by several radiator panels smartly dissimulated across the room.
This sleight of hand might ultimately be acceptable and not a big deal: architecture exhibitions have necessarily always been about the representation of something that might not be there – some buildings elsewhere, mostly.
But fakery and deception is everywhere at this biennale. Terms and Conditions is at least critical and gloomy, but many other works selected by biennale curator Carlo Ratti claim to perform actions that are beneficial for the climate, the environment, humanity – you name it – while being much less than meets the eye.
The jury of the biennale went along with this delusional approach
Perhaps all these shortcuts are ultimately aligned with the tradition of architecture. Venice itself has been a playground of simulation for centuries, inventing plaster to look like marble or using painting to resemble wood or precious stones.
But if historically deception, imitation and mimesis were used to make things appear something that they were not, the current paradigm that Ratti’s biennale proposes is rather different – not being about aesthetical qualities, but instead about the technical performance of architecture.
The jury of the biennale went along with this delusional approach big time. So, the Golden Lion went to a contraption filtering water from the Venice lagoon to then brew coffee, purportedly to draw attention to water scarcity.
All the technologies used to perform that task are well-known and rather dated – reverse osmosis was discovered in 1748 by Jean-Antoine Nollet – and one can buy highly efficient filtering units for less than a thousand euros online.
Yet intelligent architecture studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro felt that it was necessary to raise the circuitry of water from the Arsenale basin to your cup via Lavazza over a muscular and completely unnecessary steel structure. Steel, really? With all the anti-extractivist critique doing the rounds?
A mention was given to arches built with elephant dung, designed by Thai maverick architect Boonserm Premthada. But besides generating fancy pavilions at biennales and triennials, has anyone calculated how many elephants would be needed to provide enough building material to respond to real needs?
Two of the major current deceptional narratives that techno-bros die for were central to the exhibition
Again, the carbon balance – to breed and feed the quantity of animals to get enough shit to then build much-needed affordable housing, for instance, might be astronomical – yet we romanticise this idea and don’t dare to question its feasibility, or the fact that the excrement was shipped from Thailand to Venice.
The Golden Lion for best national pavilion went to Bahrain – a recurrent recipient of accolades because, in fact, their participation is always excellent. This year the award was given to a mock-up of a geothermal cooling canopy imagined for the harsh climatic conditions of the Gulf state.
But, unsurprisingly, the architects were not allowed to drill a geothermal well in the Arsenale. Instead, the space was cooled by an ambiguously explained “mechanical ventilation” system. Not to worry: Bahrain will be able to pay the electricity bill of the air conditioning and eventually buy as many carbon credits as are needed to be square.
Meanwhile, two of the major current deceptional narratives that techno-bros die for were central to the exhibition. The first was about robots.
Several on show were anthropomorphic, a tired replica of the automata of the 18th century, despite the fact that we know that efficient robots do not look like humans, as pointed out by Heather Parry in her essay “Electric Dreams: Sex Robots and the Failed Promises of Capitalism”.
A performing machine looks more like a Roomba or a 3D printer than Milla Jovovich, because to replicate simple human actions such as standing up, the energy required is staggering – any video by Boston Dynamics is proof of that.
It felt as if the participating architects abandoned the role that they have occupied for ages
Or, they were just not working, as in the installation by BIG, where a clunky robotic arm was getting in the way of two Bhutanese artisans who were hand-carving wood, reminiscent of the feeding machine in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times.
The second deceptional narrative is deployed in the final section of Ratti’s exhibition, where the delusional idea that if the world collapses we can always migrate to outer space takes centre court.
Actually, not all humanity will be able to go, just a selected few tycoons and their pals, as well analysed by Argentinian writer Michel Nieva. But that was not really acknowledged in the procession of models and mock-ups, which at times felt like the crammed basement of an incel collecting Star Wars and Star Trek merchandise.
The biennale is trying to convince the world that architecture – allied with bacteria, algae, mushrooms, moulds, artificial intelligence and robots – will do wonderful things. It will clean air and water, generate energy and even self-build!
Sadly, it seems that far too many contributors were willing to tweak stories here and there to make their propositions plausible. The rather unimpressed (if not blatantly bored) faces of the early visitors of the exhibition might indicate that not many are sold.
Like any other biennale, this one encapsulates certain current tendencies of architecture, as interpreted by its curator. This year it felt as if the participating architects abandoned the role that they have occupied for ages: to manipulate form and matter to create environments and spaces for humans.
This still rather noble endeavour now seems far less crucial than providing incremental improvements and responses to wider issues outside of architecture’s reach. The whole display manifested a certain insecurity over architects’ role.
Perhaps that explains why numerous contributions appeared to be rather insouciant about the truth of their technical claims. Ultimately, what architects really want is to be loved, and what is better than a few white lies that will be forgotten once this biennale is over?
Fabrizio Gallanti is director of the Arc en Rêve architecture centre in Bordeaux.
The photo is by Luca Capuano.
The Venice Architecture Biennale takes place from 10 May to 23 November 2025. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest information you need to know to attend the event, as well as a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.
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