From 10 May to 23 November 2025, Venice will host the 19th International Architecture Exhibition, curated by Carlo Ratti and titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. The exhibition explores the interaction between natural, artificial and collective intelligences in contemporary architecture, with a focus on sustainability, technology and social responsibility.
Alongside the main venues at the Arsenale and Giardini, historic institutions, museums and foundations across the city will present projects that expand and deepen the Biennale’s themes. This dispersed landscape of events positions design and architecture as tools for critical inquiry, capable of imagining future scenarios and possibilities. Here are some exhibitions in the city that offer compelling insights for those engaged with design.
The Shape of Things to Come, Negozio Olivetti
Where: Negozio Olivetti, Piazza San Marco
When: 7 May – 28 September 2025
Website: fondoambiente.it
In the refined setting of the Negozio Olivetti designed by Carlo Scarpa, Formafantasma presents The Shape of Things to Come, an exhibition for the 2025 Architecture Biennale. Building on their earlier project Ore Streams, the show explores the environmental and social impact of electronics. Through video, animation and objects, the duo exposes the hidden material realities of the digital realm, reflecting on waste, resource extraction and planned obsolescence. The architectural context amplifies the message: a space conceived to endure hosts a meditation on the ephemerality of contemporary design. Critique and vision connect in a narrative that restores ethical and cultural depth to the design process, reaffirming its potential as a responsible and transformative practice.
1932-1942 Murano Glass and the Venice Biennale
Where: Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore
When: 13 April – 23 November 2025
Website: lestanzedelvetro.org
With 1932–1942. Murano Glass and the Venice Biennale, curator Marino Barovier presents the second chapter in an exhibition series tracing the presence of Murano glass at the Biennale. On view at Le Stanze del Vetro on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, the show explores a pivotal decade of experimentation, where traditional techniques were reinterpreted and formal innovations emerged. Figures such as Carlo Scarpa, Flavio Poli and Dino Martens feature prominently in this period, when Venetian glassmakers engaged with the international scene, using the Biennale as a platform to renew their language and assert glass as a vital material of design, in a place between art, craft and material culture.
For All That Breathes On Earth, Jung Youngsun and Collaborators
Where: Procuratie, Piazza San Marco 105
When: 9 May – 13 July 2025
Website: smac.org
Marking the opening of the new SMAC San Marco Art Centre, For All That Breathes On Earth: Jung Youngsun and Collaborators celebrates the vision of the pioneering Korean landscape architect. Curated by Jihoi Lee in collaboration with the MMCA, the exhibition traces Jung’s most significant projects, including interventions for the Seoul Olympics and Incheon Airport, highlighting a practice rooted in ecology, memory and social responsibility. Installed using traditional Korean techniques, the exhibition launches a cultural programme that brings together art, nature and contemporary thought within the restored Procuratie, reimagined by David Chipperfield.
Diagrams: A Project by AMO/OMA, Fondazione Prada
Where: Ca’ Corner della Regina, Calle Corner, 2215
When: 10 May – 24 November 2025
Website: fondazioneprada.org
For the 2025 Architecture Biennale, Fondazione Prada’s Venetian venue, Ca’ Corner della Regina, presents an exhibition conceived by AMO/OMA under the direction of Rem Koolhaas. The project centres on the diagram as both a cognitive tool and a universal device of representation. Spanning diverse geographies and time periods from the 7th century to the present, the show brings together a wide range of materials to create a thematic map of contemporary urgencies, revealing their cross-cutting and recurring nature. The diagram emerges as a lens through which to read conflict, political processes and social change, as well as a prompt for awareness and action.
Time, Space, Existence, European Cultural Centre
Where: Palazzo Bembo, Palazzo Mora and the Giardini della Marinaressa
When: 10 May – 23 November 2025
Website: timespaceexistence.com
The seventh edition of Time Space Existence returns to Venice, activating Palazzo Mora, Palazzo Bembo and the Giardini della Marinaressa. Organised by the European Cultural Centre, the exhibition brings together architects, designers and scholars from around the world to reflect on pressing themes of reuse, regeneration and sustainability.
Featuring visionary projects, innovative materials and site-specific installations, the show reaffirms its role as an international platform for rethinking how we inhabit space. The dialogue between traditional practices and emerging technologies offers a multifaceted view of architecture’s future, in step with the challenges of our time.
