by InTrieste
Just a short hop from Trieste, the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale is now in full swing and open to visitors until November 23. This year’s edition, titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective, offers a thought-provoking escape into the future of design, grappling with two of today’s biggest challenges: artificial intelligence and the climate crisis.
Curated by Italian architect and MIT professor Carlo Ratti, the 19th Biennale proposes a radical shift in thinking.
“For decades, architecture’s response to the climate crisis has been centered on mitigation—designing to reduce our impact on the climate,” Ratti says. “But that approach is no longer enough. The time has come for architecture to embrace adaptation: rethinking how we design for an altered world.”
Spanning the historic venues of the Giardini and Arsenale, this edition is one of the most ambitious yet, with more than 750 participants and over 300 installations. The lineup reflects Ratti’s push for cross-disciplinary collaboration, bringing together not only architects and engineers, but also mathematicians, climate scientists, philosophers, artists, chefs, coders, woodcarvers, farmers, and fashion designers.
At its core, the exhibition explores how different forms of intelligence—natural, artificial, and collective—can work together to reimagine our built environment.
Among this year’s highlights: the Golden Lion for Best National Participation went to the Kingdom of Bahrain for Heatwave, which confronts the architectural implications of extreme heat. The Holy See received a special mention for Opera Aperta, a community-led restoration of a deconsecrated Venetian church, while the United Kingdom was honored for GBR: Geology of Britannic Repair, an exploration of architecture and environmental extraction.
Just over two hours by train or car, the Biennale makes for a rich and easy day trip or weekend getaway from Trieste—offering a window into architecture’s potential to shape a more intelligent and resilient future.
