Unlike professions such as medicine, accounting, or law, architecture has a high culture. By this I mean an indulgence in exhibition making, publishing, and archiving—in possessing its own rarified curators. This is our intellectual canon, which occupies an exalted space of professional debate above the world of continuing professional development and industry conferences. There’s a reason why MoMA has no department devoted to law; by and large, the legal profession doesn’t leave us with anything visual that is worth admiring or collecting. But architects do, and this culture is a reminder of design’s vocational nature and of architecture’s proximity to art. All of this comes into stark relief at this year’s Venice Biennale, where the 2025 architecture edition, curated by the Italian polymath-architect-futurist Carlo Ratti, opened on May 10 under the title “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.” 

With rooms arranged as an enfilade, the first space of the Arsenale—the venue for the biennale’s primary exhibition—is where to write a big intro. For sheer immersiveness, Ratti’s opening number does not disappoint. The interior has been transformed into a dark and literally warm cavern, with the heating turned up a bit. Dozens of unused air conditioning units hang from the ceiling, and one processes through a maze shaped by pools filled with what seems to be oil. A collaboration between Italian academics and engineers at Transsolar, this space is a “Third Paradise,” a “demo-praxis reframing democracy as a cooperative creation and proposing architecture as a mediating force for ecological harmony and peace.” (Quoted directly from the AI-generated wall text.) Huh? Jargon aside, it is dystopianly beautiful and mesmerising. But is it architecture? 

In the Giardini, home to the lion’s share of national pavilions, the Germans have a hot, dark room of their own. Large screens displaying live heat scans of attendees’ bodies are present as people walk around a heated black box, showing everyone how much warmer we’re getting in the process. Not fun. It grew uncomfortable to be in there on a sunny Venetian day, so I ran out, only to end up in the neighboring Canadian pavilion. There, I encounter “Picoplanktonics,” in which large, gooey, 3D-sculpted hulks are covered in cyanobacteria. This installation turns performative. Fortunately, a man in a lab coat is on hand to explain it all.

Back in the “Third Paradise,” which a friend describes as a giant science fair, things get even stranger. A Bhutanese craftsman—presumably flown in from his native land—is carving wood. Next to him, a robot is having its own go at the craft. Who will win: man or machine? It’s at this point that I begin to wonder if maybe we’ve taken this indulgence a bit too far.

In the years where there is no architecture biennial, the art edition occupies these same spaces. A larger affair, it provides a snapshot of contemporary visual art from around the world. Purely on aesthetic terms and carrying its conceptual baggage, “Third Paradise” feels like it belongs at an art show, not an architecture one. The decretum of art today embraces installation, concept art, archiving, multimedia, moving image, etc. Many in the design community are influenced by this world. I totally get it, being an art fanboy myself. 

There is a palpable sense, at this biennale and across the world of architectural curation, of design practitioners cosplaying as contemporary artists. Frequently, the results are a bit of a dud, because they stray far from what architecture is. Often, things can become tone deaf when these attempts are wrapped in utopian (or dystopian) rhetoric. Maybe it’s time to reframe our indulgence. So, for what it’s worth, I would like to offer five tips for what makes a great architecture exhibition.

1: Explore a place and its character. The Hong Kong and Macao pavilions achieve this. Each a city-state on the periphery of China, their independent presences at the biennale are a result of their colonial legacies. Hong Kong offers an inventory of midcentury buildings illustrated through plans, sections, and drawings in a pavilion enveloped in the bamboo scaffolding that is synonymous with the city. Looking out from inside the pavilion made me feel, uniquely, like I was in a room somewhere in Hong Kong. In Macao’s exhibit, aerial and street photographs by Iwan Baan transport visitors to the parallel worlds of Macao’s Vegas-esque cityscape and its old 16th century city. I felt transported directly into this unique urban dichotomy.

2: Find joy in typology. In the 2016 biennale, Australia’s “The Pool” was one of the most effective architectural installations I’ve ever experienced. The display celebrated the homegrown public pool by placing one within its pavilion, where visitors were invited to take off their shoes and have a wade. A well-researched and presented publication cataloguing dozens of outdoor pools across the country accompanied the display and provided essays on their origin and relevance to Australian culture. 

A typological study needs to be executed with clarity. The U.S. pavilion attempts something similar this time around with “The Porch.” I entered with high hopes. But as it is over-cluttered with content—and occasionally sophomoric graphic design—it lacks the conceptual strength and quality that other pavilions have demonstrated can be achieved. 

The neo-Palladian U-shaped configuration of little rooms might be partly to blame, and often hurts American presentations. The Australian pavilion, opened in 2015 to designs by Denton Corker Marshall, offers a counterpoint. Its simple black-and-white box space allows for more coherence, which works well for both architecture and art. No surprise, then, that the Australians won the Golden Lion at last year’s art biennale. Artist Archie Moore’s “Kith and Kin” installation, described by some critics as architectural, shone in that setting. Might the Americans consider a refurb?

3: Build something. For the 1980 edition, Aldo Rossi’s “Teatro del Mundo” was a floating folly anchored in Venetian waters. To this day, it remains an icon in biennale history. This year, the Dubai-based duo of Rashid and Ahmed bin Shabib have realized something in similar spirit. Their “Majilis and the Manama” provides a shaded gathering space with a naturally cooled elevated structure in the Giardini. It introduces, to a global audience, a vernacular form and type of construction intrinsic to the climate of the Emirates. It’s practical, too, a useful spot to take a rest on a hot Venetian day. It does what architecture is supposed to do: provide shelter.

4: Unpack how something is built. The Danish pavilion is a great example of getting under the skin of a project. The pavilion, built in 1930, is now a live construction site as it undergoes urgent repairs to protect against future flood rise. Across one half of the pavilion, the floor has been excavated; the other half provides an immersive display into how reuse and circularity are being incorporated into the refurbishment process. The display is meticulously presented.

5: Be fascinated by a history. Not part of the official biennale program is the exhibition “Diagrams,” conceived and designed by OMA/AMO at the Venice branch of Fondazione Prada. As architects, we use diagrams, maps, plans, and graphics to convey ideas. More than 300 of these items, from 12th century maps to 21st century infographics, are brought together to show how information can be beautiful and interesting. It’s a delight and a reminder of why it’s such a privilege to take part in the work that we do as designers.

Featured images, from right to left: “The Pool,” Australian Pavilion at the 2016 Architecture Biennale, curated and designed by Amelia Holiday and Isabelle Tolland with Michelle Tabet; “Kith and Kin,” by Archie Moore, winner of the Golden Lion, Australian Pavilion at the 2024 Art Biennale; “Home” by the Creative Sphere, Australian Pavilion for the 2025 Architecture Biennale.

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