Carlo Ratti has been revealed as Director of the Architecture Department at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025. The Italian architect will spearhead the next global festival of architecture at the lagoon city, leading the curation of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in 2025. The appointment was recommended by current biennale president Roberto Cicutto, in agreement with Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, who is set to begin his own four-year term as president of La Biennale di Venezia in 2024, succeeding Cicutto.
Carlo Ratti said: 'We architects like to think we are smart, but real intelligence is everywhere. The disembodied ingenuity of evolution, the growing power of computers, and the collective wisdom of the crowd. To face a burning world, architecture must harness all the intelligence around us. I am honoured and humbled to have the opportunity to curate the Biennale Architettura 2025.'
Carlo Ratti
Carlo Ratti: architect and curator of Venice Architecture Biennale 2025
Ratti is an architect and engineer based in Turin, also teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Politecnico di Milano. He is the director of the Senseable City Lab and a founding partner of the architecture and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati (Torino, New York City, and London).
Urban planning and sustainable architecture are key interests for the architect, who has worked on projects of all scales and typologies, globally – including his popular The Greenary, which he co-designed with Italo Rota in Parma, Italy. The house was also nominated for Wallpaper* Design Award: Best Private House in 2022.
The dates of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition have also been announced today. The event will be held from Saturday 24 May to Sunday 23 November 2025. It will be next architecture biennale to launch, following Lesley Lokko's Venice Architecture Biennale 2023.
-
A new Athens gallery is a celebration of old and new, a stone's throw from the AcropolisNew Athens gallery Melas Martinos by Local Local is a contemporary art space, a stone's throw from the Acropolis, in the Greek capital's Monastiraki neighbourhood
-
Haute Couture Week A/W 2025: live updates from the Wallpaper* teamFrom 7-9 July, Haute Couture Week A/W 2025 arrives in Paris. Follow along for a first look at the shows, presentations and other fashion happenings, as seen by the Wallpaper* editors
-
Boundaries between art and life dissolve in Katherine Hubbard's intimate documentation of her mother's illnessIn 'The Great Room', Katherine Hubbard merges caregiving for her mother with an unflinching documentary of the process
-
A guide to Renzo Piano’s magic touch for balancing scale and craft in architectureProlific and innovative, Renzo Piano has earned a place among the 20th century's most important architects; we delve into his life and career in this ultimate guide to his work
-
Porsche and the Norman Foster Foundation rethink the future of mobilityA futuristic Venice transport hub, created with the Norman Foster Foundation for Porsche’s The Art of Dreams programme, is a star of the city’s Architecture Biennale
-
Want to be a Venice pavilion commissioner? Bring ideas – and your RolodexThe impressive showings of the USA's Venice pavilion in the Giardini belie the ambitious fundraising efforts that underpin them. Past and present curators tell us how it works
-
A mesmerising edition of The Dalmore Luminary Series is unveiled in VeniceThe Dalmore Luminary Series sculpture No.3 by Ben Dobbin of Foster + Partners, co-curated by V&A Dundee, launches in Venice during the 2025 Architecture Biennale
-
A love letter to the panache and beauty of diagrams: OMA/AMO at the Prada Foundation in Venice‘Diagrams’, an exhibition by AMO/OMA, celebrates the powerful visual communication of data as a valuable tool of investigation; we toured the newly opened show in Venice’s Prada Foundation
-
How was Carlo Ratti’s ‘Intelligens’? Wallpaper* editors discuss the 19th Venice BiennaleHaving visited ‘Intelligens’, the 19th Venice Biennale's main show by curator Carlo Ratti, the Wallpaper* editors discuss what they saw at the world's biggest global architecture festival
-
The 2025 British Pavilion in Venice offered up a Geology of Britannic RepairThe 2025 British Pavilion in Venice is curated by an Anglo-Kenyan team of architects and designers; titled 'GBR: Geology of Britannic Repair', it explores the landscape of colonialism, its past, present and futures
-
A Venice sneak peek into the new Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain by Jean NouvelA new home for Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain by Jean Nouvel will open later this year in Paris; in the meantime, the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 offered the perfect platform for a sneak preview of what's to come
