Norman Foster and Porsche reimagine movement at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale

A new intervention by the Norman Foster Foundation in collaboration with Porsche appeared along the waterfront of the Arsenale at the opening of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025. Gateway to Venice’s Waterway is part installation, part platform for dialogue around infrastructure and the future of movement in Venice. Created as part of Porsche’s The Art of Dreams cultural programme, the project explores sustainable transportation in a place defined by its relationship to water, rather than roads.

Step through Norman Foster's ‘Gateway to Venice's Waterway'

'[We wanted] to provoke a discussion about mobility,' says Foster of the project, which takes the form of a floating pontoon that extends across the water from the banks of the Arsenale, one of the Venice Biennale’s two main locations. According to Foster, himself an avid collector of vintage automobiles, the 37-metre long aluminium structure took cues from 'the tubular frame of old racing cars,' he said. Composed of a curving, diagrid frame inset with diamond-shaped aluminium panels of varying sizes, the structure was envisioned to catch the light like the rippling water in the canal.

'The idea was to use very simple materials with a high degree of engineering sophistication,' Foster explains, 'to create something that would respond to nature – to the wind, the light, the shadows – and would move with the waves.'

Though it might seem counterintuitive for a car brand to make a statement in a city with no roads, Porsche’s vice president of style, Michael Mauer, sees it as an inquiry into the nature of movement – even in the most unexpected of environments. 'If you’re in the car industry, you talk about mobility,' he says. 'This gateway is a symbol of how mobility in a city like Venice could work.' Indeed, the bridge allows access to a fleet of Schiller bicycles, pedal-powered watercrafts that combine the form of a traditional bicycle with lightweight pontoons, enabling riders to cycle across water.

Porsche and the Norman Foster Foundation see the project as highlighting Venice’s myriad transportation challenges. Aside from traditional hand-powered gondolas that have been entirely usurped by the tourism industry, there are no electric or renewable-powered boats operating in the city. With the introduction of the Schiller bikes, as well as a fleet of Frauscher x Porsche 850 Fantom Air boats powered by electric propulsion, which were present during the Biennale opening days, they hope to spark a conversation about new and sustainable ways of traversing the ancient floating city.

The project is just the latest instalment in Porsche’s The Art of Dreams program, which explores the intersection of art, design, and urban innovation. Previous editions have seen the artist Thomas Trum install large-scale artworks in southern France and the art collective Numen/For Use build a massive interactive sculpture formed of climbable nets in the centre of a Milanese palazzo.

But for Mauer, the collaboration embodies, above all, the spirit of multidisciplinary exchange. 'It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with Norman Foster,' he says. 'The car industry is a very streamlined process, so exchanging opinions with a creative community is so important to us. Norman Foster is a car collector and very much interested in the history of cars, so hearing his ideas on car design was a very exciting moment for us. Though the creative process of car design and architecture can be very similar, the outcome is vastly different. We really understood each other.'

The 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Carlo Ratti and titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., is open to the public from 10 May to 23 November 2025.

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