Architecture at the Boiling Point: Reflections from the Venice Biennale 2025
La Biennale di Venezia has always been a space for exchanging ideas, sparking dialogue, and setting trends. This year, once again, the climate and environmental crisis emerged as a recurring theme across many national pavilions — including those of Bahrain (Golden Lion winner), Spain, Mexico, Pakistan, the UK, Belgium, Denmark, and the Nordic Countries, to name just a few.
Carlo Ratti, curator of the 2025 Architecture Biennale, sets the tone right at the entrance with a powerful statement — an immersive journey through a boiling planet where air-conditioning systems no longer function. He writes:
"For decades, ever since we started counting carbon, architecture's response to the climate crisis has been centred on mitigation—on reducing our impact on the climate. That approach is no longer enough. Architecture must pivot away from mitigation, reconnect with its longer history of adaptation, and rethink how we design for an altered world."
Let’s take his words as a starting point and look at some national pavilions through our lens — where climate meets design, and architecture becomes a tool for adaptation, not just mitigation.
🇪🇸 Spain Curated by Manuel Bouzas Barcala and Roi Salgueiro Barrio, the Spanish Pavilion demonstrates how architects in Spain are actively engaging in the fight against climate change using tools from their own design repertoires. The exhibition focuses on CO₂ emissions and waste, highlighting built examples that often integrate vernacular knowledge. Notably, the curators provide emissions data for each building — an approach that caught the attention of many prominent international architects visiting the space.
🇧🇭 Kingdom of Bahrain Andrea Faraguna takes visitors into the scorching heat of the Middle East. His proposal explores passive cooling strategies — both traditional and enhanced by cutting-edge engineering — asking: How can we create resilient, communal spaces in an era of intensifying heatwaves?
🇪🇪 Estonia Johanna Jõekalda shifts the focus from carbon data to people. Her pavilion tackles the renovation of residential buildings, not through technical indicators like CO₂ or indoor climate, but by mapping the network of stakeholders involved in the process. She highlights the roles, responsibilities, and conflicting interests at play — reinforcing our belief that communication and collaboration are the real keys to successful renovation.
Some of the voices from the Estonian Pavillion:
Characters:
CHAIRMAN (OF THE APARTMENT ASSOCIATION): A practically minded doer-of-things with the goal of renovating the building. Constantly gets bogged down in the internal disputes of the apartment association. Feels the weight of 'leadership' upon his shoulders.
RESIDENT: A person living in the tenement. In the texts they take many forms, representing various types of people.
TENEMENTS 1 & 2: Represents a group of residents in the abstract as building(s). May be for or against renovation, depending on the text.
ENGINEER: Hopes to achieve the greatest energy savings possible during the renovation. Employs all of their skills and proficiencies to reach this goal, usually ignoring everything else on the way. The common obstacles for their dreams are the Architect and the economic situation of the residents.
ARCHITECT: Sees great spatial potential in the process of renovation. Very imaginative, especially when thinking of all that could be achieved. Certain about what to do, what the residents need in order to live their best lives. However, often ends up in conflict with the residents who say they are already happy with their homes and do not want any major changes.
BUILDER: Likes to build. Claims they could renovate the buildings all at once-and the more uniform they become, the better! That just means construction would go at a faster pace and the financial savings would be greater. With all the unrenovated buildings around, their field of work seems endless. Ready to proceed with current skills and practices, sees no need to learn ...
It was also great to see colleagues deeply committed to the climate x architecture space — like Daniel A. Barber and the team from Transsolar — continuing to lead the way and inspire the next generation. Special kudos to Roofscapes for their "Climate Realignment" project, a prototype renovation solution for overheating top-floor apartments in Paris.
Finally, a heartfelt congratulations to scholar Donna Haraway — author of the concept of the Chthulucene, a vision for a post-anthropocentric era — who was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. A timely and important recognition.
This Biennale makes it clear: the climate crisis is no longer a separate issue. It is the architectural challenge of our time.