On the morning of Saturday, May 10, the opening day of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, the international jury's choice for the exhibition's Golden Lions and other awards were announced.
As in previous iterations of the Venice Architecture Biennale, a Golden Lion is given for each of the two main components: the national participations, or national pavilions, and the international exhibition. The latter, this year of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition, is Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., curated by Carlo Ratti, who already announced American philosopher Donna Harraway as recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement (Italian architect Italo Rota was also named recipient of a posthumous Special Golden Lion).
The three-member international jury, made up of Hans Ulrich Obrist (jury president), Paola Antonelli, and Mpho Matsipa also selected two special mentions for national participations, a Silver Lion for a promising participant in the 19th International Architecture Exhibition, and two special mentions to participants in Intelligens. Commentary from the jury on the two Golden Lions and five other prizes are below.
National Pavilions
Golden Lion for Best National Participation:Kingdom of Bahrain: Heatwave
Commissioner: Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, President of Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities
Curator: Andrea Faraguna
Exhibitors: Andrea Faraguna, Wafa Al Ghatam, Eman Ali, Alexander Puzrin, Mario Monotti
“The Pavilion offers viable proposal for extreme heat conditions. As the designers explain, ‘Architecture must address the dual challenges of environmental resilience and sustainability.’ The ingenious solution can be deployed in public spaces and in locations where people must live and work outdoors in conditions of extreme heat. The pavilion uses traditional methods of passive cooling typical of the region and reminiscence of wind towers and shaded courtyards.”
Holy See: Opera aperta
Commissioner: Cardinale José Tolentino de Mendonça, Prefetto del Dicastero per la Cultura e l’Educazione della Santa Sede
Curators: Marina Otero Verzier, Giovanna Zabotti
Exhibitors: Tatiana Bilbao Estudio, MAIO Architects
“Recalling a book by Umberto Eco [from] 1962, the pavilion Opera aperta invites the visitor to participate in the production of meaning. This special mention recognizes the creation of a space for exchange, negotiation, restoration. Opera aperta will revitalize an existing deconsecrated church with repair occurring at different levels involving a big range of skills of labour. As the team calls it, ‘a living practice of good care and collective care.’ Opera aperta creates space for cultural exchange.”
Great Britain: GBR: Geology of Britannic Repair
Commissioner: Sevra Davis British Council
Curators: Owen Hopkins, Kathryn Yusoff, Kabage Karanja, Stella Mutegi
Exhibitors: cave_bureau, Palestine Regeneration Team (PART), Mae Ling Lokko & Gustavo Crembil, Thandi Loewenson
“A dialogue between Great Britain and Kenya about reparation and renewal. The pavilion reveals architecture as architecture that is defined by extraction that produce inequality and environmental degradation. The jury notes attempts to imagine a new relation between architecture and geology. The jury also notes the Venice Fellowship program as a notable initiative for knowledge exchange between the three countries: Venice, Great Britain and Kenya.”
19th International Architecture Exhibition
Canal Café
Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Natural Systems Utilities, SODAI, Aaron Betsky, Davide Oldani
“Canal Café is a demonstration of how the city of Venice can be a laboratory to speculate how to live on the water, while offering a contribution to the public space of Venice. It also invites future speculation about the lagoon and other lagoons. It also represents an important parallel track in the DS+R’s practice since the very start—one rich in transdisciplinary experimentation. We also acknowledge the extraordinary persistence of the Canal Cafè project, which started almost 20 years ago. It’s an example that Biennale can be a long duration project and go far beyond the event.”
Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
Kate Crawford, Vladan Joler
“The importance of Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler’s Calculating Empires: a genealogy of technology and power since 1500 is to make visible the invisible both in space and in time. This large scale visual manifesto shows the digital and social infrastructures co-evolving over centuries. Now more than ever understanding the entanglements of power and technology – colonialism, militarization, automation and enclosure. It offers a rich history of technology today. This extraordinary diagram is a device to better understand our present and build alternative futures.”
Alternative Urbanism: The Self-Organized Markets of Lagos
Tosin Oshinowo, Oshinowo Studio
“Tosin Oshinowo’s Alternative Urbanism: The Self-Organized Markets of Lagos offers a glimpse to markets of processing waste of industrialized economy. The documentation is a promising initiative for further research and knowledge production about markets in Africa and the importance of markets as prototypes for innovation. These markets are keynotes in a robust ecosystem that merits study because of its adaptive circularity.”
Elephant Chapel
Boonserm Premthada
“Elephant Chapel for the exemplary way that it shows us how to build a durable brick structure with bio material. Boonsem Premthada architecture practice uses elephant dung in order to minimize the use of materials. Their work is in communion with the environment. Premthada builds an open air sanctuary called Elephant World in a province of Thailand where humans have harmoniously coexistent with Elephants for centuries. The project celebrates the alliance and preserves its context and condition.”