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.
-
This picky customer finds ‘perfection’ at Nipotina, Mayfair’s new pizza and pasta jointWallpaper* contributing editor Nick Vinson reviews Nipotina, a new Italian restaurant in London offering a carefully edited menu of traditional dishes
-
Giant cats, Madonna wigs, pints of Guinness: seven objects that tell the story of fashion in 2024These objects tell an unconventional story of style in 2024, a year when the ephemera that populated designers’ universes was as intriguing as the collections themselves
-
How 2024 brought beauty and fashion closer than ever before2024 was a year when beauty and fashion got closer than ever before, with runway moments, collaborations and key launches setting the scene for 2025 and beyond
-
Turin’s Museo Egizio gets an OMA makeover for its bicentenaryThe Gallery of the Kings at Turin’s Museo Egizio has been inaugurated after being remodelled by OMA, in collaboration with Andrea Tabocchini Architecture
-
A floor made of tomato skins? Welcome to the Mutti Canteen by Carlo Ratti in ParmaMutti Canteen by Carlo Ratti is a new, environmentally friendly foodie piece of architecture within Parma's green countryside
-
Naples Central Station boasts a wavy, wooden signature roof that is dramatic and sculpturalNaples Underground Central Station by Benedetta Tagliabue is a work of art that’s inviting and vibrant, matching its dynamic context
-
Venice Architecture Biennale 2025: a glimpse of what’s to come and Carlo Ratti's circular economy manifestoVenice Architecture Biennale 2025 curator Carlo Ratti talks about the theme, 'Intelligens' and launches his circular economy manifesto; the first glimpses into what’s to come at the festival's launch next spring
-
‘Carlo Scarpa: The Complete Buildings’ is an essential tour of the Italian master’s works‘Carlo Scarpa: The Complete Buildings’ is the perfect book for architecture enthusiasts
-
New Aesop Milan store is a haven of beauty and tranquillityThe latest Aesop Milan store to open is a hub of wellness, beauty and tranquillity in the Italian metropolis
-
A new water mirror casts a misty veil over ancient Roman bathsArchitect Hannes Peer reveals a water mirror in Rome – an immersive architectural installation at the heart of the ancient Baths of Caracalla
-
Giovanni Michelucci’s dramatic concrete church in the Italian DolomitesGiovanni Michelucci’s concrete Church of Santa Maria Immacolata in the Italian Dolomites is a reverently uplifting memorial to the victims of a local disaster
