The Awards of the 19th Biennale Architettura

The Awards Ceremony of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition took place on Saturday 10 May 2025 at Ca’ Giustinian, Venice. The International Jury of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia composed of Hans Ulrich Obrist (president, Switzerland); Paola Antonelli (Italy); and Mpho Matsipa (South Africa) has decided to present the following awards:

Golden Lion for Best National Participation
Kingdom of BAHRAIN – Heatwave
Where: Arsenale
Motivation: 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.”

Special mentions as National Participation
HOLY SEE – “Opera aperta”
Where: Complesso di Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, Fondamenta S. Gioacchin, Castello 450
Motivation:  Recalling a book by Umberto Eco 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.

UNITED KINGDOM – GBR: Geology of Britannic Repair
Where: Giardini
Motivation: 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.

Golden Lion for the best participation in Intelligens. Naturale. Artificiale. Collettiva
Canal Cafè
Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Natural Systems Utilities, SODAI, Aaron Betsky, Davide Oldani
Where: Arsenale
Motivation: 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.

Silver Lion for a promising participation in Intelligens. Naturale. Artificiale. Collettiva
Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
Kate Crawford, Vladan Joler
Where: Corderie dell’Arsenale
Motivation: 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.

Special mentions
Alternative Urbanism: The Self-Organized Markets of Lagos
Tosin Oshinowo, Oshinowo Studio
Where: Corderie dell’Arsenale
Motivation: Tosin Oshinowo’s project 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
Where: Corderie dell’Arsenale
Motivation: 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.

Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement
Furthermore, the American philosopher Donna Haraway and the Italian architect and designer Italo Rota (2 October 1953-6 April 2024) have respectively been awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and the Special Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Memoriam.