As an MIT alum, I should be chuffed that Carlo Ratti has curated the 19th International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia. Of the three curators who have guided the show in the 2020s, two hail from MIT: Ratti, who directs its Senseable City Lab, and 2021’s Hashim Sarkis, the dean of its School of Architecture and Planning. And even outside the Biennale, MIT has a strong showing of faculty work at Berggruen Arts & Culture’s Palazzo Diedo in Cannaregio as part of The Next Earth: Computation, Crisis, Cosmology.
But my smile flattened into a frown as I hiked through Intelligens, Ratti’s main show. The staging was stocked with work by the world’s best architects but at a density that made it difficult to properly appreciate each entry.
As a treat, at the end of the trek an attractive, leggy vision appears in a clearing: It is Desert Ecofolie, a “prototype for minimum dwelling in the Atacama Desert and beyond,” by Pedro Ignacio Alonso and Pamela Prado. It “brings together eco-technical objects such as fog catchers, photovoltaic cells, a domestic wind turbine, a water wall, a dry toilet, and other appliances that avoid the production of greenhouse emissions,” according to its official description, but it does so in a materially rich way—using plywood, cork, and thatch—that is accessible. It is a piece of architecture, so one can actually climb up inside it to walk around its (admittedly tiny) rooms and see the rooftop survival devices arrayed like an open Swiss Army knife.
The techno-optimism was expanded and corrected by the national presentations. There was a shared focus on landscape, renovation, and social gathering. The last theme was present in Bahrain’s offering, a chill space literally conditioned by passive cooling, which won the Golden Lion. But it was also celebrated in the activations of PORCH, the United States’s offering, which saw crowds gather for a series of talks and performances. It even appeared next door, where Qatar will soon build a new pavilion designed by Lina Ghotmeh. For now, the ground was the site of Community Centre, a bamboo structure designed by the Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari. The mood was welcoming and hospitable, but with a message: “Architects must change. How many rich people are there that they can work for?” Lari asked me.
For many, the work on view was secondary to their primary Venetian objective: gossip. The air was thick with it. Foglike, it came on little cat feet and sat looking over Via Garibaldi. The vernissage is a global destination for hobnobbery, with architects from all over each here to observe, meet, and catch up. At the end of business hours, attendees plunk down in front of a spritz and spout out their bingo card of wired or tired national pavilions to compare notes. It makes me think about how little of architecture’s lively exchanges and backstories make it into public view—and when they do, how sanitized they appear. It also reminds me of Hans Ulrich Obrist’s 1990s experiment in which he staged a “non-conference” where all the programming was canceled and only the socializing took place. At these types of events, he observed that “the most important things happen in the coffee break. Why do the rest?”
The fun was a welcome distraction from domestic affairs. Back home, a different flavor of real talk permeated, largely related to the ongoing tumult as the Trump administration defunds scientific research, attacks the National Park Service, and spars with higher education, most publicly with Harvard, which is fighting back.
The mayhem—and tariffs—are rocking the economy, which makes it hard to feel secure. In April, Anjali Grant, an architect in Seattle, wrote to me: “I am furious. I have two employees who are not citizens who cannot engage politically for fear of reprisals. I have a project funded by Head Start dollars that may collapse at any time. It is impossible to plan for escalation or to budget. I would like to see the AIA and ALL of the professional and business organizations unite against this blatant disregard for the rule of law.” Still, she said she is grateful: “My clients continue to live by their principles, including my own school district. My city and state will resist.”
In this issue, we offer stories about practice, from an intergenerational interview about a family-run architecture business to Kate Wagner’s review of Aaron Cayer’s Incorporating Architects, in addition to great case studies and worthwhile products in our Focus section—plus so much more. This varied mix of timely content is what puts the pep in our step. Don’t forget to like and subscribe.
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