Tag: pavilion | ArchDaily

The Delay of Meaning: On the Architecture of Smiljan Radić

Jonathan Yeung — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Smiljan Radić's architecture often begins elsewhere: in a memory, a journey, a material, a stone, a half-seen structure, or a situation not yet organized as an architectural idea. In "Architecture: Distraction and Knowledge," his 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate Lecture, distraction does not appear as a lack of focus, but as a way of receiving the world. It is through these peripheral encounters — travel, ruins, cities, stories, industries, and materials — that architectural knowledge slowly accumulates.

8 National Pavilion Highlights from the 2026 Venice Art Biennale

Antonia Piñeiro — Wed, 13 May 2026 05:30:00 +0000

In December 2024, art curator Koyo Kouoh became the first African woman selected to curate the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. She proposed an introspective and sensitive approach to the exhibition, shaped by themes of grief, memory, spirituality, and global exhaustion. Following her premature passing in May 2025, the Biennale decided to continue with the same curatorial project, titled In Minor Keys. Wolff Architects was appointed by Kouoh in early 2025 to realize the exhibition design and scenography, focused on "the transformative spatial power of the threshold as a portal to alternative comprehension and experiences." The event was inaugurated on Saturday, May 9, and will run until Sunday, November 22, 2026, across the Giardini della Biennale, the Arsenale di Venezia, and other locations throughout Venice.

Cultural Centers Beyond the Building: 6 Unbuilt Projects Integrating Landscape

Nour Fakharany — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Cultural centers continue to serve as a productive ground for unbuilt architectural exploration, reflecting how architects are rethinking the role of public institutions in relation to landscape, experience, and program hybridity. In this Unbuilt edition, submitted by the ArchDaily community, the selected projects bring together a range of proposals that expand the definition of the cultural center beyond a singular building. These works position architecture as a spatial framework that mediates between research, exhibition, retreat, and public life, often embedded within or distributed across natural and urban contexts.

La Biennale di Venezia Unveils Renovated Central Pavilion at the Giardini

Reyyan Dogan — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 06:30:00 +0000

La Biennale di Venezia has unveiled the renovated Central Pavilion at the Giardini, completing a comprehensive intervention delivered between December 2024 and March 2026 as part of a broader national program to enhance cultural infrastructure. Funded by the Italian Ministry of Culture under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) and its complementary investment program (PNC), the project contributes to the development of a permanent hub for cultural production and exchange in Venice. The works form part of a wider initiative involving multiple sites associated with the Biennale, including the Giardini, the Arsenale, and other locations across the city, developed in coordination with local authorities and heritage institutions.

OMA / Shohei Shigematsu Designs Ellipsoidal Pavilion for Mushroom Cultivation at Casa Wabi in Oaxaca, Mexico

Antonia Piñeiro — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 05:30:00 +0000

A domed, ellipsoidal pavilion for mushroom production designed by OMA for Fundación Casa Wabi opened on March 4, 2026. The building is located within Casa Wabi's 25-hectare site in Oaxaca, Mexico, on the Pacific coast, about 30 minutes from the city of Puerto Escondido. Casa Wabi is a foundation created by artist Bosco Sodi that promotes the exchange of ideas between artists of various disciplines and local communities. The foundation's flagship building was designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando and completed in 2014. The OMA-designed pavilion adds a new space for cultivating mushrooms and fostering exchange between food, art, nature, and local communities to the foundation's facilities, which include a multipurpose palapa, six bedrooms, two enclosed studios, six open studios, a screening room and auditorium, a 450-m² exhibition hall, and various workspaces.

Call for Proposals: Bethel Woods Art & Architecture Festival (BuildFest) 2026

Rene Submissions — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 10:05:00 +0000

The Bethel Woods Art & Architecture Festival (BuildFest) 2026, titled "Acts of Construction – Act One: Staging" invites proposals for timber pavilions and multimedia activations to be installed on the historic grounds of the 1969 Woodstock festival.

Act One (2026) examines the overlapping meanings of “staging.” In theater, staging refers to the arrangement and presentation of a play, show, or other production; in construction, staging refers to the assembly of temporary infrastructure (scaffolding, platforms, and supports) in anticipation of building. Proposals should consider how construction can be intentionally organized to accommodate unknown future uses and/or the planned disassembly and reuse

Festival Concéntrico 2026 Announces Three Selected Urban Installations From Its International Open Calls

Antonia Piñeiro — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 06:30:00 +0000

Concéntrico is an urban innovation laboratory that invites reflection on the city through architecture and design. Since 2015, it has carried out more than 180 interventions in Logroño, Spain. The new 2025/2026 season of the festival expands on this experimental spirit with three international calls for proposals that bring the ideas in the book Concéntrico: Laboratorio de Innovación Urbana (Park Books, 2025) into action. Through these calls, the organization seeks to explore further three lines of research, the ephemeral, the ecological, and the symbolic, to imagine different ways of inhabiting the city. The winning projects from this edition's calls for entries will be developed, built as urban installations, and presented in the exhibition during the festival, taking place in Logroño from June 18–23, 2026.

Winter Stations 2026: Crest

Rene Submissions — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 10:10:00 +0000

Crest is a student-led, design-build installation produced by F_RMlab at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture for Winter Stations 2026, an international competition transforming Toronto’s lifeguard stations into immersive works of public art. This year’s theme, Mirage, invited participants to address the “boundary of what is seen and what is real in the age of AI”, exploring art as a medium that disengages from the digital world by immersing audiences in shared, tactile experiences.

Crest emerges from the sand and snow of the Toronto Beaches as a sweeping wave positioned moments before break. From a distance, the installation resembles a

Designing the Future, Again: What the 55-Year Return of the World Expo to Osaka Reveals

Jonathan Yeung — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 07:30:00 +0000

The 2025 Osaka Expo has captured widespread attention—not only for its architectural ambition and spectacle, but also for breaking records and generating controversy. Its most iconic feature, a monumental timber ring designed by Sou Fujimoto, has already made headlines as a Guinness World Record-breaking wooden structure. Built on the reclaimed island of Yumeshima, the site has attracted praise and critique in equal measure. Beyond its awe-inspiring 2-kilometer circumference—parts of which extend dramatically over the water—the structure has also drawn concerns, including questions about health & safety, extreme heat, and swarms of insects that may affect the visitor experience.

Bauhaus Earth Transforms Disused Car Park into Bamboo Community Pavilion in Bali, Indonesia

Antonia Piñeiro — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 05:30:00 +0000

Bauhaus Earth is a Berlin-based non-profit organization working toward a systemic transformation of the built environment. Its mission includes transitioning to bio- and geo-based materials, reusing existing buildings, and restoring ecosystems. Together with the Bamboo Village Trust, a philanthropic financial vehicle, and Kota Kita, a participatory urban design organization, Bauhaus Earth has developed BaleBio, a bamboo pavilion designed by Cave Urban and rising above Mertasari Beach in Denpasar, Bali. The pavilion transforms a disused car park into an open community meeting space, offering a counterpoint to the city's tourism-driven coastal development. Designed as a regenerative building, BaleBio stores carbon instead of emitting it, challenging the extractive construction model that is replacing traditional wood and bamboo craftsmanship with concrete structures across the island.

The Latvian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale Invites Critical Dialogue on the Spatial Impact of Conflict

Antonia Piñeiro — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 06:30:00 +0000

The Latvian Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, commissioned by Jānis Dripe and curated by Liene Jākobsone and Ilka Ruby, explores the impact of military defense on the country's border landscape. The exhibition was designed by SAMPLING and Nomad Architects to highlight how geopolitical tensions shape both territory and daily life. In times of escalating international warfare, the curatorial team poses the question of what it means to live on NATO's external border in times of geopolitical conflict.

CRA–Carlo Ratti Associati Designs Self-Sufficient Bivouac Pavilion for the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics

Antonia Piñeiro — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 04:30:00 +0000

CRA–Carlo Ratti Associati, in collaboration with Salone del Mobile.Milano, recently unveiled the design of a digitally fabricated bivouac set to debut as an urban pavilion during the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan. The digitally fabricated wooden structure is designed to be self-sufficient, incorporating systems for energy production and storage, as well as water harvesting through air condensation. After its debut at Milano Cortina 2026, the structure is planned to be airlifted by helicopter to its permanent high-altitude location in the Italian Alps, where it will serve as a refuge for mountaineers.

The Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Reimagines the City-State as a Dining Table

Antonia Piñeiro — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 05:30:00 +0000

2025 marks the 60th anniversary of Singapore's independence, commemorating its separation from Malaysia on August 9, 1965. The occasion is celebrated in the country's national pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale with a multisensory installation that honors Singapore's diversity and reimagines city-making through food, culture, and collective design. Titled RASA–TABULA–SINGAPURA, the installation invites visitors to take a seat at the Table of Superdiversity: an enticing reimagining of city-making and nation-building through the universal act of dining. According to the curatorial team from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), the purpose of the installation is to showcase how the convergence of multicultural differences, collective histories, design, and new technology creates opportunities for more inclusive and adaptive urban futures.

Expo Osaka 2025 Concludes After Six Months of Discussions on Saving, Empowering, and Connecting Lives

Antonia Piñeiro — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 05:30:00 +0000

Monday, October 13th, marked the conclusion of Expo Osaka 2025. The exhibition gathered representatives from 165 countries and international organizations and welcomed around 28 million visitors to Yumeshima, a reclaimed site in Osaka Bay. The site was reimagined through a masterplan and bounded by a Guinness World Record-breaking wooden circular structure, both designed by Sou Fujimoto Architects. Over 184 days, participants were able to visit the self-built, modular, and shared pavilions, national exhibitions, and public activities organized under the overarching theme "Designing Future Society for Our Lives." During its six-month run, the Expo set out to explore three pivotal subthemes, Saving Lives, Empowering Lives, and Connecting Lives, as an invitation to bring together new perspectives for our built and social ecosystem.

Lina Ghotmeh’s Bahrain Pavilion Wins Gold Award for Best Architecture and Landscape at Expo 2025 Osaka

Reyyan Dogan — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 06:30:00 +0000

The Kingdom of Bahrain's Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka, designed by Lina Ghotmeh – Architecture, titled "Connecting Seas," has been awarded the Gold Award for Best Architecture and Landscape in the self-built pavilions under 1,500 square meters category. Presented by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the award recognizes architectural excellence in spatial design, creativity, and sustainability. The announcement was made at an official award ceremony in Osaka, Japan, attended by commissioners general and representatives from participating nations. Commissioned by the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities (BACA), this marks the country's fourth participation in a World Expo and reflects an ongoing commitment to expressing national identity through architecture and cultural dialogue.

12 Pavilions at EXPO 2025 Osaka Highlight Immersive Spatial Experiences

Enrique Tovar — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 06:45:00 +0000

Since its inauguration this spring, Expo 2025 Osaka has captured global attention from multiple perspectives, demonstrating how architecture can function as a laboratory for exploring solutions to pressing challenges. After 55 years, Osaka is once again hosting the World Expo, with each installation organized around the sub-themes Saving Lives, Empowering Lives, and Connecting Lives. These pavilions take forms that express the identity and values of their region through distinctive architectural languages, forming the central axis of their design. Building on this foundation, some installations serve as laboratories for the future society, utilizing technology to enhance experiences both inside and outside the spaces, transforming the visit through light, sound, visuals, and movement as part of the technological innovation showcased at the event.

The Brazilian Pavilion Examines the Amazon’s Ancestral Infrastructures at the 2025 Venice Biennale

Nour Fakharany — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 05:30:00 +0000

The Brazilian Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, open since May 10, 2025, is curated by Plano Coletivo, a group formed by architects Luciana Saboia, Eder Alencar, and Matheus Seco. Titled "(RE)INVENTION," the exhibition represents Brazil through a multidisciplinary approach that connects architecture, nature, and social infrastructure. Presented at the Giardini pavilion, the project is organized by the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo in collaboration with Brazil's Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The exhibition reflects on the recent archaeological discovery of ancestral infrastructure in the Amazon to examine the socio-environmental contradictions of contemporary cities. It invites visitors to learn from ancestral knowledge and explore the interdependence between humans, land, and nature as a foundation for more sustainable futures.

The Korean Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Biennale Marks 30 Years with “Little Toad, Little Toad: Unbuilding Pavilion”

Reyyan Dogan — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 06:30:00 +0000

The Korean Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia marks its 30th anniversary with "Little Toad, Little Toad: Unbuilding Pavilion," an exhibition commissioned by Arts Council Korea (ARKO) and curated by Curating Architecture Collective (CAC), composed of Chung Dahyoung, Kim Heejung, and Jung Sungkyu. Bringing together architects and artists Kim Hyunjong, Heechan Park, Young Yena, and Lee Dammy, the exhibition critically revisits the pavilion as both a physical structure and a symbolic space, tracing its trajectory since its completion in 1995 while speculating on its possible futures.