Golden Lion: The Latest Architecture and News

Architect Andrea Faraguna is the curator of the Kingdom of Bahrain's national pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale. The exhibition, titled Heatwave, is a site-specific installation that explores passive cooling strategies for public spaces, inspired by Bahrain's traditional architecture and reimagined through contemporary approaches. Its technical response to the global challenge of rising urban temperatures was recognized by the Biennale's international jury, which awarded it this year's Golden Lion for Best National Participation. While on site in Venice, ArchDaily's editors had a chance to discuss with curator Andrea Faraguna about the context that gave rise to the pavilion, the mechanisms put in place, and his perspective on events such as the Venice Architecture Biennale.

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The 19th edition of one of the world's most renowned architectural events opens to the public this week. The 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. and curated by Carlo Ratti, will run from Saturday, May 10, to Sunday, November 23, 2025. This year's edition stands out for both its scale and its expanded range of venues, partly due to the ongoing renovation of traditional sites such as the Central Pavilion in the Giardini. The event is set to transform Venice into what the curator describes as "a living laboratory."

The inauguration ceremony, to be held on May 10, will also feature the announcement of the official awards by the International Jury, chaired by Hans Ulrich Obrist and composed of Paola Antonelli and Mpho Matsipa. On this occasion, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement will be presented to philosopher Donna Haraway, while the Special Golden Lion in Memoriam will honor the late architect Italo Rota. Alongside the international exhibition, national participations and a broad range of special events will explore the Biennale's invitation, making this one of the most extensive architecture exhibitions in the Biennale's history.

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The 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia opens in less than two weeks, on May 10, 2025, and will remain open to the public until November 23. On the day of the opening, the official Awards Ceremony will take place, during which a selected international jury will confer several official prizes, including the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. The recently announced jury includes South African architect, lecturer, and curator Mpho Matsipa; Italian curator Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator and Director of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York; and Swiss curator, critic, and art historian Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director of the Serpentine in London, who will serve as President of the Jury.

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The 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, titled The Laboratory of the Future, will hold its official inauguration on Saturday, May 20^th, and will remain open to the public until November 26^th, 2023. The pre-opening events happening on May 18^th and 19^th include the awards ceremony, during which an international jury led by Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli as president will award the official prizes: Golden Lion for best National Participation, Golden Lion for best participant, and Silver Lion for a promising young participant in the biennale. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement will be awarded to Demas Nwoko, Nigerian-born artist, designer, and architect, during the inauguration ceremony on May 20^th.

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Deliberated by the Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia and upon recommendation by Curator Lesley Lokko, the International Jury of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, which will open on the 20th of May 2023, and will run until the 26th of November, 2023, has been selected. The 2023 jury will include Italian architect and curator Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli as president, Palestinian architect and curator, Nora Akawi, American director and curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, Thelma Golden, South-African founder and co-editor of Cityscapes Magazine, Tau Tavengwa; and Polish Izabela Wieczorek, architect in Spain and a researcher and educator based in London.

The International Jury will award the "Golden Lion for Best National Participation", the "Golden Lion for the best participant in the International Exhibition The Laboratory of the Future", as well as the "Silver Lion for a promising young participant in the International Exhibition The Laboratory of the Future". The Jury may also award a maximum of one special mention to a National Participation, and a maximum of two special mentions to the participants in the International Exhibition The Laboratory of the Future. The announcements and awards ceremony will take place in Venice on Saturday, May 20th, 2023.

Nigerian-born artist, designer, and architect Demas Nwoko is the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 18^th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia entitled The Laboratory of the Future. The decision was taken at the recommendation of the exhibition curator, Lesley Lokko, and was approved by La Biennale’s Board of Directors chaired by Roberto Cicutto. The awards ceremony will be part of the inauguration of the 18^th Exhibition and will be held on May 20^th, 2023, at Ca’Giustinian, the headquarters of La Biennale di Venezia.

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The Board of Directors of the 2021 Venice Biennale has appointed Kazuyo Sejima as president of the international jury, in charge of awarding mainly the Golden Lion for Best National Participation, the Golden Lion for the Best participant, and the Silver Lion for a promising young participant. In addition, they have also selected four other jury members from Peru, Lebanon, Ghana-Scotland, and Italy. The Awards Ceremony will take place in Venice on Monday, August 30th, 2021.

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The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia was awarded to Spanish architect, educator, critic, and theoretician Rafael Moneo. Selected by the Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, upon recommendation of the Curator of the Biennale Architettura 2021, Hashim Sarkis, the acknowledgment will be awarded to the architect on Saturday, May 22nd, 2021 together with the Special Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in memoriam to Lina Bo Bardi.

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Lina Bo Bardi, one of the most important architects of Brazilian architecture, was selected as the recipient of the Special Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in memoriam of the Venice Biennale 2021 (also known as the Biennale Architettura 2021), which will open to the public on Saturday, May 22nd, 2021.

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As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage, we present the completed Swiss Pavilion. To read the initial proposal, refer to our previously published post, "Swiss Pavilion at 2018 Venice Biennale Celebrates Peculiar Form of Architectural Representation."

Honored by this year’s jury as the winner of the Golden Lion for best national participation, the Swiss Pavilion actively defies conventional representation while exploring a specific point of contact between architecture and society: the house tour.

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British architect, historian, critic and educator Kenneth Frampton has been announced as this year’s recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2018 Venice Biennale. The decision was made by the Board of The Venice Biennale chaired by Paolo Baratta, upon recommendation from the Biennale’s curators, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects.

Having studied at the Architectural Association in London, Frampton has taught at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, New York since 1972. He has also lectured at several leading institutions, including ETH Zurich, the Royal College of Art in London, and the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam. Perhaps his most influential work, “Modern Architecture: A Critical History,” was described by Biennale President Paulo Baratta as a book which “no student of the faculties of architecture is unfamiliar with.”

The Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, upon recommendation from Alejandro Aravena, have announced the jury for the forthcoming Venice Biennale who will award the Golden Lion for Best National Participation, the Golden Lion for Best Participant in the International Exhibition Reporting From the Front, and the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant in the International Exhibition Reporting From the Front. They will also have the opportunity to award one special mention to National Participations and two special mentions to the participants in the International Exhibition.