Venice Architecture Biennale 202318th International Architecture Exhibition.
Get to know the 17th and the 16th edition.

The Cyprus Pavilion at the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia has announced its exhibition. The pavilion will explore the first early settlements of the Cyprus Aceramic Neolitih Khirokitia, using these communities as a springboard to discuss social sustainability challenges in a humanistic and cultural framework. The display, curated by Petros Lapithis, Lia Lapithi, Nikos Kouroussis, and Ioanna Ioannou Xiari, is based on a foundation for a newly constructed environment that will be established on Mars.

ARCH+ and Summacumfemmer Büro Juliane Greb have been selected to curate the German pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia for their concept Open for Maintenance / Wegen Umbau geöffnet. Commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development, and Building, the pavilion is dedicated to exploring matters of care, repair, and maintenance. The concept also aims to shed light on contemporary debates over the existing building stock and the social practice of maintaining urban fabric. The 18th International Architecture Exhibition will be held from May 20th until November 26th, 2023.

The Polish pavilion will present Datament at the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The installation will allow visitors to experience data in its physical form. The core aim of the exhibition is to showcase how prevalent data has become, shaping the reality in which we live, create, and dwell. Created by Anna Barlik, Marcin Strzała and Jacek Sosnowski, Datament is the starting point for discussing how data and new technologies will play a crucial role in the future.

Japan's Pavilion has announced its exhibition “Architecture, a place to be loved – when architecture is seen as a living creature” curated by Maki Onishi, for the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Centered around our post-pandemic reality of faceless developments taking over cities globally, the intervention's main question explores how people can once more find amazement in architecture and joy in shared physical spaces.

The Danish Pavilion has announced Josephine Michau as the curator of the exhibition “Coastal Imaginaries” to represent Denmark at the 18^th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition highlights nature-based design solutions to alleviate global challenges like rising sea levels and storm floods. The team behind the exhibition represents a collaboration between the landscape architectural firm Schønherr and researchers, artists, Danish trade organizations, and scientific institutions. The selected subject aligns with the biennale’s overarching theme of Laboratory of the Future, running from May 20^th to November 26^th, 2023, in the Giardini, at the Arsenale, and at various locations around Venice.

At this year’s International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, the Australian Institute of Architects will present Unsettling Queenstown. Tackling themes of decolonization, the exhibition is a multi-faceted and multi-sensory installation. Creative directors Anthony Coupe, Julian Worrall, Emily Paech, Ali Gumillya Baker, and Sarah Rhode have curated this exhibition as a response to the overarching theme of the Biennale – "The Laboratory of the Future." Moreover, Unsettling Queenstown will encourage audiences to imagine the future and its possibilities.

For the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, the Bulgarian Pavilion will present the exhibition titled “Education is the movement from darkness to light.” Curators Boris Tikvarski, Bojidara Valkova, and Mariya Gyaurova, joined by Belgian photographer Alexander Dumarey, have chosen to focus the exhibition on the subject of depopulation, urban decline, and rural flight, expressed through the image of abandoned schools present in the country. The project was selected following a national competition organized by The Ministry of Culture, The Chamber of Architects in Bulgaria, and the Union of Architects.

At this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale 2023, the Hungarian Pavilion focuses on a new museum building in Budapest, the Museum of Ethnography. The Museum was designed by Marcel Ferencz (Napur Architect) and completed in 2022 as one of Europe’s most notable cultural and urban development programs, the Liget Budapest Project. The exhibition in Venice, titled "Reziduum – The Frequency of Architecture" and curated by Mária Kondor-Szilágyi, will present the museum's collection through the digital medium. A short animated film titled Ethnozoom and an interactive computer program, the MotifCreator, will allow visitors to become familiar with Hungarian traditions and create their own motif compositions, thus contributing to worldwide community creation. The Hungarian Pavilion will showcase works by architect Marcel Ferencz, architect and composer Péter Mátrai, architect Judit Z. Halmágyi and light designer Ferenc Haász.

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.

The Republic of Kosovo will present Transcendent Locality at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, exploring the significant role migration plays in the social development of Kosovo. The pavilion also dives into the migratory process and its different phases, including returning home after migration: temporary, seasonal, or permanent. However, at its core, it celebrates the connections to the Homeland and its relationship to the Host Land. The Pavilion poses that trans locality, connected to more than one place simultaneously, has become a prevalent model of life. In fact, maintaining the connections between the Host land and Homeland should become a form of communication, transfer of knowledge, information, and material and immaterial goods.

The Chilean Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage selected architect Gonzalo Carrasco and Beals Lyon Arquitectos as curators of the Chilean pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2023 with their proposal themed "Moving Ecologies" ("Ecologías en Movimiento").

The Estonian Centre for Architecture has chosen the exhibition “Home Stage,” curated by Aet Ader, Arvi Anderson, Mari Möldre of b210 Architects, to represent the Pavilion of Estonia at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Hosted in a rental apartment close to the rear exit of the Arsenale complex, the exhibition explores the contradiction between the living place as a home and as an exchange value. Various Estonian performers will each spend a month in the Venetian rental apartment, which will become both a home and a stage. The exhibition will be open from May 20 to November 26, 2023.

On May 20th, 2023, the entire architecture world will turn its attention to Venice for the opening of the 18th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale. Ever since the appointment of Lesley Lokko as curator of the international exhibition, ArchDaily has covered all the details of the Biennale, but some frequently asked questions about the event remain unanswered.

In this edition of the 2023 Venice Biennale, the Korean Pavilion, curated by artistic Directors Soik Jung and Kyong Park, presents “2086: Together How?” bringing together architects, community leaders, and artists to explore how people can cooperate in withstanding the current and future environmental crisis until 2086 when the global population is said to the peak. The exhibition invites visitors to imagine an eco-cultural revolution by critically reassessing the world's capitalist, globalist, and colonial history. The viewers will be encouraged to reconsider current conditions through a participatory video game and a series of multidisciplinary installations that include photographs, drawings, models, videos, and architectural installations.

Since 1998, the Venice Architecture Biennale has been divided into three pillars: the national pavilions (each country chooses its own curators and projects), the international exhibition (curated by the Biennale's curator), and the collateral events (approved by the Biennale's curator).

Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira was chosen by the Holy See to create the installation that will represent it at the Venice Architecture Biennale, which will take place between May 20 and November 26, 2023. In collaboration with Studio Albori from Italy, the pavilion of the Vatican, curated by Roberto Cremascoli, will be dedicated to the theme of social friendship. This is in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the pontificate of Pope Francis.

The Diversity in Architecture Award (DIVIA) has selected its 5 finalists, from a list of 29 nominees: Tosin Oshinowo (Nigeria), May al-Ibrashy (Egypt), Marta Maccaglia (Peru), Noella Nibakuze (Rwanda), and Katherine Clarke and Liza Fior (UK). The prize, dedicated to women architects, celebrates female figures by awarding and validating their work. Based in Berlin, the award platform promotes equality between men and women, making the discipline observable to all, and setting an example for the next generation of younger women architects.

At the 2023 Biennale Architettura, Finland's Pavilion will present its exhibition Huussi, Imagining the Future History of Sanitation, which deals with the architecture of water and nutrient circulation, questioning the water toilet and Its implications for the future. "Huussi" is the Finnish word for an outhouse, a small compost toilet commonly used by Finns in rural settings and holiday homes. The exhibition, curated by Arja Renell and The Dry Collective, a group of Finnish architects, presents this typology as a starting point to finding alternative solutions to managing wastewater, inspiring professionals to start envisioning new sanitation solutions. At the core of the presentation, the exhibition questions the consequences of waste in the context of the current climate crisis the world is going through.