Submitted by WA ContentsThe Austrian Pavilion will explore theme "Agency for Better Living" at 2025 Venice Biennale Austria Architecture News - Jan 30, 2025 - 15:50 html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"The Austrian Pavilion has unveiled the theme for its exhibition at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy. Titled "Agency for Better Living," the exhibition will explore affordable housing, starting with the cities of Vienna and Rome.Curated by Sabine Pollak, Michael Obrist, and Lorenzo Romito, the curators will pose these questions that affect all of us: What defines good housing and a good living environment? What political framework do we need in order to create them? How can we design socially equitable, affordable housing? And what strategies lead to the best results?.Starting with the cities of Vienna and Rome, they are comparing the bottom-up self-organization strategies that civic society in Rome pursues with the top-down social housing model in Vienna. The curators want to know what an unofficial activist approach and a system that is organized at the national or local level may learn from each other. The Austrian Pavilion will thus develop into a venue for information exchange regarding how to make life better for everyone.Curators Lorenzo Romito, Sabine Pollak und Michael Obrist. Image Michael ObexThe world's housing supply is under pressure due to extremely potent displacement mechanisms brought on by the confluence of massive financial flows and the profound changes in our culture. A new political component is being added to the fundamental right to a house.Housing has long been seen in Vienna as a socio-emancipatory issue in addition to a strictly practical one. This international interest in the Austrian model serves as the foundation for the Austrian Biennale participation. It connects two opposing "mythical" narratives about how we would like to coexist in the future: the history of the top-down, successful national or municipally organized model, which is illustrated by a century of Vienna's social housing design; and the history of informal housing, which is a bottom-up model that utilizes incomplete or abandoned buildings and former infrastructure.The City of Rome, an urban laboratory where responses to today's significant displacements take the form of creative interventions and civil resistance, serves as an example from Italy, the host nation of the Biennale.The pavilion will provide a discussion space in addition to the exhibition. The courtyard will transform into a user-friendly venue for a variety of event formats that will focus on Better Living opportunities and tactics throughout the Biennale. In Vienna, Rome, or any other city, visitors to the Biennale will encounter activists, locals, experts, and anybody else interested in bettering housing and living conditions.Communal swimming pool, Alterlaa, Vienna. Image Zara PfeiferPresentations, discussions, and workshops will cover a variety of topics, including the economics, migration, nature, climate, tourism, and many more, twice a month on Fridays or Saturdays from June to October.Participants will include visitors to the pavilion, actors from a variety of specialized fields, and students from summer schools and international institutions. A key component of the pavilion's overall layout is the courtyard. It will develop into a location where visitors are inspired to take a short break, exchange knowledge, and exchange concepts for Better Living. And in the symmetrically designed areas to the left and right of the pavilion's main entrance, some of the most recent instances of housing problems in Vienna and Rome will be discussed and presented in a variety of media.The discursive courtyard space, the idea of learning from two systems, and the processing of the concerns all fit with the Biennale's overall theme, Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. Artificial and natural. group. In order to create future models for Better Living, the specific objective is to integrate a broad variety of knowledge and experiencenot just from Vienna and Rome, but from as many of the towns, organizations, and players that are involved in the Biennale as possible."We want to use the Biennale to share knowledge about the two systems in Vienna and Rome with as many other people as possible in the spirit of Intelligens. The exhibition forms the basis for a discussion of potential futures for a Better Living that will hopefully be maintained long after the Biennale has ended. One of the tasks of the Agency will be to ensure that this discussion continues," said Sabine Pollak, Michael Obrist and Lorenzo Romito.Protests at Lago Bullicante / Ex-SNIA, Rome, 2021. Image Pierre Kattar"With their contribution on the housing question, the curators are devoting themselves to a subject of urgent socio-political relevance. By comparing Viennas social housing model with the bottom-up practices in Rome, they are opening up a range of perspectives and potential approaches to the development of affordable housing, which is coming under increasing pressure due to phenomena such as gentrification," said Elias Molitschnig, Commissioner of the Austrian Contribution to the Biennale Architettura 2025 / Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport."By integrating workshops, lectures, and interactive formats, the Austrian pavilion will become a dynamic place of knowledge sharing, in which questions of social justice, political responsibility, and sustainable urban development can be addressed across national boundaries," Molitschnig added.Under the title Agency for Better Living, the German architecture and urbanism magazine ARCH+, which is renowned for defining the debate, is dedicating a special edition (with a print run of 10,000) to the Austrian Pavilion.The magazine will be published in both German and English.Community Room, Spin Time Lab, Rome. Image Zara PfeiferThe 19th International Architecture Exhibition will take place from 10 May to 23 November 2025 at the Giardini, the Arsenale and various venues in Venice, Italy. The exhibition is curated by Carlo Ratti who announced the theme as "Titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective."The title has ambient meanings in English and Italian, addressing modern term "intelligence", and expands into a broader context that includes "art, engineering, biology, data science, social and political sciences."The top image in the article: Helmut-Zilk-Park at Sonnwendviertel, Vienna. Image Paul Sebesta.> via art:phalanx