This edition of the Venice Biennale includes 65 national pavilions, 11 collateral events, and over 750 participants in the international exhibition curated by Italian architect and engineer Carlo Ratti. Entitled Intelligens: Natural Artificial Collective, its stated aim is to make Venice a ‘living laboratory’. But Ratti’s exhibition in the Arsenale has been hit by mixed reviews. The AJ’s Rob Wilson described it as ‘a bit of a confusing mess’, while other media outlets have called the robot-heavy exhibit of future-facing building-focused solutions to the climate crisis a ‘tech-bro fever dream’ and a ‘mind-boggling rollercoaster’ to mention a few. It is a distinct shift away from the biennale of two years ago twhen Ghanaian-Scottish architect Lesley Lokko curated the main exhibitions, including 89 participants – of which more than half were from Africa or the African diaspora – in a convincing reset of the architectural conversation.Advertisement This year’s National Pavilions and collateral exhibits, by contrast, have tackled the largest themes in architecture and the world right now in a less constrained way than the main exhibitions. The exhibits are radical and work as a useful gauge for understanding what’s important in each country: decarbonisation, climate resilience, the reconstruction of Gaza, and an issue more prevalent in politics closer to home: gender wars. What's not to miss in the Giardini? British Pavilion (photography: Chris Lane) UK Pavilion The British Pavilion this year, which won a special mention from the Venetian jury, is housing a show by a British-Kenyan collab titled GBR – Geology of Britannic Repair. In it, the curators explore the links between colonialism, the built environment and geological extraction. Focusing on the Rift Valley, which runs from east Africa to the Middle East, including Palestine, the exhibition was curated by the Nairobi-based studio cave_bureau, UK-based curator, writer and Farrell Centre director Owen Hopkins and Queen Mary University professor Kathryn Yusoff. The pavilion’s façade is cloaked by a beaded veil of agricultural waste briquettes and clay and glass beads, produced in Kenya and India, echoing both Maasai practices and beads once made on Venice’s Murano, as currency for the exchange of metals, minerals and slaves. The pavilion’s six gallery spaces include multisensory installations such as the Earth Compass, a series of celestial maps connecting London and Nairobi; the Rift Room, tracing one of humans’ earliest migration routes; and the Shimoni Slave Cave, featuring a large-scale bronze cast of a valley cave historically used as a holding pen for enslaved people.Advertisement The show also includes Objects of Repair, a project by design-led research group Palestine Regeneration Team (PART), looking at how salvaged materials could help rebuild war-torn Gaza, the only exhibit anywhere in the Biennale that tackled the reconstruction of Gaza face-on – doing so impressively, both politically and sensitively. Read more here. Danish Pavilion (photography: Hampus Berndtson) Demark Pavilion A firm favourite by most this year, the Danish exhibition Build of Site, curated by Søren Pihlmann of Pihlmann Architects, transforms the pavilion, which requires renovation anyway, into both a renovation site and archive of materials. Clever, simple and very methodical, the building is being both renewed while at the same time showcasing innovative methods to reuse surplus materials uncovered during the construction process – as an alternative to using new resources to build a temporary exhibition. The renovation of the 1950s Peter Koch-designed section of the pavilion began in December 2024 and will be completed following the biennale, having been suspended for its duration. On display are archetypal elements including podiums, ramps, benches and tables – all constructed from the surplus materials unearthed during the renovation, such as wood, limestone, concrete, stone, sand, silt and clay. Belgian Pavilion (photography: Michiel De Cleene) Belgium Pavilion If you need a relaxing break from the intensity of the biennale, then the oldest national pavilion in the Giardini is the one for you. Belgium’s Building Biospheres: A New Alliance between Nature and Architecture brings ‘plant intelligence’ to the fore. Commissioned by the Flanders Architecture Institute and curated by landscape architect Bas Smets and neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso, the exhibit investigates how the natural ‘intelligence’ of plants can be used to produce an indoor climate – elevating the role of landscape design and calling for it to no longer serve as a backdrop for architecture. Inside, more than 200 plants occupy the central area beneath the skylight, becoming the pavilion’s centrepiece, with the rear space visualising ‘real-time’ data on the prototype’s climate control performance. Spanish Pavilion (photography: Luca Capuano) Spain Pavilion One for the pure architecture lovers out there, models (32!), installations, photographs and timber structures fill the Spanish Pavilion in abundance. Neatly curated by architects Roi Salgueiro Barrio and Manuel Bouzas Barcala, Internalities shows a series of existing and research projects that have contributed to decarbonising construction in Spain. The outcome? An extensive collection of work exploring the use of very local and very specific regenerative and low-carbon construction and materials – including stone, wood and soil. The joy of this pavilion comes from the 16 beautiful timber frames constructed from wood from communal forests in Galicia. Polish Pavilion (photography: Luca Capuano) Poland Pavilion Poland’s pavilion was like Marmite this year. Some loved its playful approach while others found it silly. Lares and Penates, taking its name from ancient Roman deities of protection, has been curated by Aleksandra Kędziorek and looks at what it means and takes to have a sense of security in architecture. Speaking to many different anxieties, it refers to the unspoken assumption of treating architecture as a safe haven against the elements, catastrophes and wars – showcasing and elevating the mundane solutions and signage derived from building, fire and health regulations. The highlight? An ornate niche decorated with tiles and stones just for … a fire extinguisher. Dutch Pavilion (photography: Cristiano Corte) Netherlands Pavilion Punchy and straight to the point, SIDELINED: A Space to Rethink Togetherness takes sports as a lens for looking at how spatial design can both reveal and disrupt the often-exclusionary dynamics of everyday environments. Within the pavilion, the exhibit looks beyond the large-scale arena of the stadium and gymnasium to investigate the more localised and intimate context of the sports bar, as well as three alternative sports – a site of both social production and identity formation – as a metaphor for uniting diverse communities. The pavilion-turned-sports bar, designed by Koos Breen and Jeannette Slütter and inspired by Asger Jorn’s three-sided sports field, is a space for fluidity and experimentation where binary oppositions, social hierarchies and cultural values are contested and reshaped – complete with jerseys and football scarfs (currently a must-have fashion item) worn by players in the alternative Anonymous Allyship aligning the walls. Read Derin Fadina’s review for the AJ here. Performance inside the Nordic Countries Pavilion (photography: Venla Helenius) Nordic Countries Pavilion Probably the most impactful national pavilion this year (and with the best tote bag by far), the Nordic Countries have presented an installation with performance work. Curated by Kaisa Karvinen, Industry Muscle: Five Scores for Architecture continues Finnish artist Teo Ala-Ruona’s work on trans embodiment and ecology by considering the trans body as a lens through which to examine modern architecture and the built environment. The three-day exhibition opening featured a two-hour performance each day with Ala-Ruona and his troupe crawling, climbing and writhing around the space, creating a bodily dialogue with the installations and pavilion building itself, which was designed by celebrated Modernist architect Sverre Fehn. The American pavilion next door, loudly (country music!) turns its back on what’s going on in its own country by just celebrating the apathetical porch, making the Nordic Countries seem even more relevant in this crucial time. Read Derin Fadina’s review for the AJ here. German Pavilion (photography: Luca Capuano) Germany Pavilion An exhibit certainly grabbing the issue of climate change by its neck is the German contribution, Stresstest. Curated by Nicola Borgmann, Elisabeth Endres, Gabriele G Kiefer and Daniele Santucci, the pavilion has turned climate change into a literal physical and psychological experience for visitors by creating contrasting ‘stress’ and ‘de-stress’ rooms. In the dark stress room, a large metal sculpture creates a cramped and hot space using heating mats hung from the ceiling and powered by PVs. Opposite is a calmer space demonstrating strategies that could be used to reduce the heat of cities, and between the two spaces is a film focusing on the impacts of cities becoming hotter. If this doesn’t highlight the urgency of the situation, I’m not sure what will. Best bits of the Arsenale outside the main exhibitions Bahrain Pavilion (photography: Andrea Avezzù) Bahrain Pavilion Overall winner of this year’s Golden Lion for best national participation, Bahrain’s pavilion in the historic Artiglierie of the Arsenale is a proposal for living and working through heat conditions. Heatwave, curated by architect Andrea Faraguna, reimagines public space design by exploring passive cooling strategies rooted in the Arab country’s climate, as well as cultural context. A geothermal well and solar chimney are connected through a thermo-hygrometric axis that links underground conditions with the air outside. The inhabitable space that hosts visitors is thus compressed and defined by its earth-covered floor and suspended ceiling, and is surrounded by memorable sandbags, highlighting its scalability for particularly hot construction sites in the Gulf where a huge amount of construction is taking place. In the Arsenale’s exhibition space, where excavation wasn’t feasible, this system has been adapted into mechanical ventilation, bringing in air from the canal side and channelling it through ductwork to create a microclimate. Slovenian Pavilion (photography: Andrea Avezzù) Slovenia Pavilion The AJ’s Rob Wilson’s top pavilion tip this year provides an enjoyable take on the theme of the main exhibition, highlighting how the tacit knowledge and on-site techniques and skills of construction workers and craftspeople are still the key constituent in architectural production despite all the heat and light about robotics, prefabrication, artificial intelligence and 3D printing. Master Builders, curated by Ana Kosi and Ognen Arsov and organised by the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) in Ljubljana, presents a series of ‘totems’ –accumulative sculpture-like structures that are formed of conglomerations of differently worked materials, finishes and building elements. These are stacked up into crazy tower forms, which showcase various on-site construction skills and techniques, their construction documented in accompanying films. Uzbekistan Pavilion (photography: Luca Capuano) Uzbekistan Pavilion Uzbekistan’s contribution explores the Soviet era solar furnace and Modernist legacy. Architecture studio GRACE, led by curators Ekaterina Golovatyuk and Giacomo Cantoni have curated A Matter of Radiance. The focus is the Sun Institute of Material Science – originally known as the Sun Heliocomplex – an incredible large-scale scientific structure built in 1987 on a natural, seismic-free foundation near Tashkent and one of only two that study material behaviour under extreme temperatures. The exhibition examines the solar oven’s site’s historical and contemporary significance while reflecting on its scientific legacy and influence moving beyond just national borders. Applied Arts Pavilion (photography: Andrea Avezzù) V&A Applied Arts Pavilion Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) is having a moment. The US-based practice, in collaboration with V&A chief curator Brendan Cormier, has curated On Storage, which aptly explores global storage architectures in a pavilion that strongly links to the V&A’s recent opening of Storehouse, its new (and free) collections archive in east London. Featured is a six-channel (and screen) film entitled Boxed: The Mild Boredom of Order, directed by the practice itself and following a toothbrush, as a metaphor for an everyday consumer product, on its journey through different forms of storage across the globe – from warehouse to distribution centre to baggage handlers down to the compact space of a suitcase. Also on display are large-format photographs of V&A East Storehouse, DS+R’s original architectural model and sketchbook and behind-the-scenes photography of Storehouse at work, taken by emerging east London-based photographers. Canal Café (photography: Marco Zorzanello) Canal café Golden Lion for the best participation in the actual exhibition went to Canal Café, an intervention designed by V&A East Storehouse’s architect DS+R with Natural Systems Utilities, SODAI, Aaron Betsky and Davide Oldani. Serving up canal-water espresso, the installation is a demonstration of how Venice itself can be a laboratory to understand how to live on the water in a time of water scarcity. The structure, located on the edge of the Arsenale’s building complex, draws water from its lagoon before filtering it onsite via a hybrid of natural and artificial methods, including a mini wetland with grasses. The project was recognised for its persistence, having started almost 20 years ago, just showing how water scarcity, contamination and flooding are still major concerns both globally and, more locally, in the tourist-heavy city of Venice. And what else? Holy See Pavilion (photography: Andrea Avezzù) The Holy See Much like the Danish Pavilion, the Pavilion of the Holy See is also taking on an approach of renewal this year. Over the next six months, Opera Aperta will breathe new life into the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice Complex in the Castello district of Venice. Founded as a hospice for pilgrims in 1171, the building later became the oldest hospital and was converted into school in the 18th century. In 2001, the City of Venice allocated it for cultural use and for the next four years it will be managed by the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See to oversee its restoration. Curated by architect, curator and researcher Marina Otero Verzier and artistic director of Fondaco Italia, Giovanna Zabotti, the complex has been turned into a constant ‘living laboratory’ of collective repair – and received a special mention in the biennale awards. The restoration works, open from Tuesday to Friday, are being carried out by local artisans and specialised restorers with expertise in recovering stone, marble, terracotta, mural and canvas painting, stucco, wood and metal artworks. The beauty, however, lies in the photogenic fabrics, lit by a warm yellow glow, hanging from the walls within, gently wrapping the building’s surfaces, leaving openings that allow movement and offer glimpses of the ongoing restoration. Mobile scaffolding, used to support the works, also doubles up as furniture, providing space for equipment and subdividing the interior. Togo Pavilion (photography: Andrea Avezzù) Togo Pavilion The Republic of Togo has presented its first pavilion ever at the biennale this year with the project Considering Togo’s Architectural Heritage, which sits intriguingly at the back of a second-hand furniture shop. The inaugural pavilion is curated by Lomé and Berlin-based Studio NEiDA and is in Venice’s Squero Castello. Exploring Togo’s architectural narratives from the early 20th century, and key ongoing restoration efforts, it documents key examples of the west African country’s heritage, highlighting both traditional and more modern building techniques – from Nôk cave dwellings to Afro-Brazilian architecture developed by freed slaves to post-independence Modernist buildings. Some buildings showcased are in disrepair, despite most of the modern structures remaining in use today, including Hotel de la Paix and the Bourse du Travail, suggestive of a future of repair and celebration. Estonian Pavilion (photography: Joosep Kivimäe) Estonia Pavilion Another firm favourite this year is the Estonian exhibition on Riva dei Sette Martiri on the waterfront between Corso Garibaldi and the Giardini.  The Guardian’s Olly Wainwright said that outside the Giardini, it packed ‘the most powerful punch of all.’ Simple and effective, Let Me Warm You, curated by trio of architects Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva and Helena Männa, asks whether current insulation-driven renovations are merely a ‘checkbox’ to meet European energy targets or ‘a real chance’ to enhance the spatial and social quality of mass housing. The façade of the historic Venetian palazzetto in which it is housed is clad with fibre-cement insulation panels in the same process used in Estonia itself for its mass housing – a powerful visual statement showcasing a problematic disregard for the character and potential of typical habitable spaces. Inside, the ground floor is wrapped in plastic and exhibits how the dynamics between different stakeholders influence spatial solutions, including named stickers to encourage discussion among your peers. Venice Procuratie (photography: Mike Merkenschlager) SMAC (San Marco Art Centre) Timed to open to the public at the same time as the biennale, SMAC is a new permanent arts institution in Piazza San Marco, on the second floor of the Procuratie, which is owned by Generali. The exhibition space, open to the public for the first time in 500 years, comprises 16 galleries arranged along a continuous corridor stretching over 80m, recently restored by David Chipperfield Architects. Visitors can expect access through a private courtyard leading on to a monumental staircase and experience a typically sensitive Chipperfield restoration, which has revived the building’s original details: walls covered in a light grey Venetian marmorino made from crushed marble and floors of white terrazzo. During the summer, its inaugural programme features two solo exhibitions dedicated to Australian modern architect Harry Seidler and Korean landscape designer Jung Youngsun. Holcim's installation (photography: Celestia Studio) Holcim x Elemental Concrete manufacturer Holcim makes an appearance for a third time at Venice, this time partnering with Chilean Pritzker Prize-winning Alejandro Aravena’s practice Elemental – curator of the 2016 biennale – to launch a resilient housing prototype that follows on from the Norman Foster-designed Essential Homes Project. The ‘carbon-neutral’ structure incorporates Holcim’s range of low-carbon concrete ECOPact and is on display as part of the Time Space Existence exhibition organised by the European Cultural Centre in their gardens. It also applies Holcim’s ‘biochar’ technology for the first time, a concrete mix with 100 per cent recycled aggregates, in a full-scale Basic Services Unit. This follows an incremental design approach, which could entail fast and efficient construction via the provision of only essential housing components, and via self-build. The Next Earth at Palazzo Diedo (photography: Joan Porcel) The Next Earth At Palazzo Diedo’s incredible dedicated Berggruen Arts and Culture space, MIT’s department of architecture and think tank Antikythera (apparently taking its name from the first-known computer) have come together to create the exhibition The Next Earth: Computation, Crisis, Cosmology, which questions how philosophy and architecture must and can respond to various planet-wide crises. Antikythera’s The Noocene: Computation and Cosmology from Antikythera to AI looks at the evolution of ‘planetary computation’ as an ‘accidental’ megastructure through which systems, from the molecular to atmospheric scales, become both comprehensible and composable. What is actually on display is an architectural scale video monolith and short films on AI, astronomy and artificial life, as well as selected artefacts. MIT’s Climate Work: Un/Worlding the Planet features 37 works-in-progress, each looking at material supply chains, energy expenditure, modes of practice and deep-time perspectives. Take from it what you will. The 19th International Venice Architecture Biennale remains open until Sunday, 23 November 2025.

Ever dreamt of wandering through the vast collections of a major museum in its rawest presentation — the storage warehouse? London's new V&A East Storehouse destination attempts to offer visitors an akin experience when it officially opens this Saturday, May 31st. Photo: Hufton+Crow, courtesy V&ADesigned by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the facility is both a working store and public attraction, built to house over 250,000 objects, 350,000 books, and 1,000 archives in a four-story building that spans over 173,000 square feet. Photo: Hufton+Crow, courtesy V&AThe collection includes works from an eclectic range of disciplines and time periods, from ancient Egyptian footwear through medieval art to Mid-Century furniture and contemporary avant-garde fashion items.  Photo: Hufton+Crow, courtesy V&ASix large-scale objects will be on display for the first time after spending decades in the hidden kind of storage, such as Frank Lloyd Wright's unique 1930s Kaufmann Office interior, a full-scale...

At the entrance to Victoria and Albert Museum’s (V&A) historic home in South Kensington, wide stone steps rise toward an ornate facade of carved Portland stone, with heavy wooden doors set beneath an archway that declares culture as cathedral. It’s built to inspire, yes, but also to intimidate—to display the spoils of a national collection shaped by colonial reach. On the other side of London, the same institution has opened its doors to V&A East Storehouse, with access to over 250,000 objects. The facility designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) transforms the obscure world of museum storage into a public experience of collecting, conserving, and storytelling. Like the South Kensington museum, Storehouse also leaves its imprint, inspiring wonder at a moment when public trust in cultural space feels so thin. As Tim Reeve, deputy director of the V&A, put it: “Creative industries are one of the very few success stories of the UK economy.” That creativity is being unpacked. V&A East Storehouse is located inside the London 2012 Olympics Media Centre. (© Hufton+Crow) The 262-by-262-foot (80-by-80-meter) cultural warehouse—once the London 2012 Olympics Media Centre—now welcomes visitors through a plain, functional entrance. Its galvanized steel doors are a modest update on the flexible shell designed by Hawkins\Brown. A plain, functional lobby hosts a new outpost of e5 Bakehouse, softened by new plywood interiors by Thomas Randall-Page. Upstairs, into a brief airlock, and onto a narrow walkway lined with classical busts in crates and on palettes, as if not fully unpacked, you glimpse the ladders, forklifts and shelving below, before you are shot into the dramatic central atrium—a towering scaffold of steel walkways and shelving. The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is a place still learning what it wants to be. A surplus of sports venues and a scatter of freshly minted towers jostle for identity, and somehow, the V&A opening up its innards fits right in. Storehouse isn’t a museum—there are no labels, no curation, no interpretation. It’s a working storage facility, a peek behind the curtain. Instruments hang beside rows of chairs, statues stand among ceramics, building fragments, archival boxes, and garments—some visible, others swaddled after reaching their “light quota.” It’s a new idea for museum storage, one that began in Rotterdam in 2021 with MVRDV’s Depot and is put on steroids here, but DS+R are not new to shifting paradigms. “It’s an idea whose time has come,” said architect Liz Diller. She notes that the firm’s work on the High Line has been used—perhaps overused—as a reference point ever since it opened: “It becomes a kind of model for others. I think people will interpret the idea in their own ways,” she added. The central atrium is a towering scaffold of steel walkways and shelving. (© Hufton+Crow) “The Storehouse defies the logics of conventional taxonomies,” said Diller. “Where else would you encounter suits of armor, stage cloth, biscuit tins, building fragments, puppets, thimbles, chandeliers, motorcycles in one place next to each other?” These objects were previously hidden away in Blythe House, Olympia, alongside collections from the British Museum and the Science Museum—until the government announced plans to sell the Edwardian bank. This prompted a conversation about what its storage can and could be. The space spans approximately 172,000 square feet (16,000 square meters)—a fraction of the V&A’s over 850,000 square feet (80,000 square meters) at South Kensington—but it’s dense with meaning. It now houses 250,000 objects and has been designed with five years of growth in mind, with plenty of empty shelving still in view. Patrons can request up to five objects from the collection and make an appointment to view them. (© Hufton+Crow) The object collocations feel accidental but profound. What is a Frankfurt Kitchen, with its strict Bauhaus order, doing just down the walkway from the ornate, gilded Torrijos ceiling from Toledo? Why does a safety curtain control panel share a shelf with a bamboo wind instrument? Everyday objects aren’t elevated so much as exposed—invited to speak on new terms, next to things they were never meant to meet. There are smaller, curated exhibits too—some behind glass—assembled using a modular “kit of parts” display system designed by IDK. There are opportunities for the public to view conservators at work. (© Hufton+Crow) Anyone can request up to five objects from the collection and make an appointment to view them. If the objects are small enough, they’ll be brought to you at a table. If they’re big, you go to them in the darker parts of the museum. As Diller put it, the Storehouse is designed with “an inside-out logic,” where the center is public, the middle semi-private, and the outer edge reserved for conservation, research, and protected storage. There are moments where private and public parts interact, for instance in the “conservation overlooks,” where you can watch the conservators at work from public galleries. It quietly teaches that the arts are an industry too; there are opportunities besides being an artist. Instruments hang beside rows of chairs, statues stand among ceramics, building fragments, archival boxes, and garments. (© Hufton+Crow) Some of what Storehouse allows you to see is uncomfortable. The colonial overtones are hard to miss. These are objects taken from across the world—beautiful, rare, complex—and now stored in a warehouse in East London. The Agra Colonnade, from a 17th-century Mughal building, is on the ground floor where visitors can walk on the glass floor above it, breathtaking and fraught. This is a first step—a way of airing our institutional laundry in public, and inviting interrogation, reinterpretation, and hopefully reckoning. The Agra Colonnade, from a 17th-century Mughal building, is among the objects on view. (© Hufton+Crow) Hanging inside is the 1924 Le Train bleu stage cloth for the Ballets Russes in 1922. (© Hufton+Crow) Mostly, there is a sense of happy chaos, but there are moments that stop you. Down a quiet corridor sits a towering black-box space, spanning two floors. Hanging inside is the 1924 Le Train bleu stage cloth for the Ballets Russes in 1922—a reproduction of Picasso’s Two Women Running Along the Beach. “This is the largest space,” said project architect David Allin. “It lets you see oversized objects from two levels and even watch the conservators at work.” This cloth will later be replaced by the one that the tall space was designed around: the larger Firebird—Natalia Goncharova’s 10-by-16-metre stage backdrop. Here is where you can feel the V&A talking to itself across the city: South Kensington in its lofty register of imperially reaching cast courts, and the Storehouse answers with its mirror image. I catch my breath in front of Le Train bleu, first at its vastness, but then at the hulking crate parked behind it. The Storehouse is rewriting the story and showing us its workings. Ellen Peirson is a London-based writer, editor, and designer.

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“Decoy Boy.” All images © Michael Ezzell, shared with permission In ‘The Junior Classic,’ Michael Ezzell Builds an Uncanny World from Vintage Books May 27, 2025 ArtIllustration Kate Mothes It’s not too often that a high school art project morphs into a through-line in an artist’s professional practice, but for illustrator and printmaker Michael Ezzell, that’s exactly how his ongoing series The Junior Classic was born. Tearing pages from vintage books, he experiments with a range of media, compositional elements, and narratives that then inspire further paintings and prints. “When I was starting out, I would just paint over the text of the page and create something brand new from some mundane book I had,” Ezzell tells Colossal. “Eventually, it evolved into using the page’s illustration or ornate chapter headings as a jumping-off point for what I would create on the page.” “Cloudmaker” Among many others, Ezzell especially graviates toward illustrations in the Alice in Wonderland series, originally drawn by Sir John Tenniel and reimagined during subsequent decades by more than half a dozen other artists like Mabel Lucie Attwell, Gwynedd M. Hudson, Maria L. Kirk, and even Salvador Dalí. “I’ve gotten my book-hunting more down to a science now,” the artist says. “I look for weird and obscure manuals or children’s books with lots of pictures or funky text formatting. Anything that could have strange connotations when taken out of context is what I’m drawn to.” He approaches each page’s inherent qualities—a printed phrase or a small drawing—like a prompt or a call-and-response, which taps into a refreshingly different kind of problem-solving than working on a large, blank canvas. Ezzell is particularly interested in world-building and immersive stories, and his motifs and characters take cues from tarot, Surrealism, playing cards, and early-20th-century fashion. The title of the series nods to a set of 10 books titled The Junior Classics, first published in 1912, which were intended for young readers as a counterpart to the Harvard Classics series. The Junior Classic consists of more than 400 pieces (and growing), and Ezzell is currently working on his own tarot deck, which in turn is inspiring more narrative possibilities. See more on the artist’s website and Instagram. “Two Rivers” “Now Here” “Three Phases of Mitsy Diller” “Mind Over Matter” “Love Makes the World Go Down” “The Escapist” “The Great Cassino” “The Duchess” Next article

The Holy See Pavilion Presents a Living Practice of Restoration at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025Save this picture!Vatican Pavilion. Image © Jose HeviaAt the 19th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, the Dicastery for Culture and Education presents "Opera Aperta", a project that positions architecture as a practice of collective care and responsibility. Curated by Marina Otero Verzier and Giovanna Zabotti, Opera Aperta is set within the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice Complex in Venice's Castello district. Designed by Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO and MAIO Architects, the project transforms the 500-square-meter site into a space for collaborative restoration and public engagement. Conceived as a work in progress rather than a finished installation, Opera Aperta functions as a platform for ongoing exchange, participation, and engagement rooted in the local context. This open and process-oriented approach was recognized during the opening events, where the Holy See Pavilion received the Golden Lion's Special Mention for National Participation. Save this picture!For six months, the project activates the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice Complex in Venice's Castello district, occupying approximately 500 square meters. The site, rich in historical and cultural layers, was originally established in 1171 as a hospice for pilgrims. Over the centuries, it evolved into the city's oldest hospital and, by the 18th century, served as a nursery, school, and boarding facility. Designated for cultural use by the City of Venice in 2001, the complex is now under the management of the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See, which is overseeing its restoration as part of a long-term commitment to preserving its significance within the urban fabric.Save this picture!Within this context, Opera Aperta proposes an architectural approach centered on repair, continuity, and reinterpretation. Rather than replacing existing elements, the project focuses on enhancing the built environment through restoration. Cracks and imperfections are treated not as defects, but as spaces for new meaning and engagement. During the exhibition, the Holy See Pavilion becomes a site of ongoing transformation, an open framework that accommodates the work of architectural studios, local associations, and civic organizations. This collaborative structure invites contributions from across the community, positioning the project as a model for inclusive, adaptive, and context-sensitive architectural practice. Related Article Bahrain Wins the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale Save this picture!Save this picture! Opera Aperta is a collaborative process involving an international team and local collectives together, claiming repair as a creative and radical practice that transcends architectural form to nourish communities, ecosystems and the fragile bonds between them. By revitalising an existing structure, we value its cracks and losses not as flaws to be hidden, but as openings to new possibilities. These thresholds invite us to reimagine the relationship between past and future, growth and decay, rupture and regeneration. Opera Aperta honours the layered histories embedded in this specific place while creating space for those who will come after us. - Marina Otero Verzier, Curator of the Holy See Pavilion Save this picture!Restoration work at the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice Complex is carried out by local artisans and specialized conservators, with expertise spanning stone, marble, terracotta, stucco, mural and canvas painting, wood, and metal. The interior of the complex supports this ongoing work through adaptive spatial strategies. Fabrics suspended from the walls partially veil the surfaces, while maintaining visibility of the interventions. Mobile scaffolding serves a dual purpose, supporting the restoration and functioning as modular furniture that defines flexible zones within the space. Complementing these efforts, Opera Aperta includes platforms for cultural exchange and community participation. A communal table, organized by the cooperative nonsoloverde, invites residents and visitors to engage in shared dialogue during the same weekly intervals.Save this picture!The Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 will run from May 10 to November 23, hosting a total of 65 National Pavilions. Among them, four countries, Azerbaijan, Oman, Qatar, and Togo, will be participating for the first time. The Azerbaijan national pavilion will present Equilibrium. Patterns of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Togo will present the exhibition titled Considering Togo's Architectural Heritage. This year the Kingdom of Bahrain's national pavilion was awarded Golden Lion for Best National Participation. Titled Heatwave, the exhibition was curated by architect Andrea Faraguna and located in the historic Artiglierie of the Arsenale. Golden Lion for Best Participant in the exhibition Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective is awarded to Canal Café by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Natural Systems Utilities, SODAI, Aaron Betsky, Davide Oldani, and two special mentions were awarded to Opera Aperta of Holy See Pavilion and the Pavilion of Great Britain: GBR: Geology of Britannic Repair, commissioned by Sevra Davis of the British Council and curated by Owen Hopkins, Kathryn Yusoff, Kabage Karanja, Stella Mutegi. Image gallerySee allShow less About this authorReyyan DoganAuthor••• Cite: Reyyan Dogan. "The Holy See Pavilion Presents a Living Practice of Restoration at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025" 23 May 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1030449/the-holy-see-pavilion-presents-a-living-practice-of-restoration-opera-aperta-at-the-venice-architecture-biennale-2025&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! 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Though many of the old artists’ residences have been gobbled up by new high-rises, pockets of nostalgia persist on the streets of New York’s NoHo neighborhood. Nine years ago, New Operations Workshop founder Gabriel Yuri was fortunate enough to find one when his real estate broker showed him a partially renovated 860-square-foot studio apartment in a 19th-century building that had been, at different times, a furrier, an artist refuge, and a home for women. Even in its haphazard state—with new walls plastered over some of the 1830s brickwork and half-finished hardwood flooring—the Diller Scofidio + Renfro alum could see the potential.Gabriel Yuri sits at a Tom Dixon screw table in the dining area, where custom shelving, a George Nelson pendant, and his grandmother’s Jens Risom chairs play off one another in their round and linear forms. “Most of what I was finding had been renovated to remove the charm,” Yuri remembers of the boring box apartments that had dominated the listings. “I wanted something that had history and character, so it was great that I got to this one while it still had some of that intact.”Many might have been daunted by the workload, but Yuri welcomed the challenge. He spent nearly four years peeling back the renovations—often himself, sometimes with the help of a handyman—restoring the original pine floors in the living room and revealing more of the existing brick, exposed pipework, and steel beams that had been covered up throughout the space. And his lucky streak continued: When new neighbors discarded the original tin ceiling tile during their own renovation, Yuri installed them in his kitchen and entry hallway—a sweet nod to the building’s past that complements the new industrial-style steel kitchen cabinetry. He also found original transom windows, which he used above the bedroom door to allow light to penetrate deeper into the apartment, and crafted a banquette sectional sofa and daybed in the living room to hide structural adjustments from the building’s façade work.A plaster of Paris bust of Yuri’s grandmother sits atop an old I-beam side table in the entry hallway, signaling the apartment’s industrial-chic aesthetic. The Tutsi milk jug was bought at auction. “I wanted to embrace the industrial aesthetic but also elevate it by blending it with a collection of things with balance and harmony,” says Yuri. In the living room, that meant pairing a vintage Hans Wegner lounge chair inherited from his grandmother with a sculptural Hinterlands cocktail table. But while the building itself served as an architectural muse, Yuri found inspiration in yet another beacon from a bygone era: his grandmother, who passed away just before he purchased the loft. “She wasn’t a designer but had the most incredible design sensibility,” he says. He repurposed her collection of midcentury furnishings—including the Jens Risom chairs in the dining room and the Hans Wegner lounge chair in the living room—as well as artwork and artifacts from her home in Queens. In the bedroom, he incorporated her stained glass pocket doors as a room divider and created a wood-and-cement-block bookcase inspired by the ones she often crafted herself. “The whole time I was keeping an eye out for what could fit in,” he says, noting the pops of red that were her (and his) favorite color. “It felt good to keep these things that I had grown up with and give them a new life.”Blended with contemporary additions, like the Tom Dixon table in the dining room and the live-edge platform bed in the bedroom, midcentury lighting that bridges the modern and industrial aesthetics at play, plus pieces picked up on his travels, the eclectic mix imparts layers of soul that give Yuri’s home a cocooning feeling of warmth and personal history.“The biggest response I get is how calm it feels,” he says. “I’m a homebody. I like to read and listen to albums and usually work from home. It’s nice to be surrounded by so many references to the past in such a busy, constantly changing city.”Above the custom Maharam-upholstered banquette sofa, Yuri has arranged an assortment of artwork on a steel shelf, including works by Paul Sepuya, Sarah Oppenheimer, and his mother, as well as a self-made piece that was once on display in the lobby of the Guggenheim. The table lamp is by In Common With, and the wood-and-steel magazine rack is of his own design. A memento from his time working at the iconic Starrett-Lehigh building, the hanging window acts as a divider between the living and dining areas. The transom windows that appear in the newly erected bedroom wall, which was started before Yuri purchased the apartment but redone in a much slimmer configuration, were found on site, and Yuri installed a herringbone floor over the previous owner’s renovations. Steel cabinetry and stained butcher block countertops from IKEA give the kitchen a sleek update. A seagrass CB2 rug, an Alvar Alto stool, and a city-themed drying rack by Seletti, as well as a collection of his grandmother’s vintage Hasami pottery and a conical tea kettle by Aldo Rossi for Alessi, infuse the space with warmth and personality. A custom oak platform bed adds earthy elegance in the bedroom, a space made cozier with custom felted wool drapery, cotton cashmere sheets by RH, and a throw blanket by El Rey for Nordic Knots. A pair of Yuri’s grandmother’s Arthur Umanoff side chairs create a sense of symmetry, as do the antique glass naval sconces and reclaimed pine flooring. Inspired by the simple bookshelves his grandmother made in her Queens, New York, home, Yuri crafted this efficient cinderblock and wood organizational system in the bedroom. Yuri painted the existing clawfoot tub in Farrow & Ball’s Off Black to coordinate with the new RH vanity and slate tile flooring for a moody effect against the existing brick walls.

Julian Rose’s Building Cultures, published last year by Princeton Architectural Press, contains 16 in-depth interviews with leading architects who have designed museums around the world. In 2022, András Szántó’s Imagining the Future Museum: 21 Dialogues with Architects, published by Hatje Cantz, offered a complementary glimpse into the sensibilities of a new generation of voices. (The titles share four interviewees: David Adjaye, David Chipperfield, Elizabeth Diller, and Kulapat Yantrasat) Rose and Szántó sat down with AN’s executive editor Jack Murphy to discuss the museum’s inexhaustible spatial variety and its capacity to shape civic and cultural space today. Julian Rose’s Building Cultures, published last year by Princeton Architectural Press, contains 16 interviews with architects. (Courtesy Princeton Architectural Press) AN: Julian, what are the major themes, concerns, and anxieties that you heard when interviewing architects about designing museums? Julian Rose (JR): The conversations in Building Culture grew out of my time at Artforum, so they began nearly 10 years ago in a pretty different world. In that context, one important theme was looking at the museum to understand how architecture relates to arts. Architects, either by choice or because the culture at large compels them to, are always defining what they do in relation to other cultural practices, especially the visual arts. This relationship goes back to the modernist avant-garde, and you could trace it even further. I was drawn towards architects who had deep connections to art, maybe they had even gone to art school or had a record of collaboration; not coincidentally, a lot of them have become known as museum specialists. The answers I heard were refreshing; people were not necessarily learning the lessons I expected. As an example: With Peter Zumthor, I thought we were going to have a focused conversation about the very architectural aesthetics and materials used by certain artists like Richard Serra or Donald Judd. No—he wanted to talk about the bigger picture, the emotional and philosophical connections. He’s obsessed with Walter de Maria’s landscape works like Lightning Field. Even if they don’t seem to have an obvious connection to architecture, he loves the scale and ambition. This kind of surprise happened in several conversations. The other key topic is the typological problem of the museum. As I write in my introduction, the museum refuses spatial optimization—there’s no “best” way to design one. In part, that’s because contemporary art is evolving. Look at the popularity of large-scale installations today, which require big open spaces, versus the more old-fashioned idea of a museum being the place you go to have a one-on-one moment with a masterpiece, which needs intimate galleries. Until recently, “public art” was a kind of forlorn category. It was something you might happen on in a park or a subway station, and it was separate from what most people thought of as real art, which of course was what you saw in the museum. And you went to the museum to have what was essentially a private experience of that art. Now you go to the museum to have an experience that’s both aesthetic and social—to look at art and to enjoy a public space—and I think that’s a huge part of why museums are so popular today. One of the fundamental takeaways from the book is that contemporary art is becoming more and more public, and the evolution of the art museum has been a crucial part of that shift. Artists are creating work that’s meant to be experienced by many people at once, and they need new spaces to do that. At the same time, all the architects wanted to talk about circulation, because there is a tension on some level between how we traditionally think of experiencing art and the crowds that certain museums are starting to receive. András Szántó’s Imagining the Future Museum: 21 Dialogues with Architects also features interviews with leading architects who design museums (Hatje Cantz) AN: András, how does this compare to how you approached your book? András Szántó (AS): One reason why the two books are quite complementary is that their genesis is so different. Julian, your book approaches its subjects with an interest in their relationship to art and their creative work. For me, the direction of travel was different. My talks came out of a previous book, which I did during the pandemic, for which I interviewed museum directors about how their institutions are changing. Rather than reviewing past projects, I was interested in the architects’ overall perspective on the museum as a form. Generally, there is the idea that architecture saved the visual arts from the fate of other forms of high art. And there has been a post-pandemic realization that you can do highly elitist and exclusive architecture in the language of modern design, just as you can using neoclassical architecture. We see a reckoning for how to realign museums to serve a wider segment of the population, not just the creation of these beautiful confections to attract the wealthy, highly educated cultural tourists of the world, but maybe the ability to send the message to someone who lives two miles away, “This is for you.” Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, London, U.K., 1991 (Matt Wargo) Sainsbury Wing renovation by Selldorf Architects (Edmund Sumner/©The National Gallery London) AN: How did you go about selecting the architects you wanted to interview? AS: You consign yourself to a lifetime of apologies to people who you didn’t interview. I wanted to be global, so I didn’t stack my book with New York–based architects. I wanted to attempt a gender balance, which was difficult. Again, I think our books work well together, Julian, because you spoke with a lot of people on my dream list. JR: I agree that our books are a good pair; it was fun for me to read your book when mine was in progress. I was first educated as an architect, but I’m also coming at this as a historian, so the idea was trying to figure out how we got here: How did museums become so important? I think that the success of both the museum and contemporary art in general is a bit of a surprise to everyone. In this century, we’ve seen so many traditional “highbrow” forms of culture get pushed to the periphery, but museums are thriving. I thought about Building Culture as an oral history project. I almost did the opposite of András: I have a couple younger voices, but I wanted to speak with established figures because that generation has shaped the present and has ideas about the future, too. Frank Gehry was one of the first people I interviewed; he’s 96 and he still has important museums under construction. It was interesting to ask Renzo Piano what he thinks is next. People like Frank and Renzo have had plenty of media exposure, but I did feel like there was a certain depth missing from journalistic coverage. I wanted to do a relatively small number of longer conversations and cover the widest historical range I could. I was thrilled to have Denise Scott Brown in there, because the Sainsbury Wing [of the National Gallery, London] alone is a paradigm-shifting project. She’s part of a whole generation that had a huge impact through postmodern museum designs, although most of [her peers] are no longer with us. That felt important to capture. Gehry Partners, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain, 1997 (Courtesy Gehry Partners, LLP/© Frank O. Gehry) AS: We’re discussing the success of contemporary visual art, which for most people feels inscrutable and hard to access. You had an interesting thought experiment: What would the same art have done without the scaffolding of the museum around it? The art museum could have become a dusty, irrelevant thing—and often still is—but through the efforts of a new generation of museum experts, working together with architects, communicators, and other specialists, this form has been lifted up and made super contemporary through, frankly, a lot of the functions that were seen as somewhat secondary. This is where the rubber meets the road for architects: So many of the metrics, even the audience metrics, are related to the non-gallery functions of the museum. People flock to the museum as a place, and this is where architecture, landscape architecture, and interior design have been superb. Museums have become civic hubs, which was maybe a secondary concern initially. That’s why people like Piano and Gehry are interesting, because they came up having to work in both worlds. They created this highly successful institutional typology, which still has those art at its core, but it’s the civic infrastructure that is the most successful. JR: Museums have always had a civic function, but almost as a secondary part of the program. With an institution like the Centre Pompidou in Paris the civic aspect starts to dominate. Meanwhile, all of these other institutions that used to provide shared social space have largely disappeared, which has an isolating and alienating effect on culture. It’s funny: Civic engagement started out as almost an afterthought, but it has become a crucial function of the museum in the 21st century. AS: Another point to make about generations: Do not confuse age with being namby-pamby or conservative. Today’s older architects are people of the 1960s, absolutely. Many, like Elizabeth Diller and David Chipperfield, were more radical then than some of our younger architects are today. They did not necessarily expect to be multimillionaires. They were devoted to the public sphere. These “older” figures who now get giant commissions are, on a DNA level, super radical people. JR: Richard Gluckman is another important example. Like Chipperfield, he has a direct connection to modernism through his education. We can talk all day about modernism as a failed project, but the fact is that back when people like Richard and David were in school, architecture was still seen as a fundamental part of the progressive state. Gluckman went to school at Syracuse University in the late 1960s, and as a student he worked for his professors exclusively on projects like housing and university campuses. But by the time he got around to opening his own office, it was 1977. New York had almost gone bankrupt—no one was building that stuff anymore. Gluckman got involved in designing spaces for art, and this was his way of basically sneaking back into the public sphere. I think their generation was connected to a very different—and very powerful—understanding of what architecture meant for society, and you still see that in their work today. AS: We can think about the art museum as a scaffolding building around a core enterprise of artistic experience. But this means something different for collecting versus non-collecting institutions. Often, you find institutions places that are dedicating more and more of their space to social functions around the art, contemplative aspects of art, and so on. The best architects are absolutely capable of doing both things: One is creating transparency, porosity, ease of access, and landscape integration in a way that flows, and the other is delivering wonderful amenities like shops and cafes. We can question some old dichotomies: How hard do you have to separate gallery space and social space? How porous could those boundaries be? What everybody profoundly believes is that a successful museum experience must have a magic combination of three things: objects, humans, and architecture. And when those three things come together—incredible real objects with a social experience in the company of other people in a magisterial architectural space—that creates an enduring magic that you cannnot sacrifice. Shohei Shigematsu/OMA, rendering of the New Museum of Contemporary Art expansion, New York, New York, anticipated completion 2025 (Courtesy OMA/bloomimages.de) JR: It was interesting for me to think about how conservative the museum can be. My conversation with Shohei Shigematsu at OMA put that into relief for me. He was one of the lead architects for the Whitney Museum extension proposal. At the time, OMA’s whole thing was reinventing typologies for the 21st century—think CCTV twisting the skyscraper, or Seattle transforming the public library. They took that aggressive critical method to the museum too—in the 1990s for MoMA and the Tate Modern, and then to the Whitney in 2001, and didn’t win a single competition. The establishment was not interested! AS: I agree that architects are often more radical than their clients. Hopefully nobody misunderstands this, but there is often a profound disconnect between the veneration of rule-breaking, iconoclastic innovation in the gallery versus the conservatism of the museum organization. Organizationally speaking, most museums have not read an airport book on modern management. I see architects trying to push against that. An easy example: Why do these buildings still look like fortresses? Libraries have been redesigned to work for people while still accommodating books. All too often, art museums still feel like citadels with lots of walls. Why? Because walls are great for hanging art on the inside of the building. Is that really the singular goal? AN: How does the scale of the institution shape what it can do? AS: We have certainly seen the emergence of a lot of small institutes and institutions, because of the enormous expansion of private museums. I do think small scale is good. When you ask most people about their favorite museums, they will frequently mention places that are quite intimate, like the Fondation Beyeler, in Basel, by Renzo Piano, soon with a lovely modest expansion by Zumthor. Nobody likes a super tanker, which is easy to respect but hard to love. When it comes to big, we need to differentiate between the gigantic temple on the hill versus what I think could be the future: the SESC Pompéia model, an interdisciplinary, social-cultural hub that may be quite big in the aggregate, and where the visual arts play a role inside a larger matrix. Particularly in our big, sprawling cities, such multipurpose, campus-like configurations could be an ideal setting for a museum. JR: I agree that the future might be more like the biennale model: When done well, the whole city is activated. In that sense maybe the size of the institution itself is less important. But I worry that smaller institutions will be hurt as public funding dries up and all museums become increasingly reliant on philanthropy. The regional, kunsthalle-like spots will suffer because those aren’t glamorous places to give money, but those are often the locations the programming makes the biggest impact in the community. AN: What else should we discuss? AS: Globalization is worth mentioning. There is a parallel to be drawn, perhaps, to the evolution of art. At the end of the 20th century, an astonishing amount of liberation became available to artists as the master narrative of modernism splintered to a more pluralistic discourse where all kinds of positions were accepted as art. Today I think something similar has happened in museum architecture: With the proliferation of museums globally, the language of museum architecture has opened up into a new openness to difference and variation, often informed by regional, vernacular forms and needs. Museums can be built using local materials or respond to local typologies, versus the older ideas of the white cube or the enfilade gallery sequence. Anything can be a museum—not just because of reuse, which is important, but because architects can build some crazy stuff inside almost any kind of building: a power station, a prison, a hospital, an army barracks. And people will say, “That’s a museum.” JR: There’s a running joke in museum design that the Louvre is an adaptive reuse project. And it’s true: The world’s first public art museum started out as a palace. This speaks to the museum’s typological flexibility. Its program is very architectural in the sense that it’s about how people and artworks interact in space, but it’s not like an airport or a hospital with a hyper-specialized program that is understandably difficult to fit into an existing structure. I’m optimistic that museums will stay on the cutting edge of adaptive reuse even as it gets more and more important for the whole architectural profession. Another thing that came out of my book is how much museum architects pay attention to the spaces artists are working in. The New York loft is the classic example. Once upon a time, not every gallery looked like a renovated postindustrial space, but artists moved into defunct industrial spaces decades ago and eventually exhibition spaces followed. This exchange goes both ways—its dialectical. As museum buildings have gotten more varied, artists have had a lot of fun learning how to use these new spaces. The Guggenheim in New York is an example. For decades, [Frank Lloyd] Wright’s design has been criticized because it’s hard to show most traditional art forms on the spiral ramps. But the best things I’ve seen in that museum in the past ten years have been installations in the atrium. Artists can do something wild with that space. After seeing that, do you really want to look at a little painting on a curvy wall? Julian Rose is a designer, critic, and historian. He is currently completing a PhD at Princeton on the origin and evolution of museums of contemporary art. András Szántó advises museums, foundations, educational institutions, and corporations on cultural strategy and program development, worldwide. This post contains affiliate links. AN may have a commission if you make a purchase through these links.

The big-name practices have tweaked their vision for the cultural landmark following feedback received during consultation earlier this year. Hundreds of people gave their views on designs released in January for the £230 million upgrade of various internal and external spaces at the Barbican Centre ahead of its 50th anniversary in 2032. Fresh images have now been published to kick off a second wave of consultation over the proposals. The architects have also worked with two design groups of people aged 30 and under.Advertisement The latest pictures show a fully accessible conservatory with a water feature and bold, theatrical planting, as well as a rejuvenated lakeside terrace with fountains, seating, lighting and ‘climate-friendly planting’. Flexible foyers will bring the arts out into the heart of the centre and provide improved facilities. Barbican director for buildings and renewal Philippa Simpson said: ‘We’ve been incredibly encouraged by the public’s enthusiasm for our plans. These new images reflect a vision for the Barbican Centre that stays true to our unique heritage and bold character while making us an inclusive, sustainable and meaningful place for everyone.’ The City of London Corporation has committed £191 million to fund about four-fifths of the first phase of works. The Barbican said a ‘big focus’ now was on fundraising to secure the remaining support needed.Advertisement A planning application is expected later this year. Subject to approval, construction is expected to begin in 2027, with the first phase due for completion in 2030, just ahead of the Barbican’s 50th anniversary in 2032. The Barbican said in January that the scheme would see the Lakeside, Foyer and Conservatory spaces of the centre overhauled with accessibility, environmental and structural improvements, while more recent internal additions to the Grade II-listed centre, such as certain lighting, would be removed. Simpson said in January: ‘The Barbican has always been about renewal, a beacon of an optimistic future in the wake of the Second World War. This project is rooted in the vision and ambition of its founders, to reimagine what an arts centre can be in the 21st century – a vital, creative space for everyone.’ Allies and Morrison and Asif Khan Studio beat four other teams to land that major refurbishment job in 2022, when it was then valued at up to £150 million. Engineers Buro Happold and landscape designers Harris Bugg Studio are also working on the scheme. The Barbican Centre was designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon and opened in 1982. In 2001 it was Grade II-listed alongside the rest of the Brutalist estate. Allford Hall Monaghan Morris completed a £12.6 million overhaul of the complex in 2006 before creating a £3.4 million street-level cinema complex. Ruff Architects carried out an environmental upgrade of the centre’s main art gallery in 2019. Three years ago Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s £288 million, 14-storey London Centre for Music on the Museum of London site was axed in favour of an upgrade to the Barbican Centre.

24th International Exhibition of Triennale Milano Announces Bee Award WinnersSave this picture!Shapes of Inequalities Fragapane, Installation view of the 24th International Exhibition Inequalities. Image © Alessandro Salettae Piercarlo Quecchia - DSL Studio, Courtesy of Triennale MilanoThe 24th International Exhibition of Triennale Milano opened to the public on May 13, 2025, at the historic Palazzo dell'Arte. Running until November 9, this edition explores the theme of "Inequalities", continuing Triennale Milano's tradition of addressing urgent global issues through the lenses of art, architecture, and design. The exhibition is formed by two main sections: one that presents a curated selection of exhibitions and installations by individual artists and teams, and another that features international participations, including national pavilions and their contributions. At the opening ceremony on May 12th, the Bee Awards were presented to recognize selected contributions across the exhibition. From both the exhibitions and the international participations, the jury awarded one winner and one honorable mention each.The spatial and exhibition design has been developed by six studios: Abnormal, GISTO, Grace, Midori Hasuike, horizontal, and Sopa Design Studio. Curated by 28 individuals and teams, the program includes eight thematic exhibitions and ten special projects. The exhibition spans 7,500 square meters and features contributions from 341 authors representing 73 countries. Among the contributors are Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley; Hans Ulrich Obrist and Natalia Grabowska; Norman Foster and the Norman Foster Foundation; Elizabeth Diller of Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Theaster Gates; and several academic and cultural institutions, including the Politecnico di Milano. The jury, composed of Paola Antonelli (Chair), Senior Curator of Architecture and Design and Director of Research and Development at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York; journalist and author Ifeoluwa Adedeji; and Maria Porro, President of Salone del Mobile.Milano, evaluated the projects on the basis of originality and relevance to the exhibition's theme. Save this picture!The Award for Best Original Project was given to "Two Faces of the Same Coin" by Laura Krugan, Dan Miller, and Adam Vosburgh, part of the exhibition "We the Bacteria. Notes Toward Biotic Architecture." The Mention for Original Project was awarded to "Grenfell. Total Failure of the System" by Kimia Zabihyan, presented within the "Cities" exhibition. In the category of international participations, the Best Pavilion Award was presented to the Lebanese Pavilion for the exhibition "And from My Heart I Blow Kisses to the Sea and Houses", curated by Ala Tannir. An Honorable Mention was given to the Puerto Rico Pavilion for "Había una vez y dos son tres feminisitios", curated by Regner Ramos. Related Article Unveiling the 15 Most Significant Architectural Events of 2025 "And from My Heart I Blow Kisses to the Sea and Houses" / Best Pavilion Award from International ParticipationsSave this picture!"And from my heart I blow kisses to the sea and houses" is an exhibition that documents the rehabilitation of a French-Mandate era house in Ain el Mraisseh, damaged during the Beirut Port explosion in August 2020. Curated by Ala Tannir, the project brings together contemporary artistic practices and architectural restoration to examine the evolving relationship between Beirut's built heritage and its changing urban fabric. On view from December 29, 2024, to January 18, 2025, the exhibition offers visitors access to one of the few remaining seaside houses from the late 1920s, an architectural fragment that has resisted the pressures of large-scale real estate development.Save this picture!The exhibition features five permanent in-situ artistic interventions that contribute directly to the restoration of the space. These include a sound installation by Khyam Allami, developed using the architectural dimensions of the house, and a two-channel film by Panos Aprahamian. The film is structured around conversations with "Khalo Aziz," the curator's great-uncle and the building's eldest resident, and examines the layered history of the house, its inhabitants, and the surrounding neighborhood. Collectively, these works seek to re-inhabit the structure while also proposing alternative approaches to preserving both architectural and social heritage in a rapidly transforming urban landscape. A longer-term goal of the project is to establish the house as a cultural site for artistic and academic engagement with the Mediterranean region, with a focus on its Eastern and Southern geographies."Hab ía una vez y dos son tres feminisitios" / Honorable Mention from International ParticipationsSave this picture!"Había una vez y dos son tres feminisitios", translated as "Once Upon Three Femisites", the Puerto Rico Pavilion curated by Regner Ramos, explores the intersection of digital memory, spatial absence, and systemic violence. Grounded in a real Google Maps location labeled "Alexa"—a seemingly empty plot categorized as "Sculpture", the project revisits the events surrounding the 2020 murder of Neulisa "Alexa" Luciano, a Black, homeless, transgender woman in Puerto Rico. Through the reimagining of three interconnected sites, a McDonald's bathroom stall, a roadside tent, and the digital space of Facebook, the pavilion reconstructs the spatial and social conditions that contributed to the crime. Elevated and intentionally displaced within the gallery, the installation functions as both artifact and absence, reflecting on the role of architecture in bearing witness to violence and advocating for the visibility and protection of marginalized communities.Save this picture!"Two Faces of the Same Coin" / Award for Best Original ProjectSave this picture!"Two Faces of the Same Coin" by Laura Krugan, Dan Miller, and Adam Vosburgh is a multimedia installation that explores the interdependent relationship between humans, bacteria, and the built environment. Presented within the exhibition "We the Bacteria. Notes Toward Biotic Architecture", curated by Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley, the work contributes to a broader inquiry into the historical and ongoing entanglements between microbial life and architecture. The exhibition traces this relationship from the Neolithic era to the present, proposing that architecture has always been shaped by—and in turn shaped—the microbial ecologies it houses. It invites a reconsideration of spatial, political, and ethical models through the lens of bacterial life, offering alternative frameworks inspired by the organization and resilience of microbial communities."Grenfell. Total Failure of the System" / Honorable Mention for Original ProjectSave this picture!"Grenfell. Total Failure of the System", curated by Kimia Zabihyan and presented within the "Cities" exhibition, offers a space for reflection on the ongoing struggle for justice, accountability, and reform. The installation highlights a range of community responses, including acts of craftivism such as the Grenfell Memorial quilts, which commemorate the lives lost and speak to the collective mourning and resilience of the affected community. It also addresses the broader policy and regulatory failures, particularly the lack of standardized testing and regulation of cladding systems across Europe, that contributed to the scale of the disaster and continue to pose risks. Through a combination of visual, narrative, and material elements, Grenfell Next of Kin (GNoK), a platform that advocates on behalf of the immediate families of those who lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower fire on June 14, 2017, conveys the personal and political dimensions of the tragedy, foregrounding the voices of those most directly impacted while inviting broader reflection on housing, safety, and the responsibilities of governments and industries.Save this picture!The 24th International Exhibition of Triennale Milano, commissioned by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) and led by Commissioner General Stefano Boeri, opened to the public on May 13, 2025, and will remain on view through November 9. Titled Inequalities, this edition concludes a thematic trilogy begun with Broken Nature in 2019 and Unknown Unknowns in 2022. With Inequalities, the focus shifts to the human dimension, examining one of the most urgent and politically charged issues: the deepening disparities that shape contemporary urban and global life. Image gallerySee allShow less About this authorReyyan DoganAuthor••• Cite: Reyyan Dogan. "24th International Exhibition of Triennale Milano Announces Bee Award Winners" 15 May 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1030194/24th-international-exhibition-of-triennale-milano-announces-bee-award-winners&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream