“La Quadreria” interior photo gallery. Italian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Image Courtesy of PCM Studio di Paola C. Manfredi
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https://www.archdaily.com/1033611/the-italian-pavilion-at-the-venice-architecture-biennale-urges-a-rethink-of-the-relationship-between-land-and-sea
The Italian Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia is situated in the Tese delle Vergini of the Arsenale and is promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture. This year, the Pavilion hosts architectural, scientific, and cultural reflections on the Mediterranean Sea and its neighboring oceans, in an exhibition titled “Terrae Aquae. Italy and the Intelligence of the Sea”, curated by Architect and Professor Guendalina Salimei. The exhibition brings together projects from diverse actors in Italian society through an open call, whose objective was to rethink the boundary between land and water as an integrated system of architecture, infrastructure, and landscape. In response to the Biennale’s central theme, the exhibition aims to stimulate the awakening of a collective intelligence capable of triggering a renewal in that relationship, starting from the Italian coast and expanding globally.
The exhibition begins with the premise that the centrality of the relationship between four binomials: water and land, the natural and the artificial, infrastructure and landscape, city and coast, affects the identity of the country and the balances established within it between environment, humanity, culture, and economy. The curatorial stance is that this balance must be protected and redesigned to achieve an “essential adaptation to a future marked by new and pressing needs.” From the curatorial perspective, coastal areas are often neglected, degraded, and abused, while in fact being important places of encounter between ecosystems, cultures, activities, and religions. The depth of the relationship is symbolized in the Venetian ritual of the marriage of the sea, celebrated every year by the Doge of Venice aboard the Bucintoro at the mouth of the port of San Niccolò at the Lido. During the ritual, the Doge pours a vase of holy water, casts a ring blessed by the Patriarch into the waves, and pronounces the words “Desponsamus te, mare nostrum, in signum veri perpetuique dominii” (“We marry you, our sea, as a sign of true and perpetual dominion”).
“La Quadreria” interior photo gallery. Italian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Image Courtesy of PCM Studio di Paola C. Manfredi
“La Quadreria” interior photo gallery. Italian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Image Courtesy of PCM Studio di Paola C. Manfredi
In recognition of this spirit, the exhibition presents a diversity of proposals and participants selected to rethink the relationship between land and sea. It displays completed projects, contributions created through multidisciplinary and multimodal methods, as well as proposals from institutional and academic research. “Terrae Aquae. Italy and the Intelligence of the Sea” marks a transition from a system of preselection to an open call, the Call for Visions and Projects, launched in January and concluded last March. With this change, the curator seeks to foster a more plural and representative dialogue in which the quality and relevance of proposals emerge through comparison and collective participation. The call was addressed to designers, scholars, and cultural practitioners to collect design, theoretical, and multimedia proposals situated in coastal and port areas. The invitation was extended across Italy to imagine the “form of the sea,” envisioning futuristic or utopian scenarios, projects, and aspirations for all those border zones between land and sea.
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The exhibition welcomes works by both individuals and groups, established and emerging, based on the belief that only through intergenerational, intercultural, and gender-inclusive exchange can a truly fertile dialogue be structured. Such a dialogue lies at the heart of the design-based antinomy between progress and the preservation of memory, a tension that is essential for Italy’s maritime and coastal heritage to maintain a delicate balance between an inevitable past and a possible future. — Guendalina Salimei‘s curatorial text
Interior structure. Italian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Image © Laura Canali
The Research Pier. Italian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Image Courtesy of PCM Studio di Paola C. Manfredi
Over 600 contributions were collected by the Italian Pavilion through the Open Call. From the curator’s point of view, the call for entries underscores the urgency of the issue due to Italy’s neglect of its coastal culture, the way in which the Mediterranean shapes a hundred port cities, and the fact that the seas are among the major victims of climate change. Among the most pressing issues addressed in the proposals on display are: rethinking the divisions caused by port areas, coastal roads, tourist settlements, and illegal structures that disrupt the continuity between cities and the sea, as well as between natural ecosystems; reinterpreting transitional elements between land and sea such as dams, piers, lighthouses, and artificial platforms; rewriting waterfronts as a process of urban regeneration that can transform coastal areas into livable, accessible, and sustainable places; rethinking hospitality and port infrastructures to adapt to climate change; repurposing industrial, port, and productive archaeology abandoned along the coasts; redefining active protection strategies for environmental heritage; and rediscovering submerged, natural, and archaeological heritage.
The average level of the Mediterranean is rising. Its water temperature has risen, endangering biodiversity. Storm events have become more frequent, speeding up erosion and endangering lives, fishing, trade and tourism. Populations are moving in search of more favorable conditions, with consequent modification of geopolitical assets. Different situations and strategies see the element of water at the center of a new architectural policy, focusing attention on what are actually the “primary gates” of our cities, thus trying to reclaim spaces and places once allocated for public use. — Guendalina Salimei‘s curatorial text
“Mare Mosso” video project by Luigi Filetici. Italian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Image © Luigi Filetici
“Mare Mosso” video project by Luigi Filetici. Italian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Image © Andrea Avezzù, Courtesy of la Biennale di Venezia
The exhibited projects are organized into three sections in distinct exhibition areas. The first section, titled “Census on the Present”, showcases completed or ongoing projects located in Italy involving the reconversion of abandoned land, such as port redevelopment, waterfront regeneration, or coastal rewilding. The second section is the most extensive and dense body of contributions, displayed in the form of a Gallery, presenting a collection of data stemming from practices across various territorial contexts of Italy. The third section, the “Research Laboratory”, features scholars from various fields and disciplines presenting the outcomes of their research in interactive installations that allow visitors to explore topics related to the intelligence of the sea. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, the Pavilion will also host a Public Program of events titled “The Sea of Intelligence. Dialogues”, including seminars, conferences, workshops, and lab sessions. The project is further documented in a catalog conceived as a navigational chart, containing reflections from experts in the field, contributions selected through the Call for Visions and Projects, photographic essays, artistic incursions, research outcomes, and other cultural and project-related insights.
“Long Winter” glass installation by Marya Kazoun. Italian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Image © Marya KazounThe 19th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale opened on May 10, 2025, and will run until November 23, 2025. Other national pavilions addressing water-related topics, such as coastal design and resource management, include the Uruguayan Pavilion, highlighting Water Management as Essential to the Future of Architecture, and the Mexican Pavilion, exploring the potential of chinampas, an ancient Mesoamerican floating agricultural system, with an installation evoking Aldo Rossi’s Teatro del Mondo floating structure at the very first edition of the Biennale. Other related projects include the installation Pylon of Permanence, which presents Water-Filled Glass (WFG), a glazing system developed to address the environmental impact of glass in the built environment, as well as CRA–Carlo Ratti Associati and Höweler + Yoon’s design for a floating plaza to be transported from Venice to Brazil for COP30.
We invite you to check out ArchDaily’s comprehensive coverage of the 2025 Venice Biennale.