The Italian Pavilion for the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale explores the capabilities for transformation and adaptation of Italian communities in an attempt to define tangible solutions to current global challenges. Titled "Resilient Communities", the exhibition curated by Alessandro Melis presents Italian research and innovation across many fields, exploring ideas for improving the conditions of the built environment and addressing climate change, with the hope of defining the building blocks for a sustainable future.
This year's Italian Pavilion acknowledges the crucial role architecture must play in improving all citizens' quality of life and promoting sustainability. Thus, the curatorial project constitutes an interdisciplinary research laboratory investigating how architecture can respond to various issues linked to climate change. The exhibition is divided into two complementary themes: a reflection on Italian urban resiliency and an exploration of future perspectives and visions. The Pavilion comprises a series of sections, each exploring a specific topic and coordinated by different design and research collectives.
The Italian Pavilion will itself be a resilient community, consisting of 14 "sub-communities" understood as operating workshops, research centres or case studies in accordance with two essential lines: a reflection on state of the art in the matter of urban resilience in Italy and the world through the showing of works by eminent Italian architects, and a focus on methodologies, innovation, and research with interdisciplinary experiments straddling the ground between architecture, botany, agronomy, biology, art, and medicine.- curator Alessandro Melis
The subjects range from how architecture can help mitigate extreme climate conditions in the Dolomites Care section to the role of architecture in relation to health and wellbeing in the era of the Sustainable Development Goals in the Architecture as Caregiver section. Global South presents the contribution of Italian Architects to the resilience of sub-Sharan communities. At the same time, University: Resilient Agencies explores the role of educational institutions in activating change, stimulating innovation and creating resiliency networks, and the list of exhibition sections continues. With this wide array of topics and explorations, the Italian Pavilion presents visitors with numerous paths of reflection, promoting diversity and variability.
- Commissioner: Onofrio Cutaia
- Curator: Alessandro Melis
- Deputy Curator: Benedetta Medas
Exhibition Sections
- Concept Architectural Exaptation: Alessandro Melis, Telmo Pievani
- Architectural exaptation: Alessandro Melis, Benedetta Medas, Paola Corrias, Alice Maccanti
- Dolomiti Care: Gianluca D'Inca Levis
- Decolonising the built environment: RebelArchitette, Alessandro Melis
- DESING(ING): from the spoon to the city: Paolo Di Nardo, Francesca Tosi
- Architecture as caregiver: Antonino Di Raimo, Maria Perbellini
- Global South: Paola Ruotolo
- University: Resilience Agencies: Maurizio Carta, Paolo Di Nardo
- Storia di un minuto: Alessandro Gaiani, Emilia Giorgi, Guido Incerti
- Italian Best Practice Gian Luigi Melis, Margherita Baldocchi, Benedetta Medas
- Laboratorio Peccioli: Ilaria Fruzzetti, Nico Panizzi, Laura Luperi
- Tacit Ecology: Ingrid Paoletti
- Resilience, landscape and art: Annacaterina Piras, Emanuele Montibeller With: Giacomo Bianchi, Laura Tomaselli
- Giardino delle Vergini: Dario Pedrabissi
- Industrial and Creative Arts – cross-over section: Benedetta Medas, Monica Battistoni, Dana Hamdan, J. Antonio Lara-Hernandez
- DataFrame: Guido Robazza, Filippo Lovato, Gustavo Romanillos With: Aina Barcelo, Dana Hamdan, Copernicus images: IUSS Pavia – CIRTA Research Centre, Andrea Taramelli, Emiliana Valentini, Margherita Righini, Laura Piedelobo, Emma Schiavon, Clara Armaroli
- Mapping Resilient Communities: Luisa Bravo with: Roberta Franceschinelli, Fondazione Unipolis, Simone D'Antonio, ANCI – National point URBACT Italy in collaboration with City Space Architecture and UN-Habitat, the program
- on human settlements of the United Nations
- Installation Design: Heliopolis 21
