Italian
A record edition: over 100,000 visitors for the great living library that transformed Venice into a campus-city of knowledge
VENICE. With 102,211 visitors, the Venice Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale is preparing to close its doors, recording an unprecedented success. The exhibition, hosted in the Gardens, has transformed the historic space into a great universal library, an immersive place dedicated to Venetian knowledge and its global projections.
A living library to tell the story of Venetian intelligence
The project, titled “Libraries. Building Venetian Intelligence” and conceived by the Iuav University in collaboration with the Municipality of Venice and the Order of Architects, has reconstructed in the Pavilion the image of a natural, artificial, and collective Venice. The public was able to explore hundreds of paper and multimedia volumes, including 27 micro-catalogs dedicated to research that, starting from the lagoon city, engages in dialogue with the world.
The numbers tell a Venice that is truly a “city of knowledge”:
- 128 libraries,
- 125 institutions involved,
- 6,860,000 volumes stored,
- 890,000 in libraries dedicated to art and architecture, the largest collection in the world in the sector.
Brugnaro: “A space for innovation and an investment in the future”
Satisfaction was expressed by the mayor Luigi Brugnaro, who emphasized how the Venice Pavilion has confirmed itself as “a space for research, innovation, and inspiration to look towards the future and new generations.”
Brugnaro highlighted the joint commitment of institutions and cultural operators to enhance the city’s library heritage through a shared Protocol, aimed at making the library system more accessible and interconnected.
The mayor also recalled the presence in the Pavilion of the winning works of the competition “Artisans of Our Time”, a project aimed at young talents, hoping for their growth in the upcoming editions.
Albrecht (Iuav): “Venice is a living laboratory”
The rector of Iuav, Benno Albrecht, emphasized the city’s vocation for knowledge production:
“Venice is a living laboratory, a system of intelligences that work, research, and design.”
Albrecht then emphasized the importance of investing in human capital — researchers, students, professionals, cultural mediators — and praised the widespread nature of the Pavilion, which this year involved all Iuav locations and strengthened collaboration among institutions.
The goal? To build an open and shared campus-city, where every place becomes a space for learning.
Carlin: “A result of collaboration”
For the Commissioner of the Venice Pavilion, Maurizio Carlin, the success of the 2025 edition is the result of “a genuine team effort.”
The Pavilion project — he emphasized — is not just an exhibition theme, but a shared vision of a city capable of generating knowledge and building communities through culture.
The Diffused Pavilion and the Works on Display
This year, the network of involved locations has transformed the entire Venice into an open library, including all Iuav venues (Ca’ Tron, Tolentini, Cotonificio, Ex Convento di Santa Teresa, Magazzino Ligabue 6, Palazzo Badoer, Fondazione Masieri) and the new Biodiversity Science Gateway (BSG) of CNR-Ismar.
Within the exhibition, the winning works of the competition Artisans of Our Time were also displayed, selected from around 400 entries:
- Street Art – “Connections” by Erica Borgato
- Glass – “Collective Symbiosis” by Linda Simioni
- Image – “Biomimesis” by Lucrezia Ceselin
- Opera – “It’s not right but it’s no more body: a visual being” by Aleksandr Vladimirovich Nuss
- Narration – “I will save myself by talking to you” by Matteo Bernabè
Among the collateral initiatives, there was also a call from the Order of Architects which resulted in the distribution of over 80 volumes to just as many visitors. The visits were accompanied by 34 cultural mediators from Iuav and Ca’ Foscari.
The dialogues of “Fuori Padiglione” and the closing with “The intelligence of the everyday”
To complete the rich program, there are four meetings “Fuori Padiglione”, dedicated to exploring the theme of Venice as a campus city and libraries as spaces of knowledge.
The last event is scheduled for Tuesday, November 25 at 5 PM at Forte Marghera, with the conference “The Intelligence of the Everyday”, which will give voice to the protagonists of the setup and officially close this edition.
