Spanish Prime Minister and Carlo Ratti Launch Climate Call to Action Ahead of Venice Architecture Biennale
Responders survey the aftermath of disastrous floods in eastern Spain, including in Valencia and Castilla–La Mancha in fall 2024. Photo by Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha/JCCM, Wikimedia Commons
Less than a month ahead of the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, curator Carlo Ratti has joined with Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez to launch a “manifesto for new architecture” that emphasizes the urgent need for architects to focus on climate adaptation—that is, helping the built environment withstand the impacts of climate change—in addition to mitigation measures. At a press conference in Madrid on April 24, alongside Italian ambassador to Spain Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi, Ratti and Sánchez introduced their appeal titled Intelligens: Towards a New Architecture of Adaptation.
“Valencia, Spain, stands as a recent example of the impacts of climate change,” the precis to the manifesto reads. “Unprecedented rainfall overwhelmed the city’s defenses, flooding roads, trapping vehicles, submerging buildings, displacing communities, and resulting in the loss of over two hundred lives. This event is not an isolated case; Valencia joins a growing list of places grappling with the reality of climate disruption—it reminds us that no community is immune.”
Climate adaptation is central to Ratti’s theme for the forthcoming biennale, which opens to the public on May 10 and itself has been described as a large-scale call to action. This message can be found throughout the Ratti-curated exhibition as well as at the 66 national pavilions, whose commissioners were invited to respond to the prompt: “One Place, One Solution.”
“The message of Biennale Architettura 2025 is urgent: the built environment must adapt to an altered planet. Architecture, then, is no longer just about form—it is about survival,” Ratti says in a statement. “To meet this challenge, it must adapt itself, drawing on every form of intelligence we possess: natural, artificial, and collective. We will explore this at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2025, with over 750 participants: architects and engineers, mathematicians and climate scientists, philosophers and artists, chefs and coders, writers and woodcarvers, farmers and fashion designers—and many more.”
Following Sánchez’s signing of the manifesto, it has now entered an open circulation period in which architects, educators, researchers, students, and everyday citizens are encouraged to add their names. Numerous participants in the biennale already rank as signatories, including Elizabeth Diller, Jeanne Gang, Claire Weisz, Kengo Kuma, Thomas Heatherwick, and Norman Foster.
The full text of Intelligens: Towards a New Architecture of Adaptation can be read here.
