Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu announce the theme of the 2027 Venice Biennale
Curators Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu unveil Do Architecture: The Possibility of Coexistence in Face of Real Reality as the theme of the 20th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. From May 8 to November 21, 2027, the exhibition positions architecture as a direct response to an increasingly unstable world shaped by ecological crisis, accelerating urbanization, technological abstraction and the erosion of cultural memory.
Announced at the Biennale’s headquarters in Venice, the theme marks a marked shift from the technology-driven discourse of recent editions to a more grounded architectural approach focused on materiality, local participation, craftsmanship and lived experience. Through the deliberately direct title Do Architecture, the curators call on architecture to move beyond over-conceptualization and reconnect with the physical realities of building, habitation and coexistence.
Central Pavilion Gardens | image by Andrea Avezzu, courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia
Architecture must face ‘actual reality’
In their presentation, Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu describe today’s global situation as one of uncertainty, instability and detachment from reality, arguing that contemporary architecture has often become disconnected from the places and communities it serves. “Excessive conceptual experiments are often detached from reality,” curators noted, warning of forms of architectural production driven by commodification, speed and image-making.
Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu frame architecture itself as deeply implicated in the environmental and cultural crises of the present. “Architecture must recognize the depth of the crisis it is in”, the duo sharehighlighting the destructive effects of large-scale construction on both natural ecosystems and historic urban environments. The report suggests a slower and more tactile practice based on continuity, memory and repair.
image by Francesco Galli, courtesy The Venice Biennale
the recovery of craft, memory and local knowledge
Central to the Biennale’s curatorial vision is the work of the Amateur Architecture Studio, founded by Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, whose practice has long explored recycled materials, traditional building traditions, and the coexistence of old and new forms of construction. The curators emphasized the importance of recovering not only materials, but also local cultural memory and craftsmanship, arguing that architecture must preserve the diversity and distinctiveness of places.
The exhibition will address a range of questions regarding the relationship of architecture to climate change, artificial intelligence, rural and urban development and collective participation. Among the central issues introduced during the announcement was the question: “Can artificial intelligence coexist with the touch of human architecture?” The Biennale will also explore how passive and active environmental strategies, traditional building knowledge and modern technologies can coexist without erasing local identities and lived experience.
Weng Shu and Lu Wenyu | all images © La Biennale di Venezia by ASAC- Matteo Losurdo
Venice as a living space of architectural intervention
Beyond the Giardini and the Arsenale, the 2027 Biennale will extend directly into Venice itself through architectural interventions across the city. Referring to the legacy of the 1964 Venice Charter for Cultural Heritage Conservation, Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu described Venice as an active participant in the exhibition. “We must not ignore the city in which the exhibition takes place, Venice,” reports the curatorial duo, adding that the city should not be “an invisible city”, citing the writing of Italo Calvino.
The curators also emphasized the role of education and collective exchange within the Biennale, proposing workshops, dialogues and forms of direct participation that move beyond discussion towards physical engagement and construction. “We must not only talk, we must do” they conclude.
The 2027 edition marks the 20th International Architecture Exhibition since architecture first became an independent section of the Biennale in 1980 under the direction of Paolo Portoghesi. With Do Architecture, Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu position this anniversary edition as a call to rethink architecture as a material and ethical practice based on coexistence, continuity, and reality.
Gaggiandre | image by Andrea Avezzu, courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia
Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu have spent nearly three decades challenging dominant architectural narratives
project information:
event: 20th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia
theme: Do Architecture: The possibility of coexistence in the face of actual reality
curators: Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu (Amateur Architecture Studio)
organizer: The Venice Biennale | @labiennale
location: Giardini and Arsenale, Venice, Italy
dates: 8 May – 21 November 2027
