Architecture Biennale, Vatican with 'Opera Aperta' in the name of Francis

Not an exhibition to visit, but an experience to live. At the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale 2025, the Pavilion of the Holy See presents itself as a living work, an ongoing process, a "construction site" of meaning that is built together with those who pass through it. It is called "Opera Aperta" and will be hosted from May 10 to November 23 in the complex of Santa Maria Ausiliatrice a Castello, transformed into a permanent exhibition space thanks to the Dicastery for Culture and Education, promoter of the initiative. This is how the Spanish Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Dicastery and one of the papabili at the conclave, imagined it, entrusting it to two curators: the architect and theorist Marina Otero Verzier and Giovanna Zabotti, artistic director of Fondaco Italia.

"The Holy See Pavilion will be a parable-pavilion," explained Cardinal Tolentino. "At the same time as the walls and architectural details of the building are repaired, neighborly relations and intergenerational hospitality are also repaired." The pavilion stages an architectural reflection inspired by Pope Francis' encyclical "Laudato si'," which turns ten this year, bringing a profound message to the heart of the Biennale: "Everything is connected."

Five hundred and fifty square meters of space that will become a laboratory of community intelligence, where reason and affection, profession and daily life intertwine to regenerate not only a building, but also a social fabric.

Curated by two of the most innovative and sensitive studios to the themes of sustainability and participation - Tatiana Bilbao Estudio of Mexico City and Maio Architects of Barcelona - the project is an invitation to build together. The space will be populated by scaffolding, work tables, drawings, maps and visible construction sites, with a room used as a community kitchen managed by the Nonsoloverde cooperative where visitors and residents will be able to share meals twice a week.

The International University of Art (Uia) will conduct workshops on restoration, transmitting traditional artisan techniques to the youngest. Participants will receive a Uaa diploma, reinforcing the educational and long-lasting objective of the project. The role of the Salesian University Institute of Venice (Iusve), one of the main partners, is fundamental in underlining the importance of involving young people in a project that aims not to occupy spaces but to activate processes, as reiterated several times by Cardinal Tolentino. "It is moving to know that young university students are an active part of this process. Community intelligence - he said - is the only one that can generate shared future visions".

Inside the pavilion, over 280 local associations that operate in the historic center of Venice will also be highlighted. Some of the people involved in the greenhouse and kitchens come from recovery communities, who will find training here and, in many cases, a job.

"Restoring does not mean erasing the traces of time, but valorizing the cracks as openings to new possibilities", commented Marina Otero Verzier. The space will not be completely finished, but will remain open, incomplete, welcoming, like a threshold between past and future. An eighteenth-century altar will be restored before the eyes of visitors, who will be able to watch the work of professionals thanks to the collaboration with Lares, specialized in monumental conservation. Music will also have a central role. The "Benedetto Marcello" Conservatory of Venice will support young musicians by offering rehearsal spaces and instruments (including harp and piano) during the weekends. Musicians will be able to book the room online, helping to make the pavilion an inhabited sound space.

The project, which has received the support of Intesa Sanpaolo as main partner, aims to bring an alternative and replicable model of cultural space to the Biennale. "Art is an extraordinary tool for addressing contemporary social challenges," said Michele Coppola, executive director of Art, Culture and Historic Heritage at Intesa Sanpaolo.

"Opera Aperta" is more than a pavilion: it is a gesture, a social experiment, an act of faith in the transformative power of architecture when it becomes care. It is proof that it is possible to unite aesthetics and justice, restoration and relationship, memory and imagination. In a world in flames, as the general curator of the Biennale Carlo Ratti stated, "we need an architecture that can activate all the intelligence that surrounds us – natural, artificial, but above all collective". The Pavilion of the Holy See responds to this challenge with a concrete, poetic, and profoundly human proposal.

(by Paolo Martini)