Profile: Carlo Ratti, on a mission to turn Venice into a climate ideas lab

At the press launch of the Venice Architecture Biennale, held at the Ca’ Giustinian in February, journalists questioned Carlo Ratti closely on Michelangelo Pistoletto, the politicisation of architecture, and this year’s theme, ‘Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.’ 

A month later, ill-prepared after time-zone confusion, I ask Ratti over Zoom if he possesses the ability to switch off, if he feels exhausted, if he’s ever considered just building himself an extension. Simultaneously, he’s working his way from bus to departure gate at an unspecified airport, passing through security: ‘Everything you have electronic take out, separate, just the phone? No tablet, computer? No liquid?’ 

But what can you ask a guy whose ‘about’ page introduces him as ‘scientist, designer, and public intellectual’; chronicles his advocacy, architecture, consultancy and philosophy, as well as his tech startups; mentions the 750 scientific publications he has co-authored;  and closes with ‘Sensory City Philosopher’ and ‘Best and Brightest’ accolades from Bloomberg and Wired respectively? 

All that’s while directing MIT’s Senseable City Lab and his own eponymous practice, and juggling multiple multinational positions. And how do you scratch the surface of an event with a near 1,000-page catalogue?

'We wanted to start the Biennale by listening to communities'

Ratti answers my questions with grace, plus updates on his boarding progress, leading them gently back to the matter at hand. For instance, asked about the difficulty of coming up with fresh ideas as a serial event organiser (he’s even curating the French pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka), he pivots to this year’s egalitarian approach:

‘Usually, the Biennale is more of a top-down process – the curator will just make a list and invite people – but we wanted to start out by listening, with salons wherever travel was already taking me. It could be a dinner or aperitivo; there was a breakfast at 7am in Zurich, very Swiss, and also a midnight meeting in the middle of the desert around a campfire. It was a way to listen to local communities – to architects and other disciplines – about the most important topics we should be engaging with today.’ 

Similarly, common threads were sewn between national pavilions, facilitated by four preparatory meetings: ‘Just by bringing people together, all these cross-references started resonating among them, even without my intervention,’ Ratti goes on. ‘I’m hoping we’ll see a Biennale where different voices are harmonised, but via this natural, bottom-up approach.’

The outcome of all this listening is the focus on synergising diverse intelligences, but the order in which these are listed in the exhibition’s title is intended as a mild provocation: ‘Everybody, when you talk about intelligence, thinks about AI, instead of celebrating a still much-superior form of intelligence, which comes from nature, and has been shaping the place we live in for a very long time.’

Through further discussion, the event was conceived as a forum to bring together professions, generations, backgrounds and nationalities, leveraging their diverse knowledge in order to rethink the built environment for climate crisis and peak population. This emphasis on the importance of people (thus the slightly affected ‘gens’ in the title) led to the rash decision to hold an open call. ‘We wanted to listen to voices all over the world, from all disciplines,’ Ratti says. ‘For us, it was both daunting and thrilling – we were flooded, and had to reply to thousands and thousands of emails.’ 

Didn’t that also mean saying no to thousands of people? ‘You know, the interesting thing is that, when people take time to engage with a topic, you find that almost every voice has something interesting to say. So, it was difficult, but I made a point that we really wanted to reply to everybody.’

Ratti: conducting an international choir on climate action

The result is an international exhibition that is, in Ratti’s words, ‘a kind of choral construction’ – more than 750 participants spread across 280 projects – ‘different voices, each with its own autonomy, somehow having references and resonating with others, creating broader multilayered conversations’. 

The diversity of contributions is highlighted but, understandably if less idealistically, the display kicks off with one of many all-star installations, The Other Side of the Hill. Designed by Patricia Urquiola, it delves into population collapse via the medium of microbial communities, and involves scientists Geoffrey West and Roberto Kolter, as well as architecture theory gurus Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley. 

Because of the ongoing refurbishment of the Central Pavilion, this year the Biennale extends into the city itself, increasing both its reach and its efficacy as a research catalyst. 

‘My budget was the same’, Ratti notes, ‘so it created fundraising issues, but it became an opportunity to turn not only the Giardini and Arsenale, but other parts of Venice into a laboratory. And for me there’s something exciting about the fact that Venice, the most fragile city in the face of climate change and population, can act as a lab for developing new ideas. One where, as architects, designers, planners, and with the help of other disciplines, we can try to find solutions to these challenges, then explore how to replicate them elsewhere.’ 

A changed planet means new responsibility for architects

This geographic dispersion around Venice, along with an ambitious public program, is part of efforts to broaden audiences, creating ‘short circuits’ that lure new visitors to the Giardini. 

‘It’s something we’re really trying to do,’ says Ratti, ‘especially as the topics we’re discussing are ones that should engage all of us, and ones where you want to have feedback loops. We should not think of ourselves as Promethean architects with solutions, but more as offering proposals that people will need to evaluate, look at, engage with, and decide if they want in their own cities.’ 

That changed responsibility for architects, in the face of an altered planet, is a key concern for Ratti. He cites science’s very different approach to authorship and collaboration as a preferred model, and words such as collectivity, interdisciplinarity and – again – listening make regular appearances. In his view, the current shift from mitigation to adaptation in response to extreme climates places architecture in a leading role. 

‘If you look at how we as architects can help following the fires in Los Angeles, the floods in Valencia and Bangladesh, or the drought in Sicily, the only way we can do it is with the built environment at the centre,’ Ratti says. ‘So somehow, it’s going back to the very origin of architecture, with the primitive hut in the forest, protecting ourselves from a climate that’s against us… This is something that resonates with the design community – I sense a lot of excitement – but we need to change our mindset.’

I try to convince him that this realignment turns the architect – and Ratti – into a conductor rather than enactor of ideas. He doesn’t bite, nor does he accept that it moves architecture firmly into the political realm. 

‘I like the way Herbert Simon looks at the natural and the artificial worlds: they have a lot of similarities in the way they evolve – in the way that, by trial and error, mutations can be successful or not,’ Ratti continues. ‘So I like the idea of architects and designers as agents of change, almost like mutagens in the built environment, trying things that can help us to make it more resilient, and can help us live better. Within this framework, you can look at the design process as something open – as in nature, it doesn’t have a finished status, but keeps on transforming.’ 

Despite serious reservations about the ecological impact of temporary exhibitions – thus concerted efforts at circularity this year – Ratti is still a believer in the Biennale concept. 

‘If you think about labs as places to bring different voices together and develop ideas, physical space – the built environment of architecture – has important components that are not replicated online, where we tend to be much more polarised and hear what we want to hear,’ he says. ‘A beautiful component is inevitability – even voices we wouldn’t answer in the digital sphere, they are there in the physical space and we need to confront them. I think that’s an important reason for coming together in general, in cities, and in a Biennale.’ 

We agree that sentiment makes a pretty good signing-off point, and before boarding he concedes that he will probably switch off after the opening: ‘When I participated in the Biennale in the past, that was always a moment for me to get some distance from our work, step back, and see it in the context of a broader network. So, I think that process will be important as a curator, looking at what we’ve done together, at the unexpected connections in these choral voices.’ 

Which doesn’t really sound like switching off – but perhaps flight mode will enforce that... 

RIBA Europe Chapter Launch in Venice

• Join RIBA International in Venice for a program of events to celebrate the launch of the newly formed Europe Chapter, serving a growing network of over 2,500 architects, 12 architecture schools and approximately 7,500 students. 
• Taking place across two days, Friday 9 May and Saturday 10 May, activities to mark the launch include a celebratory breakfast at the British Pavilion, exclusive tours, numerous opportunities to network, and an evening cocktail reception.
• View the full program here, and please register as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.