Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, curators of the 20th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, have unveiled the first details of the highly anticipated 2027 edition. Titled "Do Architecture - For the Possibility of Coexistence Facing a Real Reality," the exhibition will take place from May 8 to November 21, 2027, across the Giardini, the Arsenale, and throughout Venice.
The curatorial direction reflects many of the ideas developed through the work of Amateur Architecture Studio, founded by Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu in 1997. Their projects have consistently explored the reuse of salvaged materials, regional construction techniques, and the continuity between historic and contemporary forms of building. Across both urban and rural contexts, the studio's work often emphasizes craft traditions, collective memory, and the spatial qualities embedded within everyday environments.
In outlining the curatorial framework, the architects described contemporary society as increasingly characterized by instability and disconnection, suggesting that architecture has, in many cases, become distanced from the environments and communities it is intended to serve. Their proposal calls attention to the growing influence of commercialization, speed, and image-driven production within the discipline, while advocating for approaches more closely tied to material processes, social continuity, and long-term responsibility.
Established in 1997, Amateur Architecture Studio has developed a body of work rooted in collective memory, manual construction techniques, and the adaptive reuse of traditional materials. Parallel to their practice, Wang and Lu have played a pivotal role in architectural education in China, founding the Department of Architecture at the China Academy of Art in 2003 and later establishing the School of Architecture in 2007. Their projects often operate between continuity and transformation, foregrounding recycled materials, anonymous structures, and artisanal knowledge to propose an architecture that evolves from its surroundings rather than imposing upon them.
As one of the world's foremost platforms for architectural discourse, the Venice Biennale continues to bring together architects, designers, and researchers to confront emerging global challenges and speculate on the future of the built environment. The 2025 edition, curated by Carlo Ratti under the title "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.", examined architecture's capacity to respond to climate change, demographic transformation, and artificial intelligence through interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches.
